Note: Fixed a problem with the subject of Joey's attack. Sorry about that.
Joey stared at the people in the bar. They stared right back, like they hadn't seen a fucking smoothskin in their entire lives. It irritated her, but if she had picked up anything from that hulking brute bastard of hers it was how to put on airs. So she stared, showing off entirely too much skin for her own liking and played her part.
Tony had taken her blastmaster helmet and was pretending to be a ghoul―well, fuck. There isn't any pretending, anymore, she told herself. He was acting like what he was, making his voice raspy, hiding his face and skin under layers of leather.
He'd told the guards that she was his woman, so they could get into the Republic. She did not like that. She was wearing her t-shirt and black pants, divested of her armor and the various spikes she'd painstakingly sewn into her pants. Man, it's gonna take hours to put that back.
Tony had managed to talk two ghouls into teaming up with them, in the last six hours. Joey had been getting free drinks from the bartender the whole time; he was eyeballing her with that special kind of look that she understood all too well, but he didn't know that she had gotten a lot of practice holding her liquor. She sighed, put her hand on her cheek and leaned into the table, uncrossing and crossing her legs again. If they didn't get out of here, and soon...
She was going to make Tony buy her a goddamn helmet, just so she could headbutt that fucking bartender for leering at her.
She missed Marcelo. Not having her beastly half made her sad, and she didn't like sad Joey. Sad Joey was downright pitiful, crying too much, showing her weakness. Tony had been neutral about the whole thing―not that she hadn't heard his comments to Amos, back in Gladstone, and understood what he thought might happen―and it was downright annoying. He was still being a goody two-shoes about the whole business, acting like he used to, when he thought he had a chance.
Well, he didn't. That was that. Joey belonged to another man―she closed her eyes and felt the beer finally catching up to her. Goddammit, the last thing she needed was another St. James. She pushed the beer away from her and laid her chin on top of her forearms, looking at the tiny bar.
The Republic was a half-decent place. It was cared for, obviously. Ghouls wandered around, fixing up the metal shacks and repairing the plaster with irradiated mud and trowels. There were two levels, and the upper one rested within the outer ring of rock that protected the town. She understood how they stayed safe, inside the rock bowl.
One of the fuckers at the table across from her was eyeballing her now. God! Some of them were still repulsive, even to Joey, who had been spending every available minute of the last two years with Marcelo. She stared at him with a look of loathing. He grinned, and ran a black tongue along the top of his bottle of whiskey, suggestively.
"Tony," she said, a little too loudly.
"One moment, dearest," he rasped back, from the next booth.
"I can't wait a fucking moment," she muttered. She sighed, and closed her eyes.
A weight slid into the booth next to her. She smelled booze, heard creaking leather, and felt a rough hand sliding around her waist. Without looking, she brought her elbow back onto a face, feeling the mostly intact nasion jamming into her flesh. The head went backward into the wall with a satisfying thunk and she grinned a little. Ah, Marcelo would be proud!
"Fuck!" the man said, and she grabbed the beer bottle, intent on slamming the ghoul in the head with it, and spun on him. Her arm began to bleed from the contact, and she hissed at the man, bringing down the bottle. She stopped before it would have impacted, and laughed. "Sorry, Chang," she said, slurring. "You can't sneak up on me like that."
"You're a spitfire, hun," he rasped, holding his face, and she shrugged. The ghoul had offered to come with them, without payment. She owed him in advance for that.
"Well, I wouldn't be going up the mountain without some kind of fire under my ass," she told him. "What the fuck you grabbing for?"
He grinned, showing his missing front teeth, and nodded at the bar. "Had a bet," he laughed.
"Chang, you pussy!" the bartender yelled.
Joey shot a glare at the bartender. "Tony, now!"
He finally pulled himself away from the ghoul he'd been speaking to. "What," he asked. "I'm almost done."
"Don't care," she said. "Man, I can't do this. There's too many assholes here, and I don't even have my gun." He'd taken it away from her, because he said she couldn't be trusted. He was right.
"It's alright, Josephine," he said, keeping up the rasp. "I'm negotiating price."
She fumbled in her pockets and drew out a pouch, then tossed it to Tony. "Hurry the fuck up, then."
Joey fiddled with the wound Chang had imparted on her arm and glared at the ghoul. He moved away from her in the booth, and laid his head back on the wall, closing his eyes.
"Baby-doll," another voice said, but surprisingly not a ghoul voice, "you're the best thing I've seen since Choco-Chunk Bars existed."
"Oh, fuck off," she muttered, not bothering to look up. A hot exhale of whiskey shot across her face, and she waved it away. "I said, fuck off!"
He sloshed forward onto her, grabbing and pinching handfuls of flesh through her clothes. She shrieked in rage and grabbed up her beer bottle, slamming it into the back of the ghoul's head. Chang was immediately alert, and sprang from the booth, pushing the ghoul away.
It was the one who had been licking his whiskey. She shuddered. "Goddammit! Tony!"
"Alright, we're good. Let's get out of here," he said, and pulled her outside by one hand. Chang followed, and another two ghouls trailed behind him. They stepped out under the white sky, while Joey muttered curses and shot a parting glare at the bartender.
"I am Tony," he said, "and this is―"
"Call me Bitch," she said, feeling angry.
"This is Bitch. Bitch wants to hunt, yes?" Tony turned his head to her. She nodded, smiling viciously. "Bitch, that there is Romeo. You already met Chang."
She grunted at Chang, and he put his thumb where his nose would have been. "Who's this fuckwad?" she asked, jabbing a thumb at a goggled ghoul, shorter than the other two.
"I'm Luck-Lucky," he said, and she raised an eyebrow at him. "Be-best scout in Northern Mi-Michigan," he added, looking down.
"Great," she moaned, sarcastically. "How you gonna relay information with that fucking stutter?" Chang made a disapproving noise. "Hey, they call me Bitch for a goddamn reason!" she said.
Tony laughed, and Joey was startled. He sounded... happy, for the first time in years. "Now that we are all here, let's get to work," he said.
Shit, Joey thought. He really has gone batty, and he's not even lost any skin, yet!
Tony stared at Josephine, full of nervous energy, nearly jumping right out of her skin. She was a mess, trying to come up with a plan. He smiled through the hood at her and took over for her, like she had for him in the Metro.
"Alright, we're looking for a big ghoul and a girl," he said.
"What, like an opposite version of you two?" Romeo asked, looking at Joey. She snarled at him, baring her teeth.
"Sort of," Tony said. "But this ghoul and girl are just as tall as each other. About six-foot... what?" He looked at Joey. She held up a whole hand. "About six-foot-five, sort of purplish, the girl is sort of gray. They should be somewhere in the area, but they might be in Three-Mountain."
"We-we should ask Lore-Lore-Lore―" Lucky began. He heaved a sigh. "Lore-Lore―"
"Lorelei, the night guard," Chang said. "She would know what's up in the surrounding area."
"She got eyes on the compound up at Three-Mountain?" Josephine asked.
"Usually," Romeo answered. "The things that come out of that place―" he shrugged, hands up in the air. "We get paid to not argue."
"What do you mean?" Tony asked.
Chang looked at Romeo and shook his head. "Uhh―"
Josephine pulled Tony's combat knife from his side and set upon the gap-toothed ghoul, jabbing him directly under the chin. "You will tell me what you are talking about or I swear to God I will give you a new hole to breathe out of."
Chang blinked at the knife. "Damn." He flicked his eyes to Romeo. "Well―"
"They pay-pay us to kee-keep an eye out," Lucky said. "The Mountain guys."
"And it's done very well for us, up here in the boonies," Chang added. "Please don't stab me, hun."
Josephine removed the knife, slowly, and didn't remove her hand from his shirt. She growled. "So you've been protecting them? That nasty commune of deathclaws and hell?"
Chang blinked at her. "How do you―"
"Every sink gets a leak," she said. "Even the most well-maintained ones."
"You've been learning," Tony muttered. She always surprised him.
"Shut up," Josephine said. "Now... una y otra vez, Chang. Tell me what you know about the place."
"The sue-sue-sue―" Lucky began.
"Not you, Skippy," Josephine shot. Chang and Romeo jerked in anger and eyes became harder.
"Josephine," Tony said, chastising. "Shut the fuck up." He turned to the ghouls and sighed. "Look, the Bitch is a little upset―"
"A little!?" she snarled, letting go of Chang. "You―"
"―Because Three-Mountain probably has her boyfriend hostage."
Chang raised the skin above his eyebrow. "Thought that was you," he said, staring at Tony.
"Eh, I've known her for... what, seventeen years now?" He looked at her. "We're cousins, and not the kissing kind." Not that he wouldn't―he stopped himself. He knew she wasn't going to have that. He would never be able to get her out of his head, but he could afford to wait, now. Tony grinned to himself.
"Fuck!" she said. "Fuck! It's my goddamn birthday!" She snarled, and stomped away from the men. Tony could hear her cursing in both English and Spanish, kicking debris and making a mess outside of the grimy bar in the Republic. "Fucking hell! If he's dead on my fucking birthday―"
"The Bitch is very unhappy with the situation," he settled. "So, can you tell us anything to help? Because I'll tell you," and at this Tony started laughing, "I do not want to have to go back home with a banshee on my ass."
"A-ha," Chang said. "I feel that. Let's go, before she gets us thrown out."
Tony put his hand on the back of Josephine's shirt and dragged her out of town, kicking and cursing.
It was probably close to twelve hours after he woke up, with the electrodes on his body, that they started the actual torture. Marcelo swore, grunting and hissing, as one of the gray deathclaw-people cut his skin off his body, defleshing his right arm. There wasn't much skin to take off, so they'd shaved the muscle.
It was just pain, he reminded himself. He thought about pushing Joey up against a Metro wall, damn near chewing on her skin, covered in blood splatter from killing raiders. Pain goes away.
Scalpels sliced, pliers plied, a hammer was introduced to his knees, and went wanting. Marcelo did not give into them, did not make any coherent sound but the occasional swear word. He was almost certain that they had cut off a finger on one hand, but the pain was too intense for him to feel it. Who taught them to torture? Shit, they sucked at this!
He roared in laughter, his raspy voice cutting through the room, bouncing off the walls. It took more than a little fucking pain to scare him!
But then they introduced him to something they called Louis the Fifth, and they managed to wrench a howl from his worn-out vocal cords. Marcelo burned in the restraints, the overbearing smell of flesh on fire reaching his nostrils, his body crumbling under the overpowering heat.
El fuego de Dios!
"I understand you're inclined to talk to us," the asshole was saying. Marcelo's eyes were on fire, nearly burnt right out of his fucking head. He glared at the shadow that was speaking, and growled. "Well?"
He could still smell the burning flesh, see the flash. What the fuck they were using―somewhere in his head he knew what it was, but the pain was too much, even for Marcelo. He suspected his entrails were hanging from him, after that fucking death beam had burnt a hole into his body. Like he needed a piercing, on top of everything else.
He laughed. They'd broken him! How fucking stupid.
"Yeah," he muttered, through ragged flesh. "Yeah, I'll fucking talk."
"Good," the asshole said, his voice fucking full of itself. Marcelo wanted to fight some more, but he also wanted to see how far he could push this shit.
They were going to kill him, of course. But he would have his fun. He had only been broken once. He looked forward to more.
"Where is the egg?"
Marcelo laughed. "Oh, that?" he wheezed. Cold air moved in and out of his chest, through the hole. "Smashed it."
The asshole didn't seem as upset by that as he expected he might. "Very well. And where was Phoebe taken, that she could be operated upon?"
"Vete al infierno," he spat, blood flying from his mouth.
"Hmm." The asshole moved closer. "Perhaps a little more of the L-U/V."
Marcelo groaned. "South," he muttered.
"Where, exactly, in the south?"
No, he thought, no, I don't want Joey in danger. Marcelo no mueren. He laughed again. "Besa mi culo, puto."
"...Bring the laser back," the asshole said. "This is quite fun, ghoul. Let's try again."
Phoebe sat in the room she'd called home and she remembered. She remembered how the Blacksmith had treated her well, like Tony had, how he always had a little treat for her, how he patted her head and told her nice words.
He was dead, though. The new Blacksmith was not as nice, and had subjected her to a painful and invasive physical search. Her stomach ached from the multiple surgeries. She ought to have killed herself, before now, she thought. Rather than live through this hell.
Everything hurts.
The ones who called her mother were curled up at her feet, skinny legs kicking in their sleep. They were almost like dogs, lower members of the family, and they did what she told them... to a point. She could not order them to kill another. Phoebe stared at the one nearest to her and felt angry.
If she killed herself―
She shook her head. The Blacksmith would only take her body and remake her, in another image. She would need to do more than take herself out of the equation. She stared at the little ones, and she wondered how far she could go, as a monster, before she was no longer herself.
How far could she push it?
Phoebe lifted her foot and placed it on the neck of the little one nearest her, and stood.
Alarms rang through T-Division. Blacksmith Uri was jostled from his research, staring up and into the air. That―that had never happened before, in his memory. He stared across the laboratory at the beta researchers, and eyes were wide.
Red lights spun on the walls, klaxons blaring. The Hammer moved through the hallway. The hunters were nowhere to be found. Uri pushed himself back from the desk, stood, and moved to the doorway. The Anvil, defenders of the compound, were running through the hallways, now, carrying their sledgehammers.
"What is it?" one of the researchers asked.
Uri pulled himself away from the doorway. "We are under attack," he said. "Go to your rooms and wait for confirmation. If necessary, you will defend the compound."
The researchers scattered into the halls. Uri pondered for a moment, watching the circular rotation of the alarm lights. He would check in on Phoebe, and secure her, before he secured himself.
"Oooh-hoooooo!" Joey shrieked, in delight. Chang grabbed her and pulled her backwards into a room, shielding her from the next blast of nuclear energy. "DAMN!" she yelled, her face twisted into a grin. "I love it!"
"You're crazy, Bitch," he muttered. She was, too, having so much hate to expend. Chang wouldn't have joined up with the two unless one of them was bat-shit, though, and after what Tony had said about her boyfriend―and the girl he was with, a-ha, Chang knew what was up. He grinned a little, felt the girl's body twisting out of his grasp. He held her a little tighter, hearing the crackling fire in the hallway. She was so damn soft.
"Let me go, you bastard," she grunted, and peeled his hands off her waist. Chang followed her into the hall, feeling the familiar wash of radiation on his body.
"You alright, hun?" he asked her. "Not bothered by the rads?"
"The fuck are rads," she muttered. "Oooooh, look! This one's still alive!" She picked up a three-foot-long piece of twisted metal and jammed it into the body, turning it into the flesh. The creature hissed and gurgled, and lay still.
"You sure he's in here?" Chang asked.
"I might not know much about him," she replied, grunting with effort to remove the twisted metal, "but I know he won't go down easy. And he ain't out there―" she gestured back the way they came, with the metal, blood dripping from its length. "So he's here. And I will find him."
Chang raised what used to be eyebrows, staring at her. "You're one in a million, hun," he said. He would give almost anything for a woman willing to blow a community to hell, just to get him back. ...Even if she intended to kill him because he'd run off with another girl.
"Nope!" She swung the metal piece, testing it. She grinned at him, and her eyes shined in her brown face. Chang felt his heart quicken, his pants tighten. "It runs in the family!"
Chang watched her march down the hallway, dragging the metal along the wall. The sound grated and squealed through the rooms they passed. He thought about family for a moment. If this didn't work out...
"...You got a sister?"