A/N: So I had this on hiatus for an insufferably long amount of time, and I was off playing in other sandboxes, and then I saw Boondock Saints II the other night...and the boys were back in my head. I understand if you don't forgive me for letting this linger for so long, but I promise that within the next few days I'll have the next update for you all. Reviews are always welcome...even if they're just incoherent rants at me for keeping you all waiting :)

"Start from the beginning," repeated Connor. Murphy sat back and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his sniper rifle laid across his knees and a magazine nestled in the crease between his legs. The twins exchanged a look that Clare observed with interest, pushing her own emotional turmoil into the back of her mind. She vaguely registered a pressure on her arm, and looked over to find Christian squeezing her arm in a silent gesture of support. That almost broke her wall of resolve and she had to lean against his solid warmth to forget the feeling of cold flesh, the sight of staring eyes rimmed with blood.

"Murph," said Connor. His brother, despite the fact that he was a smartass, was better at telling stories. He noticed the slight shift in Clare's body weight, the way she pressed herself into the hollow of Christian's shoulder and he found himself wishing that he was holding her, making the haunted look in her beautiful eyes fade. Fuck—he was staring, he must have been, because Murphy gave him a casual nudge as he cleared his throat in preparation to start his story.

"Well." Murphy paused to gather his thoughts. "Have you ever heard of the Lobos?"

"Gang," guessed Clare with a hint of boredom in her flat voice.

"Yeah. They're fuckin—they're a nasty group of men." Murphy made a face. Somehow the somber mood of the room dampened his enthusiasm for coarse descriptions. It was rare that he didn't swear but somehow now didn't seem the time. Something about the galya's eyes. "Awful stuff, what they do. You name it, they got their paws in it—as long as it's criminal, they're all up for it." His dark eyes sparked as he continued. "They stole this little girl and her ma came to us."

"They thought you could get her back?" Clare guessed quietly.

Murphy looked slightly annoyed at the interruption but then realized that the galya was so shaken from telling her own story, she was clutching his like a life-raft, trying to squeeze nuance and meaning out of his sparse words to keep her mind occupied. "Yeah," he replied quietly with uncharacteristic gravity. "They thought we could get her back. So, we go after these guys. The Lobos. But they were smarter than we gave them credit for. They're no street gang, they've got fu—freakin' intelligence. They knew about us before we knew about them."

"Right after the little girl's ma comes to us, they kill her," Connor said quietly. "Just in her apartment, not five minutes after she'd walked in th' door. And then they came for us."

"Middle o' th' night," continued Murphy. "Not like we didn't put up a fight, but…" He shrugged.

"Win some, lose some," offered Christian with a small smile. He shifted his arm around Clare's shoulder, and she leaned her head against his chest, looking suddenly tired. Connor fought a sudden surge of a hot feeling he didn't recognize at first—and then he realized it was jealousy, an emotion he wasn't accustomed to feeling. The man is fuckin' gay, he thought angrily, and you're still getting your knickers in a knot? He was almost disgusted by himself.

"So, they truss us up like Thanksgivin' turkeys," said Murphy, leaning back in his chair now with an air of amusement. Connor knew his twin could find humor in almost any situation, and usually he was right there with him—they were twins, after all, but he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't think straight. His brain seemed to be malfunctioning—thrusting images of Clare and that Adonis from the picture in the shoebox into his mind's eye—Dominic—he gritted his teeth at the name. There was something about this galya, something different. Maybe it was the way her dark blonde hair curled slightly when it was wet. Maybe it was the way her green eyes flashed angrily like emeralds in the sun when she disagreed with him. No, he corrected himself. It wasn't the way she looked. It was the way she was willing to put her life on the line for them without hesitation, something he didn't doubt she'd learned from her time in the military. Yet being in the military could only teach a person so much. Michelangelo couldn't have sculpted the David if he didn't have a block of marble to begin with—not granite, or a lump of clay. There was something intrinsic in Clare that allowed her to do what she did—just as there was something intrinsic in Murphy and him as well. Perhaps that was why he was so strongly attracted to her. He shook himself mentally and tuned in again to Murphy's story.

"So," Murphy continued, "once they drugged Connor they told me what they were going to do to him, and made me watch." His eyes darkened vengefully at the memory. "We were there for probably…two days?" He looked to Connor for confirmation.

"Don't ask me," said Connor, putting up his hands. "I was the one fuckin' knocked out."

"Fuckin' lucky," said Murphy darkly. "They brought the little girl out. Let me see her."

Clare pressed her lips together, suppressing the urge to reach over and touch Murphy's hand. "What did they do to her?"

"Nothin' I want to repeat," grated Murphy. "But it's enough to make me want to kill the fuckin' lot of them."

"What happened next?" prompted Christian, eyes bright with interest.

Murphy took a deep, shuddering breath. "Somehow they knew that killing the girl…that could hurt us worse than…worse than even them hurtin' us."

Connor tensed and looked at his brother. Murphy pressed his lips together and shook his head, rubbing his hand over his face.

"I…We...We've seen some fucked-up shit, Clare, make no doubt about it," Murphy finally grated out, his voice hoarse with an emotion that he wasn't willing to let her see. "But what they did to that poor galya…" In one sudden, fluid motion he stood and drove his fist into the cement wall. Connor leapt up and threw his arms around his brother, wrestling him back before he could throw another punch at the unyielding wall.

"We've killed a lot of men," Connor said, slowly releasing his twin. "But these bastards…if it was up to us, they'd die a slow, painful death."

Clare stood and looked at the two brothers, measuring the resolve in their flinty gazes. She crossed her arms over her chest, still watching them. The long moment of silence stretched between them. Finally, she gave a curt nod. "I'll help."

"Clare," came Christian's voice, laced with caution.

"Christian," she said, turning to him, "if you want…you don't have to do this."

He looked down at her and sighed, shaking his head with a rueful grin. "I'm already locked in the basement, honey. It's not like I really have a choice anymore." His grin turned wolfish. "But I'm ready to see what these guns can do." He looked down at the holsters on his hips, and then pointedly at the two brothers, his eye lingering on their muscular arms.

"For fuck's sake," muttered Murphy, massaging his knuckles.

"Did you break your hand?" Clare asked succinctly, striding forward with one hand outstretched.

Murphy evaded her reach. "Stop your cluckin', mother hen, I'm fine."

She shrugged. "Have it your way, then." One of her hands slipped down to her holster, rubbing the slick surface of the leather absent-mindedly. "How many, do you think?"

"A dozen at least," Murphy replied, his accent leavening the words.

A new hardness surfaced in Clare's eyes. "Well, that means we each have to take down at least three."

"The neighbors will call the police," pointed out Christian. "It's not like there's gun battles in this part of town very often."

"If they don't kill the neighbors first," Murphy amended grimly. "They want us. All o' Boston's gonna be laughin' at 'em for having us…and then not managing to kill us properly." He grinned humorlessly.

"Well…they did kill me…technically," Connor pointed out.

Murphy reached over and mussed Connor's hair, only intensifying his efforts when his twin threw up an arm in protest. "An' you, my dear brother, didn't have the sense to stay dead!"

"Couldn't leave you by yourself, you'd fuck everythin' all to hell," retorted Connor.

Clare read between the lines of their sarcastic exchange, and a small smile grew on her lips. She was comfortable around this type of camaraderie, the humor that helped dull the sharp fear of staring death in the face. Christian stood and uneasily paced.

"What's our plan, then?" he addressed the basement at large.

Murphy and Connor looked at each other. Murphy rubbed his five o'clock shadow, and Connor scratched the back of his head.

"Well, see…" started Murphy, clearing his throat. "Most o' the time…well, we don't really…a lot of the situations we've encountered…"

Connor put a hand out. "What my dear brother is tryin' to say is that most of the time, we don't really have a concrete plan."

"And when we do have a plan, it's based off some stupid shit he's seen in movies," Murphy rejoined triumphantly, jabbing a finger at the lighter-haired man. "He always wants to use fuckin' rope!"

"Will you shut up about the fuckin' rope?" Connor argued exasperatedly.

Clare arched her brows, looking at Christian. It was clear this was a long-standing point of contention between the vigilante brothers. She cleared her throat. "Well." They stopped and looked at her. "You'll be glad to know, Murphy, that I don't think we have a very good supply of rope down here. But," she continued through Murphy's smug look at Connor, "I believe in having a plan. Preferably a plan that won't get all of us killed."

"That would be a good thing," Connor agreed.

Murphy leapt up, looking about the basement. "Well, first things first, why are we trappin' ourselves down here? Fuckin' death trap, if you ask me."

"Would you prefer to have a standoff upstairs, with all the windows and such?" Clare asked.

"We'd have room to maneuver."

"This isn't an industrial yard or something where we won't be noticed, running like maniacs between buildings with blaring guns." Clare crossed her arms. "I know that being boxed in isn't ideal, but at least we'll make them come to us."

"Can we jerry-rig a bomb?" Connor said suddenly. "For the door."

"For the door?" repeated Murphy.

"To give them a nice warm welcome." Clare nodded. "The door at the bottom of the steps is pretty heavy-duty. Not exactly blast-proof, but it should contain most of it, if we set up a tripwire or a pressure trigger halfway down the first set of stairs or on the landing."

"We don't have much time," Christian interjected.

"Then let's get to it. Wouldn't want 'em to catch us with our pants down around our fuckin' ankles," Murphy said emphatically. "Let's see what you've got."

The four of them spread out throughout the basement, gathering anything that could be used in their makeshift bomb. Connor glanced over at Clare as he helped Murphy haul a small propane tank over to the bottom of the stairs. Her face was tight but determined as she sorted through boxes, pulling out containers of nails and other construction materials. Christian emerged from the far end of the room, trailing a tail of wires behind him. "We should be able to make a fuse out of this," he said, gesturing to all the electronics nestled in his arms.

"Let's get to work then." Murphy held out his hands.

"Give the bastards a good greetin'," Connor agreed grimly.

The better part of an hour later, the twins stood to survey their handiwork.

"'S ugly as fuck," Murphy said, looking down at the tangle of wires around the propane tank, studded by pods of nails and other projectiles, "but it should work like a charm."

"You're sure that fuse will work?" Clare asked doubtfully, craning to look over their shoulders.

"Don't doubt the Saints, woman," Murphy admonished her. Connor chuckled.

"All right then, let's all get back down to the basement," she replied. They filed back down the stairs and she looked back up at the homemade bomb squatting on the landing before shutting the second door and throwing the bolt.

"Should we shore up the door?" asked Christian.

Clare shook her head. "It's a strong door, and if they miscalculated the blast size, we're just doubly screwed." She shrugged.

Connor reached over and touched her shoulder. "Like my brother said, don't doubt the Saints." He grinned. "If there's one thing we do well, it's killing motherfuckers like the ones who are comin' after us."

Christian looked at the locked door and said, "I guess we'll find out if you're telling the truth soon enough."

"Should be soon," Connor agreed.

The brothers couldn't seem to sit still. Clare understood the feeling. It was hard to wait quietly for a battle to erupt around you, and she had a feeling it was doubly hard for two men who, from what she'd been told, didn't even bother with a coherent plan most of the time, much less waiting around.

Connor shifted in his chair uneasily, glancing at Clare. Murphy caught his brother's eye and shook his head emphatically, the unspoken message clear to his twin: they had already caused her enough trouble, she had already risked enough for them.

"Do you think they'll try to smoke us out?" Clare asked suddenly, her quiet voice sounding loud in the stillness of the dank basement air. "I'm not worried about the house—I have insurance, and there's really nothing that can't be replaced…but I haven't exactly dealt with a gang shootout before."

Connor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I could be wrong, but I don't think these particular bastards are all that smart. They got the scent of blood in their noses. I think they'll come chargin' in right after it."

Clare nodded tightly and sat back in her chair, hand stroking the smooth leather of her holster again. "Why did they kidnap the girl?"

"Her da was a policeman," Murphy replied, anger swimming just beneath the surface of his voice. "Arrested a few of 'em. Was out of town for a few days, and they told the ma that if she called the cops, they'd kill the girl."

"Did they? Kill her?" Clare's lips felt numb, even though she'd seen carnage in the hot desert sun. This was different. This was Boston, this was her home. She harbored no illusions of a utopian America, but to hear about such a brutal crime firsthand was still hard.

"It mighta been better for her if they had." Murphy looked away from her. She saw his hands tighten into white-knuckled fists.

Connor shook his head. "They're animals, Clare. Motherfuckers who need to be put down like rabid dogs."

She raised her chin. "And you're Boston's self-appointed avengers, then?"

"Well, someone sure as fuck should do somethin', and we started out in it, so why the fuck not us?" Murphy asked. He crossed his legs and folded his hands behind his head. "Besides, there's a certain amount of fuckin' job satisfaction, if ye know what I'm talkin' about."

"No." Clare looked at him flatly, her eyes compromising. "I don't."

"Aw, come on now, ye were a soldier over there! Don't tell me ye didn't pull the trigger and feel good about putting some turban-headed extremist outta his misery." A slow, cocky smile spread across Murphy's lips, despite Christian's warning glance.

"It was never that simple," Clare snapped. "It should never be that simple, when it comes to killing people."

Murphy opened his mouth again but Connor turned to him and hissed, "For fuck's sake, Murph, shut up fer once in yer life if ye know what's good for ye."

Clare stared at them both stonily, mulling over scathing responses, but then the floorboards above their head groaned beneath someone's weight. They all froze, and then there were the quiet sounds of guns sliding out of holsters, chambers being checked for ammunition, hammers cocked. Clare, holding a pistol in one hand, gave Christian a hard one-armed hug, and then her face went smooth and cold, the predator surfacing in her eyes. She looked at the twins, their eyes alight with peculiar excitement, a thirst for danger and vengeance, and nodded. They crouched, waiting, listening as another set of footsteps joined the first.

They strained their ears as the pair of strangers above them spoke in Spanish, but the barrier of the floor muffled the words too much for them to understand the conversation. They obviously weren't concerned about making their presence known. Christian winced as the sounds of breaking glass and thrown furniture vibrated through the basement ceiling. The gang members clearly were not happy that they hadn't caught the brothers and their supporters unawares.

"Soon," mouthed Christian. Clare nodded, walking cat-footed over to the wall so she had a better vantage point of the door at the bottom of the stairway. She held her pistol easily in a two-handed grip, her arms relaxed but ready.

Murphy raised his eyebrows at Connor, watching Clare's silent, graceful movements. "This girl knows what she's doin," he whispered to his twin, but Connor didn't take his eyes from Clare, a peculiar mixture of determination and resignation in his expression. "Conn—fuck—" Murphy grabbed for Connor's sleeve as the taller man suddenly moved forward, cursing expressively under his breath when he missed. He walked purposefully after his twin but found himself halted suddenly by a large hand planted on his chest. Christian looked down at him, all trace of playfulness gone from his face.

"If your brother has something he needs to say to her, let him," Christian said. Then he shook his head slightly. "I can't believe I just said that." He looked sharply back at Murphy. "Rule still applies. Your brother makes her cry, I make him cry."

Murphy shrugged. "Fair 'nough." He glared after his brother balefully. "Stupid git…must be goin' fuckin' soft in th' head…"

Clare's gaze didn't waver from the door, not when Connor stopped next to her, not until he cleared his throat.

"I…ah," the Irishman said.

"What?" she said guilelessly, shifting her grip on her gun.

"Well…" Connor took a deep breath. "I don't mean to be forward—we're gentlemen, Murph an' I…or at least I am, no matter what ye hear on the news. And I just wanted to…before the gunfire starts, that is…"

She looked up at him questioningly, a tendril of golden hair escaping her ponytail and brushing her cheekbone. He almost lost all capability of speech right then and there. But instead he said, "God, ye're fuckin' beautiful with that gun in your hands."

She blinked and looked down at the pistol. "I…thank you, I guess."

Connor took another deep breath, steeling himself. "I don't want to…if your fiancé is still…"

A flash of sadness surfaced in her eyes and she shook her head. "He's not."

"And are you…?" he asked breathlessly.

"I am," she answered quickly, before he could even gather himself to answer the rest of the question, and in one sudden motion he pulled her tight to his body with one arm.

"Are you sure?" he breathed, his lips inches from hers.

In answer, she tilted her chin and kissed him, gun held carefully to the side. It wasn't a long kiss, but it felt as though they'd connected a circuit, heat arcing between their bodies like white-hot lightning.

He pulled back, still holding her by her waist, and looked down at her, breathing a bit heavily just from that one short kiss. She opened her eyes and gazed at him silently, a smile uncoiling on her lips as she saw his dazed expression.

"Get a room, why don't ye," hooted Murphy, which elicited a surprised chuckle from Christian. Clare grinned at Connor, who rolled his eyes and turned to deliver an insult back to his brother, but his words were lost amid a deafening explosion that shook dust and rubble from every corner of the basement ceiling. Clare reflexively dropped to the ground, both hands going for her weapon, and she felt the solid warmth of Connor as he crouched over her protectively. Howls of pain and Spanish curses seeped under the door along with the acrid smoke, which carried with it a stench that Clare had hoped she'd never smell again: burning flesh. The smell of human flesh burning wasn't so different than grilling meat, and it was that very similarity, coupled with the knowledge that it really was a human being scorched in that fire, that made the bile rise in the back of her throat. She opened her mouth and tried to breathe without smelling, tried to push down the sickness rising from her stomach, clenching her jaw. The dust settled slowly and they rose into crouches, Connor with one hand on Clare's shoulder.

"All right?" he asked, coughing through the dust. She nodded and motioned silently to their right, where stacks of cement bags awaited the day when she and Christian started the much-planned but never acted upon landscaping project in the back yard. She trotted quickly over to the improvised cover, and Connor joined her. Glancing over to the other side of the basement, she saw that Murphy and Christian had pushed the old furniture into their own barricade. Christian gave her a nod and a cheeky smile, and Murphy winked at her.

The fire burned for a few long minutes. Heavy footsteps ran up and down the staircase, to get something to smother the fire with, Clare supposed. She adjusted her position behind the cement bags, feeling a cool calmness settle into her bones. More footsteps. The staircase groaned. Connor took out his other gun, checked the magazine and chamber, and laid his arms across the bags. "When the shootin' starts," he said to her in a low voice, "keep movin'."

She smiled grimly. "This isn't my first rodeo, Connor."

He spared a precious second to grin at her. "Yeah, but it's your first ride with us."

Someone kicked from the other side of the basement door. Clare breathed out slowly, adjusted her grip one last time, checked the forked sights on the pistol. One more kick and the door buckled, splintering inward.

The first Lobo to come through the door jerked as bullets from Connor's guns ripped through him. Clare sighted in on the second man, squeezing off three well-aimed rounds. Two to the chest, one to the head, she thought to herself through the deafening roar of the guns.

The Lobos poured into the basement faster than they could shoot them. After the first two went down, the ones behind them used the bodies as shields. Screamed Spanish echoed off the basement walls, intertwined with the booms of gunfire and the twins' own yelled epithets. Cement dust spurted up from the bags as one of the gang members got a fix on their position.

"Go!" shouted Connor to Clare, and she fired off two more rounds, emptying her magazine, before sliding down onto her elbows, low-crawling down the line of cement bags, silently thanking Christian for being so overenthusiastic in his procurement of home improvement supplies. Slamming a new magazine into the butt of her pistol, she found a small gap between two bags, enough for her to sight through, and picked off another Lobo. There were so many of them…a cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach and she glanced over her shoulder back at Connor. He hadn't moved, still firing determinedly from his two guns, ignoring the spray of bullets around him. She saw one of the Lobos drop to his belly behind the bloody body of the first man that Connor had killed. The man's dark eyes glinted coldly as he sighted in on Connor. Clare bared her teeth in a silent snarl and shifted the aim of her pistol, but she couldn't get a good angle on him and she whipped her gun over the stack of cement bags, half-standing as she sighted in on the bastard. The report of her own weapon deafened her, but she watched in horror, the moment suspended, as the Lobo's own weapon jerked in recoil before a spray of gore fountained out from his head, Clare's bullet finding its mark.

Connor jerked and a grimace of pain flashed across his face. He dropped behind the bags for a moment, swiftly assessing the damage. Clare slid over to him, pulling at his black t-shirt where she saw a dark stain spreading.

"'M fine," grunted Connor, sweat glistening on his dust-stained face. "Keep movin'!" And he pushed her in front of him, toward the other end of the cement bags and the jumble of other junk in the basement. She skidded across the floor, light on her feet, and he stumbled behind her, trailing blood.

There was a sudden lull in the gunfire. Clare snuck a glance over their self-made bunker, forcing herself to try and count the haphazard sprawl of bodies around the door. "Ten," she whispered fiercely to Connor. "We've taken out ten."

"Maybe they're reconsiderin'," he grated back.

"Or maybe they think they can bargain with us," she answered grimly.

Sure enough, there came an accented voice from the other side of the broken door. "We know you are there," the voice called out menacingly, "and you cannot win! You are boxed in, and it is only a matter of time!"

"How 'bout you show your ugly-ass face, fuckwad, and I'll show ye boxed in!" called out Murphy tauntingly from behind the now considerably pocked-up furniture.

Connor turned to Clare suddenly. "Do ye have your phone on ye?"

She shook her head and he motioned to his back pocket. After she pulled out the simple black flip-phone, he said, "Press speed-dial number two."

Clare wanted to ask him why he couldn't do it himself, but she saw how alarmingly limp his left arm hung, how his finger was loose on the trigger of the gun in his left hand. He wanted to keep one gun trained on the door in case a gangster made an appearance. She put down her own weapon, crouching behind the cement bags as she flipped open the phone.

"Jesus Christ, this thing's a fossil," she muttered to herself at the green-neon display and boxy text. But she pressed speed-dial number two and held the phone up to Connor's ear, careful not to impede the freedom of his good arm. She heard the ring tone once, twice, three times and then a male voice answered.

"Greenly," Connor said in a quick, low voice into the phone. "We got a bit of a situation here…the Lobos got us pinned down in a swank house uptown…we'd appreciate a fuckin' helpin' hand." Connor grinned slightly at Greenly's response. "Our guardian angel's gonna give you the address." And he nodded to Clare. She cupped the phone against her ear as a sputter of gunshots erupted, waiting for another lull, and she quickly gave her address to Greenly, whoever the hell that was. There was a terse "Got it" from the other end, and then the line went dead.

"Who was that?" she fairly shouted at Connor as the gunfire erupted again.

He didn't reply, focused entirely on using his dwindling ammunition to the best advantage.

"Goddammit," she muttered. How were Murphy and Connor doing? She couldn't see them amid the jumble of furniture they'd pulled together, but her stomach lurched when she spied a stain of scarlet on the floor by their improvised barrier.

The Lobos had managed to drag their dead into a makeshift wall. The sight of it was sickening, and the smell of blood in the air tugged at the memories in the back of Clare's mind. She spied another Lobo slinking along the wall, trying to maneuver into better position so he could fire on Murphy and Christian. Without a second thought she stood and fired three bullets into him, her aim dead-on, and as she dropped back down she felt the hot tracery of a bullet-graze on her upper arm. She grinned at Connor when he saw the blood on her sleeve. "Gonna have a matching scar, looks like," she shouted at him.

They worked in a haze of bullets and dust and blood. Clare cursed under her breath when she pulled the trigger and her gun merely gave a hollow click. She tossed it aside and drew the gun from her second holster. They were going to be out of bullets soon, and that was never, ever a good thing in the middle of a gunfight.

Two more Lobos dropped. How many men were the gangleaders going to throw at them? she wondered, tasting the tinge of desperation in the back of her throat. The speaker had been right—they were holed up, they were boxed in. When they ran out of bullets, they were screwed.

And then, through the gunfire, she heard the most glorious sound in the world: police sirens, wailing away in all their glory. But then she looked sharply at Connor. "The police will arrest you," she half-shouted. He nodded, weariness showing in his face, and she squeezed off another shot before looking at him in confusion. "That's who you called? Why?"

"Better than all of us…bein' killed," he grunted.

And she knew from his eyes that when he said all of us, he really meant, you. Better than you bein' killed. She couldn't let him be taken down because of her. So she yelled to the Lobos, "Hey, hear that? The policio, they're coming for you, entiende?"

She held her breath, hoping the gamble would work. There was a pause, and then curses.

"Next time," came that same heavily accented voice, "you won't have your puta to protect you! Next time, we will kill you!"

"Aye, mebbe the third time's the charm!" Connor called over the bags.

"Or mebbe go fuck yerself!" came Murphy's voice from the other side of the basement.

Clare sank down to the pavement, gritting her teeth against the hot lines of pain radiating from her arm. The sirens wailed closer. "Think they're gone?" she whispered.

"Probably," Connor said, his voice tight with pain.

"All right then. Christian," she called.

"Clare?" came the response. "Don't ever, ever pick up man-candy off the streets again, I don't care how hot they are, they're not worth a gun-battle with gangsters!"

She chuckled a little, feeling dizzy as the adrenaline drained from her body. "Noted. Do you think you're up to hauling them out to the garden shed?"

Connor looked at her sharply.

"Can't have you being arrested," she said quietly with a smile.

"A few scratches," said Christian, emerging from behind the splintered furniture supporting a hobbling Murphy, "but he's worse off."

"Murph?" said Connor questioningly, lurching up to inspect his twin.

"Got me in the leg," Murphy said, conducting his own inspection. "Y'need some pressure on that chest shot, Conn."

Clare quickly assessed Murphy's injury. He was losing a lot of blood, but the bullet hadn't hit an artery. Christian had already tied a makeshift bandage tightly around the wound. Connor worried her a bit more, with the wound to the upper left chest, but he wasn't bleeding out either, and they simply didn't have time as the sirens wailed closer. It sounded like they were at the top of the street.

"Go," Clare said quickly.

"Greenly, he's the detective you'll want to talk to," Connor informed her quickly.

"Good motherfucker even though he's a cop," added Murphy.

"If he's not there, Doll or Duffy should be," Connor finished.

"All right, all right," she said. "Come on." She helped haul them to the other end of the basement and quickly dialed in the combination for the lock on the chained storm-doors. They opened with a protesting screech. Christian half-carried Murphy up the steep steps, and Clare tugged on Connor's good arm. She watched them start to stumble across the back yard, toward the half-hidden shed, and then she closed and locked the storm-door again with trembling fingers. She raced back down into the basement, grabbing all the guns that Connor and Murphy had used, wiping them clean with a rag and firmly wrapping her own fingers around them instead.

She stood for a moment and surveyed the horrific carnage in the basement of her upscale Boston home. Then she settled back down behind the cement bags to wait for the police.