Courtney gasps as Duncan presses his mouth between her legs, her vision spinning. She reaches for something to grab and knocks a pair of perfume bottles to the carpeted floor. Courtney leans her head back, her spine cool against the glass of the mirror and tries to steady her gulps of air by gripping the edges of the vanity.
"If I didn't know any better," Duncan whispers, on his knees, "I'd say ya liked that."
"Shut up," Courtney pleads. She pulls his hair ever so slightly. "Shut up and just...shut up…"
He sucks hard, and Courtney looks straight up at the linoleum ceiling. Her eyes flutter as she struggles to keep quiet; they drift close as Duncan pushes the fabric of her nightgown further up her stomach. When she re-opens her eyes, her gaze settles on the door of the bedroom. It's open a crack, even though she'd locked it when they'd started.
Al is on the other side, watching her.
She freezes.
"You alright, baby?" Duncan murmurs without looking up.
Courtney stares at Al. He holds a finger to his lips, smiling, and shakes his head slightly. Instinctively, Courtney brings a hand up to cover her breasts, even though they're already under the fabric of her nightgown. In the dim light, she sees Al roll his eyes before walking off.
Duncan stands, looking at her worriedly. When Courtney doesn't react, he follows her eyes to the empty doorway behind them.
"It's an old apartment," he says, pecking her on the lips. "Lock must've jumbled open with all the movement we had going on in here. Don't ya worry. No one's up this time of night."
"Someone…" Courtney breathes, swallows. "Someone…"
"No one's up. Promise. Heath was beat, Al drank way more than he should've, and Leshawna probably danced Harold to an early grave. I'll shut the door if… Courtney? Yer shaking."
She opens her arms and Duncan embraces her. Over his shoulder, she watches the door.
"You're right. You're right," she whispers.
"Of course I'm right," he snarks. Courtney doesn't laugh.
"It was probably all the movement. The apartment is old," she repeats.
"That's my girl. Now," he says, pecking her on the lips once more. "Back to business."
"Actually, I think I'm done for the night," Courtney says, getting off the vanity.
"What'd I do?"
"Nothing. You didn't do anything," she insists, going to close and lock the door. "I'm tired. I just… Let's get some rest. We'll finish up tomorrow morning, okay?"
Duncan doesn't look happy. She kisses him; he tastes like her. "Promise."
He hesitates before kissing her back.
"Tease," he mutters, and it's not entirely playful.
Courtney stays awake, staring at the freshly locked door until Duncan falls asleep. She pulls her way out of his arms and, still in nothing more than her nightgown, goes out to the parlor, intent on marching straight to Al and Heather's room.
She doesn't get that far. Al is sitting on the couch, silently cleaning his rifle. A bottle of scotch from the bar sits open and half empty beside him. Courtney walks around the couch to his line of vision.
"Didn't know you were so kinky, Mrs. Jones," he says without looking up. "Full of surprises, you are."
Before she can react, before she considers, Courtney slaps him.
Al holds his face, heaving once. The apartment creaks around them. Then he chuckles.
"Never woulda guessed the sweet little secretary from Texas was so bold."
"You son of a bitch," she snarls. "You have a wife."
"And you have a husband," he retorts. "It hardly stops you."
Courtney holds the hand with her wedding band behind her back. "That's not… I left—"
"I have to say," he interrupts, "I can see why we had to go all the way back to Dallas to get you. Seems I'm not the only man in this family with a woman who can deliver."
"I'm not his woman," she says. "And I'm not your woman either."
Al waves her off, setting down the gun and taking a long swig of scotch. "Titles and such, chica. You are important to him no matter what you call yourself."
Courtney grips her hand harder to keep it from shaking. "I'll tell him," she threatens. "I'll tell him you were there."
"You had your chance, and you didn't. You know why?" Al stands up and shoots back what's left of the scotch bottle without flinching. "I think you're like me. You like an audience."
She takes a step back from him. "I'm nothing like you."
"No? You mean to tell me you didn't enjoy our little show in Shreveport? When Heather and I came back from testing Harold and you were 'sleeping' on the couch?"
Courtney gapes as he continues, "I was just returning the favor tonight." He takes another step towards her. "I can keep returning the favor if you want."
Courtney cases the room for something to grab. "You're drunk," she says. "You're drunk, and you don't know what you're doing."
"You know, he owes me," Al says, his voice clear. He picks up the automatic rifle from the table, admiring it. "Those long nights on the road, in the middle of the nowhere, no other woman around but Heather, and me being a good big brother…"
"Alejandro...Buck," she says. Maybe the nickname will snap him out of it. Courtney backs up into the wall. "Listen, please, I'm not…" she eyes the rifle in his grip, "I'm not...mad...I'm...you're drunk…"
He follows her gaze to the gun. Shaking his head, he rolls his eyes and places the rifle back on the table behind him. "You think I want to hurt you? Really?"
"I'll scream."
For a long moment, Al is quiet, looking her over. Courtney counts the steps between where she is and Duncan's bedroom. Al reaches forward and brushes the back of his hand against her cheek, his knuckles rough.
"Pobrecita. Poor little country girl. You don't even realize what he's doing to you."
Courtney jerks her knee to his groin, her hands forcing his shoulders down. Al grunts and collapses. Jumping out of his reach, she picks up his discarded BAR and points the gun between his legs.
"You ever come near me again," she warns, "and Heather's gonna have to find another man to sleep with because you'll be useless to her."
Al straightens up. He doesn't look amused anymore. "Put down the gun, Bonnie."
She pulls back the release, like she's seen him do dozens of times. "You stay the hell away from me, and I will."
There comes a knock on the door.
Al and Courtney stop cold and turn to the sound. Al puts a finger to his lips and waits. Courtney holds her breath, watching as a faint light starts to glow from behind the pulled blinds.
The knock comes again, harder.
"Police!" a man's voice calls in a New York accent. "Open up!"
Courtney looks at the door, at the gun in her hands, at herself in her nightgown. "I, uh, just a minute," she stammers. "I'm not dressed, give me a second to—"
Al yanks the rifle out of her hands, pulls the release back, and opens fire on the door.
Courtney has enough time to clamp her hands over her ears and shout, "What are you doing?!" before the sound triples, quadruples, and the glass windows at the front of the house explode in showers of glass, shredding through the curtains.
Pain rips through her left side. Courtney screams and stumbles back, tripping over the coffee table behind her and landing on her shoulder. She can't make out the RATATAT of the individual BARs. It's all she can manage to start crawling away from the noise and think, I've been shot. I've been shot.
Courtney crawls, staying close to the ground as shards of glass from the window stab at her stomach. The noise is so loud it hurts. Her side hurts too, sharp and warm. But instincts that she didn't know she had tell her she can't spare her hands to stem the blood, that she needs to crawl, to get away from the sound.
"Get up! Courtney, get up!"
Courtney looks up. Duncan is kneeling over her, wearing only his briefs, another automatic rifle in hand. He's shouting over the gunfire, "I've got ya covered! Get to the car!"
She scrambles to her feet. Her side spasms, and the pain nearly blinds her. Duncan grabs her arm. He pulls her up, puts a pistol in her hand, and shouts, "Go! GO!"
With a hand to her side, sticky with blood, Courtney rushes for the door. She looks back once, in time to see Al toss away his empty automatic and pull two pistols from his waist. Each brother has a window and is firing out into the night. Duncan's eyes cut to her briefly, and Courtney doesn't need to be told twice. She scrambles past the kitchen, where plates in the drying rack are shattering with bullets, and out to the Ford in the garage. Harold is already inside the car, curled up in the backseat.
"Oh god make it stop make it stop make it stop," he whimpers.
Seeing Harold like that shocks some sense into her. "Harold! Where are the keys?"
The wooden door of the garage is splintering with gunfire. A bullet goes through the windshield, cracking the glass as Courtney dives into the front seat. The keys are in the ignition and Courtney brings the Ford to life as Duncan and Al run through the door. Al jumps in the backseat with Harold, and Duncan pushes her over to the passenger side, putting the car in drive and flooring it.
The car tears through the garage door. On the other side, Courtney glimpses at least three sets of copper headlights before their Ford rams into the police car blocking the driveway. The passenger side window shatters, and Courtney takes it as a cue to start firing wildly into the dark. Duncan forces the car out of the way, driving with one hand and shooting with the other as Al reloads his BAR and shouts at Harold to fire something.
The headlights catch a police officer in their way, gun aimed at the windshield. Courtney turns towards him, but Duncan is faster. He points his pistol straight at the man's head and fires one shot. The cloud of red blood catches in the headlights for a split second, like a pink fog, before the man goes down and the car jostles over his body.
"On your left!" Al shouts, knocking out his window with the butt of his gun and opening fire.
The RATATAT is deafening from inside the car, and Harold clamps his hands over his ears, screaming, "Make it stop! Make it stop!"
"Shut up!" Duncan bellows. "Shoot! Shoot them!"
Courtney finds her aim between the pain and the adrenaline and starts shooting at glimmers of light. Bottles on a fencepost. Everything is just a bottle on a fencepost.
Before she can reload, they're clear, and the deafening sound of the automatic rifle stops.
"Where's Heather?" Al says, looking around the car. His voice sounds muffled to Courtney's ears. "Clyde, where's Heather?!"
Courtney lowers the pistol, and looks down at herself. Her nightgown is drenched in sweat and blood, the front tattered from the glass.
"I'm bleeding," she says. "Duncan, I'm bleeding."
Duncan takes one look at her, yanks up the side of her nightgown to see the wound and lowers it just as quick. "You'll live."
"Oh god, oh god oh god," Harold is whimpering from the floor of the backseat.
"Turn around!" Al shouts, grabbing Duncan's shoulder. "Clyde, turn around! We need to go back for Heather!"
Courtney lifts up the dress to look at the skin. There's a gash, like from a knife, running about six inches across her side, bleeding freely. "I think I've been shot," she says.
"Clyde! We're not leaving—!"
"SHUT UP!" Duncan roars. "SHUT UP! EVERYONE SHUT UP! I'm trying to think!"
Courtney looks up from her side to see the Ford's headlights catch the outline of a woman, running. "There!" she calls, pointing.
The boys turn to look. Duncan swerves the car onto the sidewalk and slows only just enough for Al to kick the door open and pull Heather into the car. She's in her nightclothes too, under a thick jacket. Shehe heaves, gasping from running as Al looks her over, babbling frantically in Spanish.
"Heath?" Duncan asks once.
Heather gags, then she vomits.
"Take one cigarette break," she says weakly, "and everything goes to fucking hell."
"Oh my god, oh my god oh god, how are we alive?" Harold says.
"No thanks to you," Courtney snaps. "Why didn't you start the car?"
Harold sits up from the floor, his pants covered in Heather's sick, his eyes bloodshot. "There were coppers everywhere. I didn't...I didn't think…"
"No, you didn't think!" Courtney shouts. "You're our driver! No matter what, you drive!"
Harold blinks at her a few times, then looks at the others in the car. Duncan doesn't look away from the dark road ahead of them. Al has an unusually quiet Heather wrapped in his arms and is whispering assurances.
"I...I didn't want to sit up and get shot," he mutters.
"Well neither did I! But I still did my goddamn job, Harold!"
"Bonnie," Al says, looking at her appealingly over Heather's shoulder.
"NO!" she screams. "No, don't you fucking start! Don't you of all fucking people fucking start with me right now! He should have been in the fucking car!"
"And you should have grabbed a weapon the second you heard that copper," Al shouts back, "instead of playing goddamn coy and getting yourself shot up!"
Courtney turns to Duncan. "Stop the car."
Duncan doesn't take his eyes off the road. "No way in hell."
"I said stop the fucking car!"
Duncan throws her a glare, and he yanks the steering wheel abruptly, pulling them off the road and into an open field.
Courtney stumbles out of the car and walks a few feet away from it. Duncan steps out and follows her, leaving it running.
When they're far enough away, Courtney whirls on him. "Are you going to let him talk to me like that? Huh? Your own brother?"
"He's right," he says, icily calm. "Ya should've gone for a gun."
"Was I supposed to pull one out of my ass?" she shouts. "I had three seconds to make a call, and I figured stalling would—"
"Would what? Delay the opening fire? Give us an edge?"
Courtney starts pacing. "We have to get rid of Harold."
"It's his first firefight, ya both made mistakes—"
"No, no! I did my job!" she jabs a finger at herself. "I was pissing myself, but I did it! He was dead weight! He could have gotten us killed!"
"Oh, goodie," Duncan snaps. "Now ya know how I feel about ya on every fucking job."
Courtney whirls on him, holding a hand to her splintering side, cold and angry and shaking so hard her muscles hurt. "You—asshole. You think you're so much better than me? Huh? You're nothing special! You're lousy! Just like your goddamn brother! You're only a crook because you can't do anything else goddamn right, and you can't even do that goddamn right! You're a scoundrel, and you're worthless without me!"
"Yeah?"
"A worthless little boy who wants all the things he can't have and who gets mad when he's called on his bullshit! Well, you know what?!"
"Yeah?!"
"No good, backwater, human garbage!" she screams. "That's what you are, Duncan Clyde!"
"Well, how about you?! Mrs. Jones?" he answers, his calm demeanor fracturing. "Ya think I'm worthless without you? You were nothing when I found ya. Nothing! A dime a dozen bitch who couldn't even get off with her own two hands! You wanna talk about special?! The only thing special about you is the goddamn speed you'll spread yer legs for the first jobbie who says ya ain't dumb as bricks!"
Courtney's ears ring. Part hearing damage, part shame, and part shock. She opens her mouth, but the words are lodged. Her jaw quivers, so she shuts it.
Abruptly she turns and limps away from him, out to the field. Duncan doesn't follow her.
The world is a blur of shapes and shadows as she walks, with no direction, away from Duncan. Away from the car and the blood and the lies he promised her. Courtney walks away and doesn't look back.
"Courtney..."
She doesn't turn at his voice. Doesn't even so much as twitch, even as she feels him coming up behind her.
"Courtney... Dollface…" He reaches out to hold her. She wards him off and keeps walking. "I didn't mean that. I...I didn't mean none of that, baby. I'm so sorry, I didn't…"
"Yes, you did," she says and picks up the pace.
Duncan blocks her way, holding her at arm's length, desperate, as she tries to get around him. "No... No, Courtney, I didn't mean that. I just… I... I lost my temper, losing the coppers. And you getting shot and Harold in shock and, and, and Al shouting, and Heath missing…"
He throws himself to his knees before her and hugs her, pressing his face into her chest. He's careful not to squeeze her wound.
"I am so, so sorry," he says, voice breaking. "I didn't mean none of that. I didn't mean none of it. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, baby, forgive me, I'm so sorry..."
Courtney bites down on her lip, hard enough to break skin. Either the shock or the blood loss keeps a solid stopper on her tears. She lets him grovel. She lets him feel dirty and stupid too, and it's petty revenge but it's enough.
"I know," she says back at last. "I know. I'm sorry too. I heard the man at the door, and I got so scared..."
"We gonna be alright, ain't we?" he asks as she puts her arms around him. "Me and you, we gonna be alright?"
"Yeah," she murmurs, resting her palms against the top of his head and looking at the headlights and the moon, the only two sources of light for miles. "Yeah."
A/N: Gangsters and Gun Molls, it is our pleasure to say that deviantartist and coolest of cats Cid-Vicious will be doing illustrations for Machine Gun Blues! He also did the image we're now using as our story pic. We'll be doing our best to coordinate chapter and picture posts from this point on, but please be patient with our updates in the coming months. With the way fate has turned on the Barrow Gang, there's no rest for the wicked in sight.
