CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
"You in the car. Come out with your hands up!"
One of the cops had a loudspeaker and was yelling orders at them.
They had their spotlights on Brian's car and when she looked through the rearview mirror Samantha could see a small fleet of police cars.
"Damn, they snuck right in behind us didn't they?" she remarked. "They moved fast."
"You got anything on you?" Brian asked.
"Two pills and my gun. You?"
"Nothing. Better eat those pills and leave the gun in here. They got us, we're gonna have to get out and soon."
She dry swallowed the pills. She normally did half of one, at most a whole.
In thirty minutes or so I'm gonna be a real sight.
"Ready?" he said.
"Ready as I'm gonna get."
They started to open the car doors when all hell broke loose. Men came from the motel rooms, from behind the buildings, from the shadows. Each of them wielded some sort of weapon. In unison they began to fire on the police. Bulletts whizzed past Brian's car and they both ducked back inside.
"Sonofabitch!" Brian yelled. "What's going on here?"
"It's his men. They must think the cops are coming after him." Samantha answered. "Or they were coming for him the whole time."
A volley of bullets from the cops had them trying to flatten themselves into the floorboard. Brian's bulk was preventing him from squeezing into the small space.
"We've gotta get out of this car." she told him. "It's a death trap. They'll end up hitting us if we stay here."
"But where are we gonna go? We're trapped from the front and back."
She thought hard. "There was a truck to the left of us. If we can get over that way we can hide behind it."
Brian was about to protest when a shot blew out his front window. He nodded mutely.
"Ok, let's go." she said. "You first. Get behind the truck. I'll be right behind you."
He scrambled out surprisingly quickly, with Samantha right on his heels. In the seconds it took to get to the truck she expected to be hit. They made it safely and now had a good view of what was going on around them.
The cops were hiding behind their own cars, guns drawn. Radios squawked and she could hear them whispering commands. On the other side the Joker's men crouched behind doors and buildings. A lull came over the battle, an eerie silence that filled her with foreboding.
Someone tossed a grenade at the cops and they scattered with screams of warning. A moment later everything went yellow as it exploded. Brian's car was blown to pieces and Samantha heard the shrieks of cops who had been hit with shrapnel.
"Ah shit not my car!" Brian growled. "Sam I swear to God you're getting me another one."
"Sorry." she shrugged sheepishly.
The cops regrouped and now she saw the SWAT men. They were heavily armored and looked for all the world like giant ants. Gripping their riot guns tightly they pointed and talked amongst themselves.
The shooting began anew, with no warning, and she covered her ears against the din. It sounded like every kind of weapon in the world was being fired. Shotguns, handguns, rifles.
And through the noise she heard it. A machine pistol. Its sound was unique and she knew he owned one.
He's here. I know he is.
Bullets slammed into the truck's frame, too close for comfort.
"Brian, we've gotta move again." she whispered. "But I'm not sure where. At this point both sides are out for blood. What do you think?"
No answer.
"Brian?" she looked back at him impatiently.
He was leaning against the car's door, completely still. For a long moment she stared at him.
No.
The top of his head was gone. All that remained of his face was below the bridge of his nose. Blood steamed in the frigid air.
Samantha blinked. She was seeing things, that was it. There was no way he was dead, he'd just spoken to her, he'd been alive a few seconds ago.
"Oh....no." Her hand reached out to him. So still.
Most of his head is gone. Gone. Those last shots fired got him. He's gone Sam.
"Brian." she whispered. He couldn't hear her, of course not, but she said his name anyway.
From behind her one of the Joker's men scurried from one building to another. The cops, enraged at the loss of their own, instantly started shooting. Bullets pelted the truck and Samantha shrank back, trapped. Pain shot through her lower leg, white hot and excruciating.
I'm hit. I'm next. Next to die. Gonna die. Sorry Brian. I brought you here. I deserve it.
No shots came from the Joker's side. They'd either run away or were waiting. Samantha began to crawl that way, away from the cops and SWAT men. She wanted only to escape from the roaring guns. She kept low to the ground, dragging herself along painfully. Her hands were numb from the snow but she scrabbled along. A quick glance over her shoulder proved that the truck still blocked her from their line of sight and so she went on.
After a few agonizing moments she was near the motel, now engulfed in flames from some unknown source. Only then did she stop, letting the fire warm her a little. More gunshots made her start to move again. She became aware of the sound she was making, a tortured whimper that started in the back of her throat, and she forced herself to stop.
Keep going. Just get away. You got Brian killed you stupid bitch. No whining, at least you're still alive. Now go.
Just then a man slipped out of the shadows. He gaped at her in amazement, this woman in the middle of the shootout, on the Joker's side of the battleground no less. Recognition flashed over his face and Samantha realized he was the guy she'd bought from so many times.
"Oh no." he moaned. "What are you doing here? Christ you're bleeding bad. You don't need to be here."
He circled around her, clearly agitated. "Boss isn't gonna like this nooooo. Not at all." He prodded her with one booted foot. "You should have stayed away. Now look what's happened to you."
He looked up and saw Brian's corpse a few feet away. Most of the body's head was missing but from the sheer size he figured it had to be Samantha's friend.
"Damnit." he muttered. He considered leaving her, just walking away and pretending like he'd never seen her. If he told the boss it would slow things down. He might even want to take her and she'd be a burden. But then again....if he didn't say anything and the boss found out....he shivered at the thought of that malevolent gaze on him, at what the boss would do to him. And he had a way of finding things out, he sure did.
With that in mind he dashed off in search of his employer.
Samantha didn't notice his departure. Rolling onto her back she gazed up at the sky. From the fat fluffy clouds came fat fluffy snowflakes, delicately hitting her face and melting. The cold crept into her very bones and she let it. No point in fighting now. Might as well just lie here and let whatever happens happen. The pills were hitting her, taking away the pain.
Strange she had always disliked snow until this moment. Before it had always meant hardship, misery, shoveling. And now it was lovely. Magical. Her blood turned the snow around her into a crimson slush but she didn't notice. Eyes wide open she watched the sky and waited to die. A memory of the lake slipped into her mind. Of going under and her dad yelling and yelling for her. How beautiful it had been. So forbidden and cold.
She didn't even hear the footsteps crunching closer to her. Her mind had slipped past the shock and trauma to take her into a dream state. A long shadow passed over her and she looked through it, face serene and completely oblivious.
"Samantha." A long sigh. "I told you didn't I? Hm? Now look what's happened."
The Joker leaned over her. His eyes mirrored the coldness of the night but his mouth was set in a thin line of anger and......distress? Fingers clad in leather touched her cheek and that brought her back. Her glassy eyes settled on his face and gradually regained focus.
"You." she whispered thinly. "You."
There was no accusation in her voice, only awe and resignation. She could see wild hair silhoutted against flames and smoke and black sky. His face inscrutable and fierce, make-up freshly applied. He was demonically beautiful.
He'll leave me to die and I deserve that.
"She's bled a lot." the dealer's voice from somewhere behind the Joker.
"Hm." He was kneeling beside her. "Sam, you're dying. You're, ah, bleeding to death."
She couldn't speak anymore. Her mouth moved but she didn't have the strength to push the words out. She wanted to tell him it didn't matter now, that she'd been rushing headlong into this since the day she'd met him. But nothing would come out. She gave up trying and stared at him. Seeing him made her heart ache, which was a shameful thing to her. Sentiment had never been her thing.
So icy and beautiful.....just like this night. Untouchable. I've lost everything because of him. And now he'll leave me to die.
He was saying something about how she wasn't supposed to be there, about how she never listened but she blacked out and never heard the rest.
