Disclaimer: Same as last time. If I don't own it, it's not mine.
Hard Candy:
Starry Eyed Girl
"It all started with a girl, but isn't that how these things always start? With a girl? I'd love to say that everything was going fine before she showed up, but I'm not much of a liar, never have been. No, things were pretty much going to hell in a hand basket by the time she made her appearance. Strangely, she made things better for a while, but not too long. I heard this story about some bounty hunter with a vendetta against an old partner of his, guy's name was Spike or Butch or something like that. You know, one of those names that only come from little white trash families. Anyway, this guy and his partner go get into some fight and kill each other for some weird reason or another. I guess this is kinda like that, only different. It's hard to explain really, you had to be there to really understand. But if you want I'll give it a shot. Yeah, well anyway, like I said, it all started with a girl."
***
The bullet tore past Sal's ear and she ducked back behind cover, letting the massive steel pipe serve as a shield while she reloaded. They had managed to find the bounty pretty easily, it was catching him that was proving to be the daunting task. After an hour long chase they had come into this factory, empty during the middle of the night luckily, Sal couldn't afford to let the guy have any hostages. He had managed to lose them in the maze of pipes and machinery that clunked mindlessly onward, producing whatever the hell this place was supposed to produce anyway. Zoe had suggested they split up a while ago, and Sal hoped that her partner was still alive, apparently the guy had some friends helping him, though where they had come from was still a mystery. Sal pulled the speed loader from the cylinder and slammed it back into place, pulling the hammer of her gun back. With a quick twist she rolled out from behind cover on one shoulder and fired off a pair of rounds towards the gunman. He jerked once, one of the heavy magnum bullets had slammed into his chest, and he fell backwards onto the floor, his gun firing off his death call. Sal just smiled, she wasn't that good of a shot and that had been more luck than anything else.
That's when the machine gun opened up on her. She never did find out where the hell the guy was, she just got up and started sprinting, bullets whizzing by her head and ricocheting off of the pipe around her. While she screamed one of the shots hit something that was probably marked 'inflammable', and the resulting explosion tossed her headlong into a piece of machinery with a control panel on it. Her back slammed into it first, and she had the presence of mind to notice that she was upside down before Sal rebounded off of it and landed on her head with a painful thud. The bullets had stopped, apparently the explosion had knocked her behind cover or the guy was reloading, either way it was a damn good thing he wasn't shooting anymore because she was pretty sure that she wouldn't be able to move for a while. A series of gunshots rung out from somewhere, the way that sound rebounded around in this factory it was hard to tell from where, and Sal managed a weak smirk, apparently Zoe was still alive and kicking.
Sal pulled herself up onto all fours and winced as pain shot into her brain like a hot knife and the world seemed to spin around her. She swallowed down some bile that was threatening to explode from her mouth, and groaned, so far this was turning into a really bad day. She shook her head, winced in pain again, and decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to do that anymore. Her gun was gone, she had dropped it during her brief flight, and being without a weapon in a gunfight is usually a pretty bad idea. A glint of shining steel caught her attention, and she spotted her revolver laying about ten feet away, the explosion had done no more to it than it had to her apparently. Sal crawled over and laid her hand on the grip, the feel of its weight and texture always seemed to reassure her when she felt like panicking. "Look what I caught..."
Before she could move, Sal felt the cold hard pressure of a gun pressed into the side of her head. The owner of the weapon sent a kick into her ribs that rolled her over onto her stomach and almost brought the bile up again. She looked up at the man holding her captive and almost groaned, it was the bounty. Silently, she promised that if she lived through this she would never ever pay attention to that itch anymore. The man just grinned and raised his pistol a little higher, Sal could see the rifling of the pistol's barrel and almost imagined she could see the bullet all the way down its length. "Adios cowboy." The shot came, but Sal was fine. Blood tore away from the man's chest and splashed across her face, but at the moment she didn't care, she too stunned to move. Two more shots brought the man down onto of her and this time Sal did puke, though it wasn't very effective with the dead man's bleeding chest blocking her mouth. She rolled the man off of her and vomited again, this time with much more success, then she looked up to where she expected to find Zoe standing with her gun drawn. She wasn't there, there was someone there, but it wasn't Zoe.
The woman had hair the color of blood soaked linen, and eyes like a pair of shimmering sapphires, so blue that it was almost unreal. To say she was beautiful was an understatement, it would be like calling Olympus Mons a hill. Sal swallowed as the woman kept her gun raised, pointed at Sal's head with a deadly promise of steaming hot steel mixing with gooey brain matter. Of course, the bounty hunter didn't move, she wasn't a real fan of getting shot in the head. The beautiful woman didn't seem to mind though, she just smiled the smile of a lion sneaking up on a wounded gazelle. Sal swallowed once and then felt her revolver's weight in her hand, she was still holding it. The red head fired first, but Sal moved as she did so, and the bullet caught her in the shoulder instead of the head. With a scream of pain and desperation, Sal brought her gun up and fired as well, hitting the woman in the leg and knocking her off of her feet. In the process, the woman dropped her gun. Sal clenched her jaw in pain, blood flowing out of her shoulder wound quite profusely and was about to fire again when she heard Zoe's voice calling from overhead. "Sal! Hold on I'll be right there!" She looked up to see her partner standing on a catwalk about twenty feet above her, rushing towards a stairway that would lead her down. It proved to be an unfortunate distraction. By the time Sal looked back, the woman had gone, the only trace that she had been there a blood trail leading towards the exit, and four spent nine millimeter shell casings laying on the ground.