"Fuck you I ain't watchin shit," stated Angela. They were alone again, Dave having grown bored and went in search for something else to do.
"I'll blow you're worthless brains out, you murderin' whore," responds Jessica.
"Dobson's did this already, dearie."
Jessica struck her in the head with the butt of the gun. "You'll watch and you'll see! Feel what I felt the whole time I spent in Hell with you," she struck the back of the woman's head repeatedly with the pistol, causing her to see stars as aching pain spread across her cranium. Stepping around the chair she faced her former tormentor, expecting to see murderous hatred and defiance, and found determination but...a thirtysomething mother simply showing regret and concern for another human being. She began weeping again, her tears falling on Angela's battered face and making it sting. "Oh God," she cried.
"Let it out, girl. Forgive."
"Why should I forgive you, bitch," she demanded.
"Not me, dumbass. Forgive yourself. For what you've done and what you're doing. For being taken into that awful house. Let it go."
"Shut up," she yelled, but fell to her knees coughing and sobbing. The worst thing of all was that the lady was right, and was nothing like the Baby she remembered. "You're trying to trick me."
"Am I? Look at me. I have a little girl of my own who I'm worried sick about. I'd take you home with me and try to help you, if you'd let me. Look at me!"
Trembling, Jessica obeyed, studying Angela's face and not seeing any of the sharklike coldness and devilish cuteness. "You..you're not Baby," she said as if it were a revelation.
"You finally figured it out," Angela said not ungently. Leaning forward, her head against Angela's breast she undid the ropes binding her hands. Surprisingly the first thing she did was put her arms around the young woman, holding her like a mother. Like her mother used to hold her when she was upset, crooning under her breath. Jessica cried and cried, spending herself out against the hitwoman's shirt. And...she actually felt better. Not good, but better.
"God help me, but I can't...I can't..."
"I know, child. I'm sorry, too." Angela stroked her long blonde hair. "Maybe someday you can forgive me. You don't realize I live with everything Baby has done every day of my life. I'm ok with that, it's my purgatory, if you will."
Jessica wiped her eyes and stood. "I wouldn't deprive an innocent little girl of her mother. But, there's one little thing."
"What's that?"
"Your hide has been promised to Dave Parks, ex-FBI agent, to collect his bounty."
Undoing her foot restraints she shrugged. "I can take care of him."
..."Plus who says your going anywhere? I still plan on having my revenge."
"How much revenge have you taken already," Angela asked in earnest, voice going frigid. It chilled the other woman's spine. "Did you kill my Kevin," she advanced toward Jessica who gazed back at her wide-eyed. "Did you?"
"No," she replied. "I wanted you, not him. That--that was your boyfriend, right?"
Angela, her eyes like two carved sapphires in her head, nodded. "What about your dickless friend, Dave?"
"I don't...I really don't know," the girl breathed.
"I'm gonna fuck him up royally," Angela declared, heading for the door. It flew open almost in her face and a bunch of people entered, pushing her back. A bunch of Pietro's men, a protesting Mr. Parks in tow.
"Fuck me sideways with a pipewrench," exclaims the Angel de la Muerte. "I'm getting such a fuckin' headache."
"Well, if it isn't my brother's pet," sneers Pietro, following after his men. Both women had their hands up.
"What are you doing here," Jessica demanded, trying hard to think of something clever to extricate herself from this situation.
"We followed this weasel to his little hole," answers Pietro, casting Dave a hate-filled glance. The man lowered his pale blue eyes. "A professional assassin he is not. He'd bribed the two 'inept' guards, we found the money. So now I have him and his two little bitch friends. What am I to do with you," he asks rhetorically, looking round at each of them.
"My business was not with your brother or his empire. I came for her," declared Jessica, meaning Angela.
"Ah, you came to kill the big bad Baby Firefly," the pudgy man taunts. The three captives all gasp with shock. At Angela's expression he said, "No, Paolo never told me your true identity, pequeña muchacha, but he had hidden papers on all his lieutenants and assassins. My brother turns up dead and I find you holed up with him and his little gopher-girl."
"Shitstain there had dibs on my carcass," snaps Angela. She remembered all too well her experience with the Unholy Two. Dave shrugged and acknowledged his assent to what she said. Glaring daggers she barks, "Did you kill Kevin, too?"
"Yes I did," he surprisingly responds. "I'd hoped to spark an internal struggle within the gang."
"Why?"
"To cause trouble," Jessica answers for him. "The US government allows him to do it to keep you all busy, outlaw and officer alick, so you won't notice the bounties transported illegally across the borders."
"You sorry son of a bitch," began Angela, going for Dave.
"Uh-uh," goes Pietro, his men moving in on them. "I have him and I'll have his hide for killing my brother."
Jessica made her move, using her dart gun she had hidden to tranquilize a few of the gang members. Dave took one of his guards' guns and dove for the floor while squeezing the trigger.
Angela began working her way to the door amid the hail of bullets, collecting ammo and weapons off fallen bodies.
Soon the space was peppered with myriad bulletholes and crammed with a dwindling number of jostling bodies. "Come on," urged Dave, grabbing Jessica by the wrist, close on Angela's heels. They slipped past Pietro and the few Mexicans remaining, Angela hesitating because she didn't know the way around. "This way," Jessica tells them, leading the party to another room, being covered by Dave oddly enough. It was where the bounty hunter had been cleaning his equipment, and they armed themselves well.
Paolo's enraged brother soon found them, the men in front going down in a burst of lead and crimson. "Perra!," he roared at Angela, his gun aimed at her heart. Then he somehow sprouted a bolt from his forehead, blood pouring down his face. He unceremoniously slumped forward, dead.
Surprised, Angela looked to the other female to find her still holding up the mini pistol crossbow, eyes big as saucers. "Asshole," she muttered, letting it drop to the floor with a clank. Then they both looked at Dave, who was, as they were, fingering their pieces.
A Mexican standoff?
"Shit," they all three swore, drawing on the person next to them.
"Drop it," demanded Angela, feeling that being the eldest and a mother that the others would obey.
"Noooo way, Jose," intoned the ex-FBI agent, icy eyes determined and even a bit scared. "I didn't come all this way to have my meal ticket slip out of my hands."
"Fuck it all, don't do this," pleaded Jessica, unsure of why she had her gun pointed at Dave, or why Angela had hers pointed at her.
"All right, think...think..," said Angela, looking around the room. "Ok. Let's all lower our weapons at the same time, an act of trust, y'know?"
"How we gonna lower them all at once," asks Dave.
"On the count of three," answers Angela. Dave then wanted to know who was gonna count.
"Goddammit, I will," spits Jessica, arms growing tired. "All right? One...two...three.."
Before the former Firefly victim could flinch she saw Dave going to his knees, dropping his gun and clutching his shoulder. Angela's hand was still extended in the act of throwing the small knife, a bit surprised herself at what she'd accomplished. Good, she hadn't wanted to kill him. Not yet, anyway--Baby was clamoring to be let out, and Angela intended to let her have her way for a little while. "What're you gonna do," Jessica asked her.
"Oh, we're gonna play," she replied, and the other woman knew she meant her other personas.
"Then what? You think I'm gonna let you go home, just like that," Jessica hovered around her anxiously. "You have a daughter and a comfortable life, something which you and your ilk took away from me! Listen to me!"
"I'm listening," Angela tells her calmly. "I just don't have time." At the young woman's shocked pause her bony fist swings out, catching the blonde in the temple with brutal force. White light dazzled her eyes and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. "Sorry kid," breathes the hitwoman. Turning to the gabbling, bleeding, drooling bounty hunter she smiles wickedly. A change came over her face that should be impossible, but flitted over her features, like something underneath the skin that just settled in. A hearty giggle filled her throat, ending in maniacal full-bodied laughter.
Dave gibbered in fear. "Well hello there, poopypants. Looks like ya got something stickin' out of you," she bends and yanks the short-bladed knife from his shoulder, eliciting a yowl from him. "Now me an' you is gonna play!"
Dave screams.
Something horrendous jarred the bounty hunter awake. Sitting up he found his arms shackled and chained to the wall with his legs free. Looking down he percieves what brought him consciousness; his left kneecap was completely busted. Bone fragments, cartilage and blood had exploded outwards, decorating the floor around his leg. Wheezing and gasping in growing agony and fear he brings his gaze upwards to see who's standing over him. It was the woman he'd been contracted to capture, dead or alive, the female who the determined, unbalanced girl Jessica had joined forces with to get revenge on. Well, the same body, anyway. What looked out at him with reptilian eyes wasn't the strongwoman assassin of the Cocaine King of northen Mexico.
No, what was gazing at him was much, much worse. He let loose a bloodcurdling scream of terror when he espied the sledgehammer with his own tissue hanging off the head, her deft killer's hands clutching it masterfully. She giggled. After he ceased his wail Dave waited for her to strike him again, which for her own reasons she didn't. "Baby?..," he ventured after regaining his voice.
Twirling like a ballerina she answers yes. "Ol' stick-in-the-mud don't let me out very often. Such a shame, we can have ever so much fun. What pretty blue eyes you have. Pretty, pretty," she places the sledgehammer on the lone table in the room and walks over to him. She even moved differently, just as formidable and confident but more carefree, an exaggerated female swagger even. She swings a long, well-toned leg over him and sinks down, straddling him. He tried flinching away but his restraints and mangled knee didn't allow it. She scooted right up against his body, her thighs cradling his hips. In better circumstances he would've been mightily turned on but right now he was filled with pain and dread.
"Please," he moaned. "Please, don't kill me. Don't hurt me. I can get you anything you want. You want money? Or I could make sure your organization is untouchable. Hear that? You could be the head. Please--"
"Shhh," she interrupts, producing a large knife from her back pocket. "I don't care about any o' that shit," she smiles, licking his cheek. "Right now," she breathes, "the only thing I care about...," she presses her breasts against him, against all odds eliciting a spark of desire in him. "..Is hearing you scream." She brings the blade to his left eye. "Scream for me, darlin. Scream."