AN: Warning! This chapter rated 'M' for violence, language, two racial slurs, and general badness. Have fun!

Chapter 5: Be Thou My Breastplate

January and February seemed to drag forever; the snow slowly turning to slush under the Cadillac's tires. The weekdays were especially tedious. Elise's eyes drifted to her watch all through class.

It was Saturday nights and Sunday mornings that she lived for. She had a few dates, as did Cam, but most Saturday nights found them at Pop's. Her behind the bar singing along with the old country songs and him bellied up to it drinking the beers she pulled for him. More often than not, he'd sleep on her floor, her cheap afghan pulled over his head. But no matter how bad his hangover, or how cold the morning, he would pull on a sweater and his leather jacket and make the long walk out to the parking lot to go to church with her.

The first morning that it snowed, classes were canceled. An ecstatic Elise had joined Abby and Laura in snowball fights, snow angels and making snowmen. Laura was a junior and also from Virginia, and worked the Media Counter at the library with Elise. The two local girls laughed at Elise's joy as she stood, tongue out, the ice crystals melting as they touched her tongue and sparkling on her eyelashes.

"Shut up!" Elise had commanded, shoving a handful of snow down the back of Laura's jacket. "I've never seen snow before, dumbass! I'm from fuckin' Louisiana!" She'd drawled 'Loosiana' so ridiculously that they had all burst out laughing and Laura had taken the opportunity to hit Elise full in the face with a handful of snow

Elise, who had never had to deal with cold like the mountains of Virginia in January, slowly added sweaters, gloves and heavy coats to her wardrobe. Her father Fed-Exed his old Navy peacoat to her, Marie sent a few of her sweaters from her undergraduate years in Colorado, but best of all, Josh sent her a watch cap and pair of tactical gloves. Although she had no use for the grips on the palms (designed to reduce recoil from firing a pistol), they were warm and comfortable.

When they arrived at church, she and Cam would shed their layers of wool and cotton as they made their way to the basement. Hanging coats and scarves over hooks in the 'dressing rooms' early on Sunday mornings, they would go join the choir for a final rehearsal before the service. They pulled on their robes, joking about how nice it was to wear jeans and sweaters to church, since no one would see their outfits anyway. They would mingle their voices, hers a rich, smoky alto and his a clear, sweet tenor, with twenty others, the only white faces standing out like sore thumbs in the choir loft.

Pastor Greene's frank manner and his uncompromising style came out in full force on Sunday mornings, exhorting his congregation to love and give without reservation. The shouts of "Amen!" and "Preach, preacher!" that rang out from the small crowd in the pews never failed to curl Elise's lips in a smile.

……

It was a cold Sunday morning, just before St. Patrick's Day when Elise and Cam slipped into the side door of the church and gingerly descended the stairs to the basement, as they had done so many times before. They had had a late night at Pop's, and Cam had drunk a few too many pints. Elise practically had to drag him to his feet, slapping his thigh and shouting that they were going to be late. He was trudging along behind her, grumbling under his breath and dragging his feet when Elise suddenly stopped on the stairs.

"Shh!" she held up a gloved hand, listening. She cocked her head, and Cam straightened. Nothing gets rid of a hangover faster than hearing that much fear in your friend's voice.

She crept down the stairs, sidling up to the choir room door. It was dark, heavy wood, with an old-fashioned paned window in the top half. She ducked under the window carefully and leaned her shoulder against the wall to the right of the door. Her footsteps sounded deafening to her as she strained to listen, waiting for the whimpering noise that had alerted her something wasn't right.

Elise peeked into the choir room, jerking back at what she saw. She shut her eyes quickly, trying to hold back the gasp that was building in her throat.

"What are you doing?" Cam groused.

She silenced him with a glare and waved him forward, pointing at the window. "Look!"

As he tiptoed forward to obey, Elise shut her eyes again, but the sight had already been burned onto her retinas. Mrs. Greene, the pastor's wife, slumping with her face against the upright piano, her warm brown fingers still over the keys which were now stained thick red with her blood. The Johnson sisters on the floor, their golden robes black with the blood gushing from their chests. Mr. and Mrs. Parker slumped in their chairs, hymnals still in their laps, almost as if they had fallen asleep, as they often did in the choir loft, their age catching up with them.

Still alive, Mama Faye was on her knees, begging the Lord for deliverance, the muzzle of a pistol pressed to her forehead. Pastor Greene standing as tall as his stooping back would allow, his hand on her shoulder and facing down the man pointing another gun at him. There were three of them, one sneering down at Mama Faye, with a Chinese dragon tattoo covering the back of his shaved head, one with the muzzle of his gun pressing against Pastor Greene's chest, wearing a huge black leather trenchcoat, and one whose flannel-clad shoulder was blocking the bottom of the window in the door.

Tears slipped past the walls of Elise's closed eyelids, cooling on her cheeks as she struggled to push the images away. 'Oh, god, oh god,' she kept repeating in her mind.

When the deafening blast of gunshots rang out, Elise's eyes flew open, locking with Cam's. He was mirroring her on the other side of the door, his gloved hands pressed against the cinderblock wall, an expression of shock and disgust on his face. Elise's eyes widened as she watched the flannel-clad shoulder blocking the window in the door turn around and her gaze flicked back to Cam.

She nodded her head towards the door, and her meaning was clear.

'They're coming out here!'

Cam's face shifted into an expression of fear. He looked at her helplessly. 'What do we do?'

Just then, the doorknob turned and the heavy door began to open. Elise was suddenly eye-to-eye with the flannel-wearing man and she had no time left to think. Her hand reached for the doorknob of its own accord.

She quickly flung the door outward, catching the man on the other side directly in the face with the door's edge. She ducked immediately to avoid the punch that he sent flying wildly at her face and grabbed him by the back of the neck, swinging him around her, face-first into the cinderblock wall. With his arms splayed against the wall, it was child's play to grab his gun. As she turned it on him, she felt a rush of air behind her as Cam slipped past her and landed a heavy punch on the tattooed man's jaw. Elise shoved her left elbow into the middle of the man's flannel-covered back, keeping him immobilized as he struggled against her. When she put the muzzle of the gun to the back of his head, he stilled, nearly laughing,

"Go on, little girl. Shoot me."

Elise pressed the muzzle of the gun against his head, casting her eyes heavenward. "Father, forgive me. And give this man what he deserves," she whispered, next to his ear and pulled the trigger.

She turned to see Cam holding the third man, the one who had shot Pastor Greene, in a headlock, struggling to keep his human shield between himself and the gun that the tattoed man was pointing at him.

She pushed her hair away from her face, feeling the cold tracks of tears being pulled outwards by the strands. But she wasn't crying now, not as she raised the gun and calmly pulled the trigger twice more, dropping the man who had shot Mama Faye with a hole in his shoulder and another in his throat.

Cam disarmed the man in the trenchcoat and dropped him to the floor He gasped for breath and looked at her. His eyes were sparking, his face animated as he clutched the gun, sliding his finger into the trigger guard and holding it, nice and steady to the man's head.

As Elise walked towards them, sliding out the magazine to check how many rounds were left, her foot hit something metal that rolled across the tile floor. She bent to pick it up, turning the cylinder over.

"Spray paint?" she whispered, almost to herself. As she reached the kneeling man, she hefted the can in her right hand, switching the gun to her left.

"Spray paint?" She asked again, louder this time. When the man didn't answer her, she slid her hand down to the capped end of the can, leaving a good three inches of metal protruding from her fist. She raised it to shoulder level and backhanded him heavily, the metal lip of the can bit into the skin just under his eye.

Elise dropped into a crouch, staring directly into brown eyes. She considered him slowly, switching hands again, putting the Baretta back into her dominant hand.

"So, you fuckers came in here, defiling the house of the Lord by committing murder in this sacred place. And you were going to spray paint the place like fucking thirteen-year-old punks?" Her voice was soft and low, surprising her. "What were you going to put on the walls? Swatikas? Maybe a 'nigger' or two?"

He pressed his lips together, apparently trying to maintain his tough guy persona, and spoke with a sneer.

"Yeah, well. The niggers are all over the walls now."

Elise stood, anger rising in a hot flood and cocked the pistol in her hand. Cam did the same, and they exchanged a look. She saw all of her own anger and grief reflected back at her in his swimming hazel eyes. She nodded once as he did the same, and they both looked down at the man on the floor as they pulled the triggers.

…..

They were fine, dropping the guns and climbing the stairs. They were fine as Elise struggled with the ignition of the Cadillac. They were fine for three miles on Peter's Creek Road. But as they passed Skin Thrills, her hands began to shake on the steering wheel and she pulled into the parking lot, turning the car off and covering her face with her gloved hands.

As her shoulders began to shake with her sobs, she felt Cam's large hands grasping at her pulling her over the console and into the passenger's seat with him. His arms went around her and she buried her face in his neck, rocking together, his tears falling and mingling with hers.

"They're gone," he whispered. "We killed them, it's ok."

"It's not ok, Cam," Elise choked out, raising her head. "It'll never be ok again. Didn't you see them? They're gone!" She grasped Cam's face between her hands, feeling his stubble prickle her palms and meeting his eyes.

"Oh God." Cam's arms tightened around her as her words fell. "Pastor Greene. Mr. Yoon. Sharon, all of them."

Elise nodded, their arms around each other as their tears fell and their sobs rose together in a soulful tune of grief.

AN 2: Who loves MKOLO? That's right, ME! And you should too, because this chapter is now a LOT easier to understand, lol. Muchos gracias, chica! (Go read Redemption! It's what I do when I get a little blocked. Well, either that or Waiting Game, lol.)