All my friends are heathens, take it slow
Wait for them to ask you who you know
Please don't make any sudden moves
You don't know the half of the abuse

- Twenty One Pilots - Heathens -

Anton had to take a moment to recognize her, then he blinked, stepping back slightly. "Lorna," he greeted, with a thick Russian accent, "Come on in. You must be in some trouble to have come back here, no? Who's your friend?"

"Moran," he grunted, stepping inside after Lorna. His name was well known in many circles, he was interested to see if this was one of them. He kept a hand close to the knife hidden in his belt.

Anton became perhaps just a little more alert, his watery blue eyes glancing down at Lorna with a cautious curiosity before he shut the door and turned to lead them into the warehouse. It was a dimly lit space, and filled with rows of ceiling-high racks, stuffed with crates. Most of those, Lorna knew, were empty or filled with useless crap, but scattered throughout in a certain numerical pattern were crates packed with bricks of heroin. "Most of the old crew here is dead," Anton said, once they were past the first few rows of shelves. "Julio went back to Colombia. Alexei's in Miami." He glanced back at Moran, then looked down at Harrison again. "You don't have many friends here, you realize this?"

She nodded, taking in a slow breath and idly checking the row numbers they passed in order to keep from looking at either of the men. Fuck. If the others knew of her, shit was going to go down. Anton wouldn't be able to help that. "I do. We've got money, by the way." She left her meaning clear; she wasn't asking for a favor. "If they call him down make sure Moran gets shuffled into another warehouse. We're trying to avoid some people."

Moran glanced at Harrison, glaring when she caught his gaze. She was withholding information, which he didn't appreciate given the circumstances. He watched the stacks warily for an ambush, not trusting their guide. For now, however, he let Lorna take the lead. She would fill him in later, whether she liked it or not.

Lorna could practically feel Moran's hostility boring through the back of her head, but she refused to stiffen up, trying to keep the air between herself and Anton relatively relaxed. She'd known him years ago, when she'd been a mule and been hooked on the stuff, and when she'd escaped - taking out a few aggressive coworkers in the process - he had simply let her go. He had watched her walked out the door, and hadn't spoken a word. That put him in her good books.

They walked down a few more rows and then Anton led them to a right, into a sudden clearing within the shelves, where a few mattresses were shoved up against the sides and a table was sat in the middle, where two men and a woman were playing a game of cards. The woman Lorna had never seen before in her life, but she vaguely recognized the other two. And, by the looks on their faces when they looked up, they recognized her, too. "Hey, what the fuck are you doing back here? You stupid or something?" The nearest one heckled, dropping his cards on the table.

Anton stepped forward. "They have money, Hiram. Relax."

Hiram stood, and Moran took a slow breath, ready for anything.

"I don't care if they have money. I don't want her fucking money. Not after what that bitch did. I wouldn't touch it." He spat. "I don't need no money. Could do with a bit of fucking her up, though. Fair's only fair, innit?"

She didn't take a step back, but she did tense up, grinding her teeth until it hurt to keep herself steady. "If you'd all let me out when I wanted out, shit wouldn't have gone down that way," Harrison said slowly, her eyes fixed on Hiram but monitoring any movement from the other two. Would Anton back her up if it came to blows? Moran probably would, out of principle, but she wasn't sure that was enough. Then she gave it just a bit more thought and realized that was a stupid thing to think. "I only did what he did to me. What you let him do. Fair's only fair, right?"

Hiram looked disgruntled at her reversal of his logic, but didn't back down. "You clean? You look clean. Always a shame to see a wild mule. I bet all it'd take is a hit to have you begging again." He smirked proudly, stepping forward, slipping on a set of brass knuckles from his pocket. "I'll even let you suck my cock again."

"Fuck off," she hissed, absolute disgust becoming clear on her face. If she was being completely rational, it might have been a better idea to play the docile and harmless card, even if she had nearly come close to overdosing them. They didn't know about the murder skills she'd picked up since. Then again... "You fucking think I'm unarmed? Take a step closer, I dare you," Lorna snarled, this time nearly completely bluffing. She'd tossed the knife she'd used in the alley. Moran was the one who was armed. "I'll put a bullet through your idiot brain. Maybe someone else here will be a little more reasonable."

"That's enough, from both of you," Anton said, voice quiet but firm. "Harrison, you're a guest here. Act like it. Hiram, if you don't want to take pay, that's fine. But you know what happens to employees who botch a job."

Hiram growled, teeth bared, but glanced at Anton and didn't advance any further, waiting on Lorna.

She bit the inside of her cheek and broke eye contact, stifling the urge to swear. There were a few people in this world that she didn't cross if she was in a right state of mind, and two of them were occupying the room now. She cleared her throat, looking up at Anton and giving a curt nod. "Apologies."

The woman at the table tossed the cards in her hands down with a sigh, heaving herself up from her chair. "Sit down, Hiram. If you're gonna be a bitch about it I'll fuckin' do it. What you guys need, then?"

"Somewhere to lay low for a while," Moran said, meeting the woman's gaze steadily. "And food that doesn't involve us going street-side."

Hiram sat, grumbling, and reached across to get a look at the woman's cards while her back was turned.

The woman kicked out the leg of Hiram's chair without looking, bearing the air of someone who had been dealing with such cheaters since the day she'd first picked up a deck. "We can do that," she nodded curtly, glancing over at Anton, who nodded too.

"You two can stay here tonight. We don't have any shipments coming in, so the place should be locked down. Hiram - no, Jacob, go get the usual foodstuffs, alright?" he raised his eyebrows, and the other man at the table, who'd remained silent so far - now that Lorna thought about it she thought she remembered something about him being mute - gave Anton a thumbs up and got up from the table, gathered up his coat, and disappeared into the racks. The Russian turned his attention back to Lorna. "You're in luck, you know. He's not supposed to be back until tomorrow or the next day. You can sleep easy tonight. Come, I'll get you settled," he beckoned with a wave of his hand and then led them in the opposite direction of the door, towards the backroom/converted den. Lorna felt the back of her neck prickling with apprehension. The instant she was alone with Moran she was going to have to spill a lot of beans.

Moran nodded and followed the man down a hallway and into another storage room. A few boxes moved revealed a trap door, and he let their guide drop through first before following, hackles raised until he made sure the room- a sparsely furnished bunker with two doors, one open to reveal a bathroom, the other steel and barred shut from the inside- was clear.

"Thanks, Anton," Lorna said quietly, taking in the state of the place. It hadn't changed much since she'd last been in here. Maybe it was even a little cleaner. Now she remembered why she'd been certain this was a good idea.

"Don't worry about it, Harrison. We'll save the money talk for when you leave, yes?" he raised an eyebrow, and she realized that meant he trusted her enough to not have been lying about the money. She appreciated that.

"Yeah, okay," she agreed, letting out a long breath and watching as he gave her a curt nod and then pulled himself back up out of the room and shut the trapdoor above them. She took a deep breath. Better that she did before Moran had a hand around her neck.

"You have one minute to give a very good explanation for the shit we just walked into," Sebastian growled as soon as the door shut. "Because if anyone else had pulled a stunt like that, I'd've shot them before Hiram up there was finished reminiscing about skin whistle. Still wondering why the fuck I didn't." His body was relaxed, but he stood tall and his eyes were dark with anger.

She rubbed the back of her neck, taking a second to try and figure out how to begin, then glanced back up at him, looking pained. "When I asked what dirt you had on me you hit on this. Ryan DeWitt. Before I met him I was just a drug mule, like everyone out there, and after him I was doing this. The reason I've been as terrified of the Boss from day one as I am is because of him," she breathed, raking her hand through her hair. "He played the same kind of games, but he made them personal. When I tried to leave the first time he got me hooked on fucking heroin. So the next time, I did the same to him. And anyone else who'd gotten in my way the last time." She was starting to desperately wish she had a pack of cigarettes on her, because her hands were starting to shake. "But this was the only option. This is the safest place. You'll be fine, they've heard of you, you saw Anton's face. I didn't.. I didn't put you at risk, okay?"

"Is this still Dewitt's crew?" he asked, tone revealing nothing, eyes closing off as he waited for her response, fingers still curling to brush the knife in his sleeve.

"Yes," she replied, curling and uncurling her fists to try and relieve some of the tension building in her shoulders, her eyes somewhere between their feet. "...Technically. This is more.. his division. One of the crews. He runs the European operation." Her eyes flicked over to the door. "If he's not back tomorrow, I was planning on leaving before he had a chance to come back. That leads to the river. It's a good bolthole."

He nods curtly. "So not only did you walk into a blind gamble that endangered both of us without letting me in on it, but we're still gambling, is that about right?" he asks, nostrils flared. "Did it occur to you that we don't need any more enemies at the moment? Even if you leave, his crew is still going to tell him you were here, and now we've got two crews looking for us, one above ground, one below. We'll become fucking pariahs except with Jim's crew, which is exactly where Holmes will be looking for us. You fucking idiot."

She was cringing before he'd even gotten to the end of his spiel, her face paling slightly. "You're right, I fucked this up," she managed, her stomach turning over unhappily as she considered the fix. "So.. so you'll leave, then. I'll stay. They won't give a shit about finding you, and if I get killed then they've done your job for you, right?"

He nodded. "You're right. That is exactly how we should handle this situation," he agreed, holding her gaze as he tried to convince himself to do just that. But he wouldn't, and he knew it, so he quickly added sarcasm to cover the lapse. "I'm sure Jim will be fucking thrilled to hear that some pint-sized drug shuffler bounced one of his uppers. That won't spot our reputation at all." Good. That was a believable excuse.

She managed to look at him for more than a few seconds, unable to hide her disbelief. Quickly she realized that he was keeping her out a situation that she'd kill to stay out of, so she wiped the disbelief from her face and managed an expression that didn't say 'who are you and what have you done with Moran' quite as loudly. "I.. Okay. Are you... sure? I really didn't expect an argument, to be completely honest."

"Yes, well, as we've already seen today, your ability to judge the consequences of your actions is evidently fucking impaired, so why don't you stop arguing and let me do the thinking?" He wouldn't leave another person to die slowly. Anyone else, he wouldn't give a shit, but this was Harrison. And his mind wasn't in a strong enough place to do it.

She immediately took his advice and shut up, turning sharply and heading for the beaten-up old desk in the corner - the only furniture in the room besides a few mattresses on the floor and a single stool under the trap door - where she began going through all the drawers. After a minute of feverish searching she found what she was looking for and sat down on the desk, already tapping a cigarette out of the box and trying to get the lighter to work with a shaking hand. "Shit. I really fucked up," she whispered, finally managing to get the thing lit and taking a harsh drag. "Fuck, though, you should have seen the other place..."

"We could have gone somewhere no one knew us, Harrison," he snarled, half tempted to walk over and put out the cigarette on her arm, but deciding that he'd rather deal with the smoke than with her jumping and shivering like a spooked rabbit. "That's what fucking money is for!"

She didn't bother trying to argue that finding a guaranteed place to stay without having connections there to begin with was a little much to ask, deciding that he'd probably had enough of her for a while and just concentrated on getting the fag down to the filter as quickly as she could. When he wanted something from her he'd say something. Until then, she took stock of the place, noting any changes that could potentially impact a fight. Not something she normally occupied herself with, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

He walked over to sit on one of the mattresses, pulling out his knife in the blink of an eye and skewering a rat that scuttled out before it could go more than a foot, watching it twitch around the blade, before he lifted it on the knife and flicked it off. It landed with a thud in the far corner, spattering a bit of blood and still convulsing slightly.

She couldn't help herself. "We have to sleep in here, you know. Possibly for more than one day. I'd make a quip about you losing your sense of smell but I really don't want to piss you off more than I already have," she muttered, stubbing out her cigarette on the ash tray sitting on the desk and sighing wearily. She lifted a hand to rub at her eyes. "How do I make this better, Moran?"

"You can stop complaining. I'd rather smell it rotting than smell its shit and let it bite me while I sleep," he growled, shutting his eyes and leaning back against the wall.

She knew he was right and decided that the best way to calm him was to just shut up again, sliding off the desk to begin going through the drawers again, this time with a little less desperation and a little more curiosity. Ten minutes later she'd taken the inventory - nothing exciting, although there was quite a few needles if she needed a weapon in a bind - and flinched slightly as the trapdoor opened above them, Jacob leaning in on his stomach to precariously drop a paper bag onto the stool below. Then he gave a wave and disappeared again, the room returning to its dimmer state. The smell of fish and chips wafted over to her.

He stood and walked over to pick up one of the takeout boxes and a bottle of water, leaving the others in the box on the floor and returning to his spot on the mattress, ignoring Lorna for the time being as he dug into his food.

She waited for him to sit before she got up to get her own, moving to sit on the floor with her back against the dish as she flicked open the little styrofoam box and immediately wolfing it down. She was pretty sure that it came from the same place Moran had taken her to on Jim's checking account a few months ago. Which meant it was the same place where she'd met Ryan. She paused eating and took a drink, trying to fight down sudden nausea. She had to remind herself it could have been worse. "You're a light sleeper, right?"

He nodded shortly. "By necessity. Yes." He started mopping up the grease from his fish with the chips.

Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling. "You think if you hear that tonight you'll wake up?"

He nodded again, without hesitation. "Absolutely." He didn't like the idea of sleeping in here anyway. It was too enclosed.

"Good," she muttered, returning to eating again. She had a strong suspicion that good old Hiram upstairs would have a lapse of self-control during the night, and she didn't want to find out what he was capable of. After a moment she set down her half-eaten food and stood, heading for the bathroom. "I'm going to shower. You can have the rest of my food, I don't want it."

He didn't respond, just continued to clear up his own box, though once she closed the door he stood and retrieved the food. He tossed both back in the bag they'd come in, along with the rat, and tied it shut tightly.

Lorna returned ten minutes later looking the same except for her wet hair, which had managed to alarm her once again as it bled dye, and sat back down in her corner, her back hitting the desk with a thump. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the room. She'd been in here many times. Half the time she'd been high, half the time she'd been desperately trying to get a hit off of someone else. Hell, if she hadn't been hooked on the stuff, she didn't know if she'd ever have become a grifter. This place had been good practice, even if it had been miserable. She sighed. "By the way, there's a shitload of needles in the desk," she said quietly. "In a pinch they could be useful. If I try to take one when we're not in a pinch break my wrist."

He smirked just slightly at that. "Gladly. Are they loaded or empty?" He wanted to know what he was dealing with. He'd had enough problems with being in the dark today.

"Empty. Keeping heroin in a syringe is just asking for a bunch of bacteria to be shot into your bloodstream," she shrugged. "Anyway, I think they're just for customers. Easier to get someone hooked if you have all the necessary things to help them along," She snorted, smirking. "I didn't cook up a fresh batch for anybody when I left, though. I wonder how many of them got sick."

He sighed, shaking his head a bit. "You know, for a junky you had a sick sense of humor." He glanced over at the drawer, before walking over and pulling it open, glancing over the needles and nodding. "Just making sure. No offense."

"I'd been through some pretty sick shit," she snorted, glancing up at him with mild amusement as he got up. "None taken. I did give you express permission to break my wrist if I got any ideas in my head. I don't need to go down that road again. I didn't even want to the first time."

He nodded slightly. "Don't need you having one more mark against you. You're already toying with life if Jim finds out about this." He returned to his mattress, lying down.

"Yeah, you're right," she sighed, combing through her wet hair with her fingers before getting up and walking over to the bag that had been acting as their suitcase, unzipping it and rifling through to pull out a few warmer clothes. "I suggest you put on another layer before you try to sleep. It gets cold down here, especially now that it's winter."

He nodded. "If you can sleep with one of the vests on, do," he said quietly, nodding. "Just in case."

"I can sleep in anything. Good idea," she replied, tugging out one as soon as she had a coat tucked under her arm. It wasn't even that late, but there wasn't anything to do here, and the more sleep she had, the better off she'd be.

"Toss that this way when you're done," he grunted. "I'll do the same."

She did as asked, tossing it to the foot of his mattress and then slipping the vest on (more like buckling it on, it was huge on her) and the coat on over top. The mattresses didn't look exactly clean, either, but it had never bothered her before. Now she was spoiled, all used to clean sheets and a distinct lack of the scent of stale piss. "I guess I'll try to sleep now. If some shit happens later I don't want to be half dead," she muttered, flopping down onto her mattress and staring up at the ceiling for a moment before sighing and shutting her eyes. As much as she wanted to stay awake, it wasn't a good plan.

He waited until she was asleep, and as soon as she was, he slumped forward into a heap of exhaustion. He dragged himself through the motions of pulling on the vest and a jacket, then slumped sideways on the mattress, not even bothering to pull his feet onto it before he was asleep.

When she woke again, in the dark, she wasn't sure for a moment why she had. That moment was quickly shattered as she realized that the pitch black in front of her was man-shaped, and she'd just sucked in a breath of air to shout when his hand clamped over her mouth, another grabbing her by the arm and dragging her half off the mattress. There were a few seconds where he struggled to keep her still and she got in a good jab with her elbow, and then she was kicking out at Moran's mattress, finally remembering to try and shout again, despite how muffled it was. As soon Hiram realized her goal, he released her arm and suddenly there was a sharp pain in her side.

His mattress jostled, and there was scuffling.

It was instinct that propelled him out of the bed, identified the smaller of the struggling parties as Harrison, and drove the knife into the other figure without question. Instinct that shoved the howling body down and muffled it, instinct that pulled the knife free and buried it once more beneath the rib cage, up, hard.

He woke over a twitching, bleeding body, and twisted the knife. The twitching stopped.

Lorna lay on the floor for a moment, just getting her breath back, and then she sat up with a grunt and yanked off the coat and the vest and tentatively touched her side, hissing. "He got me," she grumbled, sparing an irritated glance behind her at the corpse and then returning her attention to her side, pressing her hand over the shallow wound. "Not bad. Don't need stitches, the vest stopped most of it. Christ. Thanks."

"No problem," he grunted, wiping his blade off on Hiram's body before standing to turn on the light and walking over to take a look at the wound. "Let me see," he said gruffly.

She peeled her shirt up enough to show him the bleeding mark just about her hip, making a face down at it. It would probably heal in a few days, if given proper rest, but knowing the situation they were in, it would probably take a week and a half, during which she'd be in just enough pain during a fight to be good motivation. "What the fuck was he going to do, dragging me out of bed like that? If he'd just slit my throat while I was asleep that would have been that. Sick bastard," she spat."

"My guess would be he wanted to get a little revenge and one of your famous blowjobs before he killed you," he spat, prodding the wound with professional but not gentle fingers.

She flinched slightly as he gave a particularly uncomfortable jab, and made herself feel better by spitting on her attacker's corpse. "I figured, I'm just trying to make sense of how stupid he was," she growled, only now starting to feel the adrenaline that had been flushed into her system. "Men always forget about the teeth."

He sat back, wiping the blood off his hands on Hiram's trousers. "You'll live. I'll climb up and ask for a first aid kit while you figure out how to explain dead Hiram here."

"What is there to explain, really?" she sighed, moving over to awkwardly pull off the jacket Hiram was wearing to wad into a ball and hold against her wound. At least with Hiram dead there was no one left in the warehouse who actively loathed her. She watched him lift himself out of the room and then sat heavily on her mattress, leaning her head against the wall and shutting her eyes. What a shitty day.

Moran dropped down a few minutes later. "No one's up there but I found a kit... But there's some commotion in the next room. I think we need to get moving."

She immediately got up, looking nervous. "What kind of commotion? The kind of commotion that will wait for me to stick a band-aid on this or the kind of commotion where we take the kit with us?"

"I don't know. I didn't loo-"

The trap door opened, and a smooth, snide voice called down. "Harrison... I wouldn't bolt if I were you, I've got men on the tunnel exit. Big men, bigger guns. It's so nice that you're here, wouldn't want you leaving too early..."

All the blood drained out of her face, her eyes flicking to Moran on instinct, like somehow this was in his power to stop. Dewitt's voice was still the same, still raised the hair on the back of her neck, still made her feel like a young girl out of her depth again. He wasn't supposed to be back this early. She cleared her throat, trying to get a hold of herself. If she'd survived Jim, she could survive Ryan. "Back so early? I hope your trip went well," she replied, her voice admirably steady.

Moran stiffened, immediately identifying the voice by the way Lorna's face drained. His nostrils flared, and he bent to pick up the knife.

"You've got a visitor, by the way. I know you didn't want to be found, but I always make exceptions for relatives."

She muttered a swear under her breath, something involved 'Eric' and 'bloody' and 'bastard'. "I don't suppose it's too late to send him away?" she asked, pressing hard onto her stab wound, hoping that she could at least get it to clot up a bit before she was required to punch somebody in the throat.

"No, I'm thinking not, Lorna," came a different voice.

Moran glanced at Harrison, eyes flashing, and he hissed "What the hell, Harrison? "

She didn't answer him, already turning for the bag and quietly rummaging through it, speaking loudly over her shoulder to make sure that there was no difference in the sound. "Eric. Don't do this. You think there won't be retaliation from my network?" she challenged, finally grabbing a handgun and keeping it by her side. She couldn't cock it yet, not when they could hear.

Moran reached into his jacket and pulled his own gun out of its shoulder holster.

"Of course there will be," the voice returned. "But this is retaliation in and of itself. You didn't think I'd find out it was your organization that put that hit out?"

"Ooo... Lorna, sounds like you've been naughty."

"Of course I've been naughty , Ryan, I sleep with people for information," she snapped, hand tightening slightly on her sidearm. "I would have thought you would guess that, considering you got me into it. And for fuck's sake, Eric, you're smarter than this. You don't do this stuff for a living. This is an odd job. You're white collar crime, little brother, and the people I work with kill people like you on a day-to-day basis," she snarled, hoping that anger alone would keep either of them from trying to enter the room. It wasn't very defensible except for the fact that the steel door leading to the river was bolted on the inside and the only entrance was the trap door. Overhead, she heard Anton say something that got lost before it clearly reached her ears, and she shifted uncomfortably.

"Don't make this any more difficult on either of us, Lorna," Eric said tersely, and a foot appeared in the hole before he dropped down completely, gun already raised. He seemed surprised to see two guns pointing back at him, and Moran had to resist rolling his eyes. Amateur.

He didn't falter, though, keeping his gun trained on Lorna. "Put your gun down. Your friend too."

She didn't move, cussing herself out in her head as she realized she'd taken off the vest to attend to her cut. Eric, however, didn't know Moran was protected. Glancing at the sniper, she slowly started to crouch, making as if to set her gun on the ground. If he made a move, she could get a shot in. It was asking a lot from him, though.

Moran didn't need much more than the glance, he'd been thinking much the same, and took a quick step forward, startling the other man, who swung his gun around. "Don't get cocky," he warned, but Moran kept moving, finger on the trigger.

Come on, Harrison, take the-

The gun went off and he felt the bullet slam into his chest.

With her sweetened breath, and her tongue so mean
She's the angel of small death and the codeine scene

- Hozier - Angel of Small Death & the Codeine Scene -