48. Sugar Honey Iced Tea

Back on Haywood, all hell was breaking loose. As soon as Ranger hung up on Stephanie, he started pulling trackers and locating his men. In Ranger's honest opinion, Stephanie was never cut out for Bond Enforcement. But she had a set of instincts he would never doubt. Tank was standing next to him at the monitors, everyone had been found except Lil's group. The men had already tried calling their phones multiple times, their calls wouldn't go through. Ranger was getting more and more angry, quickly losing his ability to reign in emotion. For some reason, the SUV tracker wasn't responding, neither was Lil's panic button. Someone was jamming their signals. Fuck! Hector burst through the stairwell door and nearly ran Ranger over, he was speaking so quickly no one could understand him. Ranger caught just enough and snatched the small paper out of his Tech's hand. "Search for all of these, Now!" Hal started typing faster than ever before. It was a list of twenty six-digit alpha-numeric sequences. Little blips started appearing on their screen. Most of them were located at their current Haywood address. Finally two tiny dots appeared at a separate location. Hector checked a different paper. "That's pig and chicken, Lil esta there!" Tank and Ranger flew out of the door, his second-in-command dialing Bobby and Lester as they took the stairs two at a time. Hal looked up at Hector from his monitor seat, "You put trackers in ALL her toys?" Hector gave him a serious look. "Si, very strong… Muy illegal. I make myself." Then like smoke, he was gone. Hal pulled out his own phone and dialed Cal.

At the Party Palace, Lil was in a different kind of hell. Morelli and Erikson were determining who was going to deal with Tilde. Apparently vomit was their kryponite. Cripes. Lil wasn't sure how to play any of this. One the one hand, she knew Erikson was no doubt a cold blooded killer. She only knew Morelli by his reputation and their few short meetings. He was drunk, but still serving on the force… Shit. Figuring he was the lesser of two evils, she pulled Tilde's sweater off gently, revealing a mostly clean shirt underneath. "Here Joe, she's not that bad. Just be careful, please don't hurt her." He looked at her with disgust, like how dare she insinuate that he would ever hurt a child?! Tilde, bless her heart, still hadn't made a peep. Her cheeks were covered in tears, her skin an ugly shade of green. Curls were plastered to her forehead and the poor little thing was starting to shake. Shit, think Lil, think. Morelli picked her up, using one arm to keep her contained while the other held his service revolver at his side. Lil looked to Erikson, "Now what?" Erikson's eyes were shifting in and out of focus, it was as if two different yet equally evil personalities were trying to emerge at the same time. "Now I just have to decide if I'm going to kill you first, or play with you AND your little bitch of a daughter, then kill you. His words should have made her more afraid, but the bile he was spewing at her was just infuriating. There was no way in hell he was going to put his hands on Tilde. Not like that, not ever like that.

She saw it only a millisecond before it happened. In slow motion, a few more tears escaped her daughters eyes, she turned a yellower shade of green, then vomited all over Morelli. The inebriated buffoon made a gruesome mistake in that moment. He reached his gun hand back and smacked her with the back of his fist, causing Tilde to scream. Morelli dropped her, not caring how she fell to the ground. Lil was shouting to Tilde, "Roll baby roll, just like Carlos showed you!" As soon as the little one made it a few feet from Morelli, Lil pulled her backup piece and sent two bullets through his forehead. Erikson, who was not expecting Lil to still be armed, kept his forty-five trained on her as he stepped over the dead cop. "Well now, that's one left thing I have to do later. Thank you Ms. Peyton." Funny, he didn't sound very appreciative. Lil realized he was moving to her daughter, who was still curled up in a ball on the floor. Oh God, her poor baby. Just as Lil raised her Colt in Erikson direction he scooped up the girl and held her in front of him. What kind of evil, sick, bastard would use a three year old as a human shield!? "I guess this makes my decision easier. I'll just kill you and take the kid to play with later." Erikson raised his gun a little higher and pulled the trigger. The quick searing pain that tore through Lil's left side was easily overtaken by the pain in her left bicep. Motherfucker! Well, at least it wasn't her good shoulder...

Tilde watched as Lil staggered from the force of the shots at such a close range. Her eyes were like saucers, but she was no longer crying. The brave little girl started kicking her legs and flailing tiny fists. Her head flew backwards, colliding with the bridge of Erikson's nose. His grip loosened, but the gun was still pointing to Lil. Tilde kept thrashing, not making a sound. The world was slowing down for Lil. In many ways, it was the same as the shooting at the Wynn. She stopped feeling the pain, her sole focus on saving a life, no matter what happened to her in the end. She watched, feeling like a detached spectator as Erikson's grip untangled that much more. Her kid was really giving him hell. Oh crap, she was turning green again. In an offhand way, Lil was reminding herself to have Tilde drink more Pedialyte. Geez, her brain was a mess. There was also a significant amount of blood seeping out of her left side. Just as Lil expected, Tilde vomited once more. Erikson dropped her like a hot potato, this time the peanut was more prepared for the fall. Lil aimed and unloaded five rounds into his chest. He was dead before his ass hit the filthy tile floor.

A commotion outside followed by deep orders and hectic shouts alerted Lil to company. One of the many good things about Tank, his voice was unmistakable. Thank Fuck for his timing. They exploded through the bathroom door. Tank picked Tilde up and started checking her over. He didn't give two flying fucks how much vomit she was wearing. Lester and Ranger quickly checked Morelli and Erikson before moving on to sweep the room and help Lil, who had none so gracefully slumped to the floor. "McFly, where's the worst?" Lil shook her head, "Doc, help Tilde. She's been throwing up. Morelli hit her hard and she's been… dropped… twice..." She was fading out of consciousness. Now that she knew Tilde was safe, a nap sounded like a great idea. Bobby instructed Ranger on where to put pressure to staunch most of the blood flow. He tied a make-shift tourniquet around her arm wound. Then, just like the mama bear told him, he went to check on her cub. There was no way in the world he was going to disobey that order. Lil would shoot him in the dick. He just knew it.

Lester had been busy calling the police, the paramedics, and Rangeman. He found Binkie and Slick zip-tied in the storage room. They had both been shot, but only flesh wounds. After slowing them down, Morelli had used a heavy duty stun gun on each and then tied them up, hands and feet. No matter how much of a fight they put up, there's only so much you can do against that much electricity. Two hundred thirty million volts was a bitch. Slick had come too after the first gun shots. Both were awake by the time Erikson was killed. They had no idea who was hurt, if Lil and Tilde had been the victims. Lester had to take both men to the restroom to see the girls for themselves before they would agree to any kind of treatment. Binkie hugged Tilde with a barely contained ferocity while Slick kissed her sweaty forehead. Obviously real men weren't dissuaded by a little kid puke…

Ranger was kneeling over Lil, whispering random things into her ear. There were quite a few 'this won't get you out of our date' comments. Bobby was choosing to ignore him, still trying to keep the bleeding at bay. Where the hell were the paramedics? The local PD arrived seconds before the EMTs. There were way too many people in the ladies room. Bobby told them what he knew while they checked Lil out for more injuries. Ranger hadn't left her side. Tank took Tilde out of the room, Lester, Slick, and Binkie followed. They didn't know how bad Lil was, there was a lot of blood. Officer Pickey was trying to throw his weight around, making accusations the moment he saw Morelli's lifeless body on the floor. His new third-eye was quite macabre. Pickey was shouting to Big Dog and Carl that Lil needed to be cuffed to the gurney before transfer. She had obviously murdered a police officer. The only thing keeping Ranger from shooting him was Lil's pale hand in his.

The paramedics tried to place her on the backboard as gently as possible. Didn't work. The gut wrenching pain of being moved stirred Lil to consciousness with a loud southern Sugar Honey Iced Tea! It was possibly the nicest thing Ranger had ever heard. Her hand squeezed his with more force than he was expecting. "Where's Tilde? Is she still throwing up? There's more Pedialyte in my bag. Where's Binkie and Slick? Son of a motherless Goat! Can you stop moving me about!" The last was directed at the closest EMT. He paled considerably. The look Ranger and Bobby were giving him likely the cause. Hearing that she was awake, Pickey tried to pry his way between the two medics. "Ma'am we need to discuss what happened here. And I need your gun." Lil looked at him like he had five heads. "You're shittin me right? I'm pretty positive some of my squishy bits are trying to come out of the HOLE IN MY SIDE you dumb shit. Excuse me, but I don't feel like talking now." Ranger was trying really hard to not laugh. He settled on stroking her cheek in an effort to calm her down. "It's OK Dulce, just try to rest and we'll be going to the ER any second. Everyone else is fine." Lil gave him a flushed nod and promptly passed out again.

The light was blocked from the bathroom door by two very imposing and pissed off men, Hector and Cal. Cal rushed forward to his sister's side, flooding Bobby and the medics with questions. Damn, Lil looked like shit. Hector stepped around the police officers cataloging the scene and whispered something in Ranger's ear. He opened his hand for the quickest instant before closing his fist. Ranger gave the smaller man an evil smile. Hector smiled in return, walked over to Pickey, and punched him in the throat. It was pretty damn telling when someone like Hector could assault an officer of the law, in front of other officers, and no one even bothered to pull their gun. Either they were that scared of Hector, or they really did hate Pickey that much…

Hector turned his attention to Carl. "Morelli place a jammer on our SUV. Another two in the store. They look much like the jammers Officer Prick confiscated from the Slayers last month… The illegal ones…" Carl blanched, those were supposed to be locked up in evidence. Well shit. "Lil wear earrings with tracker and panic button. They record when she press. Here," he handed Carl a USB drive, "This all you need to know what happen here. I have original at Rangeman." Cal lifted his head from Lil's face, "I suggest you slap some cuffs on Pickey there, or you're gonna have another body in about thirty seconds..." Who knew Big Dog could move that fast?