In the morning, Courtney finds about a finger's worth of Al' favorite scotch in Harold's flask. She drinks it for breakfast before bundling up and getting in the car with Duncan for their robbery. Al stays behind to look after Heather and Harold. Courtney drives steadily, keeping in mind Duncan and Harold's lessons. Duncan stares out the passenger window and reassures them both that he's done this a hundred times.
"This was how it used to be," he says, glancing down to check his bullets for the tenth time. "Just two of us, me and Al, putting food on the stove for Ma and Gwen. One to drive, one to rob." He closes the gun with a click. "Of course, there was more to steal back then," he grumbles.
Courtney pulls up to the intended gas station and politely declines the attendant's help as he comes around the corner and walks over to start gassing the car.
"We're just here for some cigarettes," she tells him as Duncan gets out and goes into the store.
The attendant nods, shivering, and returns to where he'd been waiting. Somewhere warm, most likely. Courtney stays seated at attention, keeping the car running for warmth. Without any pearls to distract herself but with plenty of experience under her belt this time, she waits for Duncan to run out with whatever he can carry.
A crash resounds from inside and Courtney cringes.
The gas attendant looks out around the corner of the building, startled, and jogs over to Courtney.
"Are you alright, ma'am?"
"Yes," Courtney says, "actually, maybe the car does need a wash, if you wouldn't mind…"
"Sit tight," he says, looking between her and the store. "I'm going to go check out what—"
Courtney pulls her pistol on him.
"How about we both sit tight and wait to see how this all turns out?" she suggests.
The attendant stares at her and at the gun but doesn't get a word out before Duncan comes running out, arms empty. He clocks the attendant over the back of the head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out, before jumping into the passenger seat. Courtney peels off.
"Four dollars!" Duncan shouts. "Four fucking dollars! Two weeks of scoping and plannin' and four measly bucks!"
"Groceries?" Courtney asks, taking the turn they practiced and shifting the appropriate gears.
"He had a buddy. Was keeping him company for extra security," Duncan swears, kicking the glove compartment. "Fucking dropped everything on the way out, fuck!"
Without taking her eyes off the road, Courtney sighs. "So no alcohol?"
"No, of course no fucking alcohol, Courtney!" he snaps. "Yer the one who needs that shit so fucking bad, you go down next time and get it yerself!"
Courtney sighs again, then pulls the car off the side of the road.
"What the fuck are ya doing?" Duncan demands.
With a flawlessly calm expression, Courtney turns to him and says, "If you want to be angry, by all means go ahead. But do it outside of the car. Take it out on Mother Nature, not on me." She pulls out one of her last cigarettes. "Don't worry. I'll wait here for you."
"Are you serious?" Duncan yells at her. "Are ya out of yer—!"
Courtney doesn't flinch. She points out his window. "Outside."
Duncan looks like he might explode. But something in her logic seems to reach him because he shifts himself from kicking the glove compartment to kicking open the door. He disappears swearing and shouting into the woods. As Courtney smokes and fights down the nausea that's already building up in her throat, she hears Duncan tearing trees apart and swinging something around. She finishes her cigarette and hugs her legs to keep warm. She starts to regret letting him out of the car with how cold it is and how badly she wants to get back to their hideout and a fire.
Finally Duncan trudges back to the Ford. His knuckles and palms are scratched and bloody, and he's sweating from exertion. But the muscles in his shoulders and neck are looser. He isn't gripping his coat quite as violently.
When he sits back down in the passenger seat, he rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands, streaking warm blood across his face.
"Four dollars," he says simply, his tone defeated. "Four dollars, Courtney."
She puts the car back in drive and keeps on down the road without a word.
"We can't keep doing this," Duncan mutters. "There's no use living heist to heist like this. Everyone's sick, and we ain't…"
He slumps in his seat. He grabs a handful of his own hair and shakes it out some snow that had fallen in it. Courtney watches him from the corner of her eye.
"It's not your fault," she says. "Al told me… Well, he said Heather helps pick our targets. And she's been out sick, so it's not your fault or Al's. It's bad luck."
Duncan shakes his head.
They drive in silence.
"We'll find another grocery store," Courtney says. "I'll help you scope it out. Maybe you just need a woman's touch."
Duncan shakes his head again. Courtney doesn't say anymore. She drives them through the complicated route he'd planned out, even though it's very obvious no one's following them. This is normal now, the silence between her and Duncan when they aren't shouting.
An hour and a half later, they get back to the house. Courtney backs the car into the garage in two attempts and only knicks the left side. When Duncan doesn't move to get out, she cranks down the garage door herself, sealing out the cold.
"I'll get a fire started," she says when Duncan still doesn't move. "A small one. I know we can't risk the smoke." She pats his door absentmindedly, then heads for the house. "I'll send Al tomorrow to get some groceries with our four dollars."
"It ain't just the four dollars."
Courtney turns back as Duncan pushes the car door open. He shuffles to a carpenter's table at the back of the garage and turns on a bare overhead lamp. He signals her over.
As she gets closer, Duncan pulls a balled up piece of paper from his coat.
"Ya can't tell the others," he says, as he smooths the paper out on the table. "Not yet."
The first thing Courtney sees are the mug shots of Duncan and Al, facing sideways and facing forwards. Then the words on top of the page.
WANTED FOR MURDER. $600.00 REWARD. JOPLIN MISSOURI.
The rest of the poster has the boys' full names, their ages, heights, and hair colors. A description of how dangerous they both are, a warning to those who approached them, and information on the kind of cars they preferred and were last seen. And at the very, very bottom:
"They were accompanied by two young women who lived with them in the apartment where the shooting occurred."
The poster is accredited to the Joplin Police Department, but Courtney has a feeling she knows who really wrote it. She leans back against the trunk of the car.
"Six hundred dollars," she whispers.
"Two hundred from each Joplin, Jasper, and Newton," Duncan explains, rereading the document. "The three departments with dead coppers at the end of the night."
Courtney says, "We need to get out of here."
"We can't," Duncan says simply. "Heather and Harold can't be moved yet."
"We can toss them in the car," Courtney quips.
Duncan glares at her. "This is exactly why I wasn't gonna tell nobody."
"You should," Courtney insists. "There are a lot of desperate people out there, Duncan, and six hundred dollars… Goddamn, that's as much as we made in Tulsa."
"We gotta keep our heads," Duncan hisses, folding up the wanted poster more neatly and tucking it into his coat pocket again. "None of ya are any good to me panicked, sick, or dead."
"What if they followed us from the gas station," Courtney says, suddenly shaking. "They had the poster, they saw you walk in. What if they called the coppers? What if they—"
Duncan grabs her by the shoulders.
"No one followed nobody, ya hear? We are safe here till I say so. Clear?"
Courtney feels her nausea starting to rise again. Duncan takes a good look at her.
"Jesus fuck," he mutters.
Duncan pulls her aside and opens the trunk of the car. With the tip of the car keys, he lifts a cut-out piece of fabric and puts his arm in up to his elbow. He pulls out a pistol and a half-full bottle of Al's favorite scotch. Courtney reaches for it but Duncan holds it away.
"Two drinks. Only two," he says firmly. Courtney nods. Duncan hands her the bottle and she takes three.
"Better?" Duncan says, pulling the bottle away and putting it back in the secret compartment with the pistol.
The nausea recedes, along with the shakes and the paranoia. Courtney swallows hard and nods.
"What are we going to do?" she asks evenly.
"I don't know," Duncan says, leaning up against the carpenter's desk opposite her. Then, "What do you think we should do?"
She tilts her head. "You want to know?"
"Yeah," he mutters. "Guess I'm willing to bet on a 'woman's touch' after all."
Eyeing the tip of the wanted poster sticking out from Duncan's pocket, she thinks for a long minute.
"I think we should try jewelry."
By the way Duncan's tenses, it's not the answer he wanted.
"We ain't doing jewelry," he says, in the same tone of voice he'd been using to argue with Al.
"You asked me what I thought we should do, and I told you," she says.
"Ya already know all the reasons why it's a bad idea," he says.
"I do. I also know that we can't keep living off five dollar heists when we've got six hundred dollars on our heads, and the next farmboy who orders the newspaper can give Captain Hamer a call and have us thrown in the big house."
Duncan opens his mouth, then shuts it.
"I'll take responsibility for it, if anything happens," Courtney says boldly. "We talked you into it, after all. Me and Al."
"Ya can't do that," Duncan says.
"I have no problem doing it."
"No, ya can't do that." Duncan's eyes have gone hard. "Ya'll are my responsibility. That's what I signed up for. I stick to that."
"Everyone? Even Al and Heather?"
He looks strained when he says, "Especially Al and Heather."
Silence returns, and the garage creaks around them in the wind.
"Well, then, that's it," Courtney says. "That's what I think."
Duncan chews his lip. He sighs a breath of steam into his hands, then turns to shut off the light over the workbench.
"Not sure we have much more left we can lose," he acquiesces. He pats his hands down on his pants then cracks his knuckles. "We'll need heavier ammunition and a whole lot more of it. Extra equipment for getting in and out. The works. We can start planning soon as Heather is up."
Courtney looks down at her hands, half numb in the cold. She pulls off her left glove, then pulls off her wedding ring.
"Here," she says, holding it out to Duncan. "Maybe you can fence it. Get us a little extra money for food."
Duncan looks it over. He reaches for her hand and closes her fingers over the ring.
"We're going to need all the luck we can get on this one, doll," he says seriously.
"I think its luck is all run out."
Duncan keeps his hand closed over hers.
"Maybe we'll pick up a nice ring at the jewelry store," he offers tentatively. "A luckier one. Something with diamonds. Not an engagement ring," he's quick to add. "Just a gift. For my best girl."
He takes the ring and gently slides it back on her finger.
"Yeah," she says, as his hands linger over hers. "Okay."
A few more days pass and Duncan keeps the wanted poster in his jacket pocket at all times, as if it was a deed. The snow and cold refuse to relent, and they make Courtney's cramps significantly worse when her monthly visitor arrives. She shudders in bed and tries to get out of her curled position back-to-back with Duncan. It takes a few moments as the darkness disorients her. She feels her way to the bathroom.
The moment she's sitting upright on the john her stomach clenches in pain. She blinks against the dim lightbulb as another pain wracks her stomach, leaving her doubled over. She prays the pain is all due to menstruation and that she didn't catch a variant of what Heather and Harold have.
She clenches her teeth to keep them from rattling, her skin covered in goosepimples. Courtney hunches over again as the pain makes her swallow down a scream.
With the next wave of pain, the cramps subside, leaving her exhausted. She pulls open the cabinet hoping for painkillers. There aren't any. She needs a drink. Standing on shaky legs, Courtney pulls up her undergarments and moves to flush when she pauses.
There's nothing but blood in the toilet.
A knock comes at the door.
"I'm fine," she says quickly.
"Well that's great," she hears Heather rasp from the other side. "Let me in to pee before I piss on all your clothes."
Courtney opens the door, staring at the Asian woman. She hasn't seen her out of bed in close to two weeks. Heather, wearing her winter coat indoors, tries to brush past to the toilet but Courtney stops her with shaking hands.
"Should you be out of bed? You still look—"
"Like the bride of the grim reaper? Yeah, enough makeup should take care of that," Heather says with a roll of her eyes. "Move over," she demands, but Courtney blocks her.
"You can't."
"Why?"
"I… I don't know," Courtney whispers, looking to the toilet bowl.
Heather catches her look, and with surprising strength, shoves past her to the stares down for a long moment.
"Bad luck," she says.
Courtney touches her stomach for a moment and swallows thickly, looking at the toilet. She expects Heather to snap at her to flush so she could pee, but to her surprise the woman says nothing.
"Nothing's for sure," Courtney says finally.
"No. Nothing's for sure," Heather agrees. "Could have been just a nasty cycle. I have those sometimes."
Courtney nods and flushes, pulling the handle quickly and turning away.
"I need a drink," she says firmly, moving to wash her hands, scrubbing extra hard with the soap.
"Don't we all," Heather says. "Al refuses to let me touch the stuff until I ain't coughing out one of my lungs."
Courtney turns off the sink, blood pulsing in her ears. She walks to the door and stops.
"Don't tell anyone," she begs. "Not Al. Not...especially not Duncan. Please."
Heather closes the bathroom door.
"Yeah," she says. "Sure."
Courtney leaves the bathroom without another word, going to the kitchen and quickly opening a cheap beer. After finishing the bottle, she puts on her coat and steps outside for some air. She'd smoke, but they were rationing the last of their cigarettes. She'd smoked her allotted half-pack already.
In the light snow, Courtney breathes deeply and imagines that the cold air in her lungs is smoothing her insides. She isn't stupid. Starting a family here and now would be ludicrous. She certainly hadn't changed her mind about wanting kids, either.
And yet...
"It'll be okay," she says under her breath. She hugs herself tightly and fights down her nausea. "I'll be okay."
Courtney says it to herself over and over until her jaw locks from the cold. Then she walks back inside and downs another beer before going back to bed.
In the morning, she sneezes three times in a row, waking Duncan. He blinks a suspicious eye open at her.
"Don't worry," she says, stretching in bed, grateful that the cramping is mostly gone. "It's just the sniffles."
"Ya haven't been close to Harold and Heath, have ya?"
"No. I couldn't sleep last night. I went out in the snow."
Duncan turns and wraps an arm around her stomach. He kisses behind her ear. It settles the aching. At least, most of it.
Author's Note: Wow. So 2017 was also a shit year. What are the fucking odds.
I had to deal with four huge moves last year. Four. Two of which were within three months of each other due to an unfair eviction.
Really, really, really, I do plan to finish this. Little by little, even if it's one update a year. I hope it's not one update per year, but sometimes that's just the hand you're dealt.
This is the second of three chapters I've had written since I stopped updating regularly in 2015. Wish me luck getting back on the horse :)