The loud knock at the door made Bayley jump as she zipped up the travel case that she had just finished packing. She wondered who could possibly be knocking on their door, immediately regretting the fact that she and Becky hadn't been able to resist each other when they'd returned to the room after their shopping trip. If they hadn't had sex again, they would have been on the road by now.
"Police! Open the door!" a man's voice called out loudly.
Bayley felt her blood run cold as Becky turned to her, eyes wide in surprise. But then it occurred to Bayley that there was no reason to panic. It wasn't as if she had Becky handcuffed and taped on the bed anymore. "Tell them we ran away together or something," she whispered to Becky, totally confident that she could trust her, as she walked over to open the door. There was no point in ignoring the request to open it; the cops would just kick it in anyway, and then things would be infinitely worse by default.
Opening the door, Bayley found herself confronted by two police officers, a muscled up man and a very attractive woman who definitely didn't look like police officer material. Appearances could be deceptive though. No one knew that more that Bayley, who had used the fact to her advantage many times as a thief. "Can I help you, officers?" she asked.
"Step aside, please," the man ordered, seeing Becky lingering in the background. "Are you Becky Lynch?"
That was when things started to happen in slow motion. Bayley noticed a black car pull up in the lot, right in front of their room. The young policewoman noticed it too, and turned around to see what was going on, taking out her gun, presumably as some kind of defensive instinct kicked in. Then Bayley saw who was in the passenger seat of the car. It was Charlotte, and she was raising a gun of her own.
"Gun!" Nikki called out, getting single round off at the exact same moment that Charlotte also fired. Nikki took the bullet right in the middle of her forehead, killing her instantly and showering Bayley with blood, brain matter and skull fragments. However, Nikki's bullet also found its target, hitting Charlotte in the throat, condemning her to a much slower, much more bloody and painful death.
"Get down! And stay down!" Cena screamed, shoving Bayley into the room and taking cover just inside the door frame, gun out at the ready.
As Bayley hit the floor and crawled over to the window, repulsed at being covered in someone else's blood and brains, she was glad to see that Becky had already laid down flat on the other side of the bed where no bullets from outside could possibly hit her. She saw that the unfortunately policewoman's gun had ended up bouncing over towards where Becky was when her lifeless body had fallen back into the room. Bayley saw Becky's hand reach out and snatch up the gun. Good. At least she had a way to defend herself if it came to that.
Cena assessed the situation as he risked a glance around the door frame. Nikki had valiantly taken out the first shooter, at the cost of her own life. The driver of the black car, another woman, had bailed out and taken cover behind the hood. Spotting him, she took a pot shot which hit the brickwork at the side of the door as Cena ducked back out of the way.
Bayley knew that the best thing she could do right now was stay down, out of sight and let the cop handle the situation. There was little alternative, given the fact that she didn't have a weapon. She heard the cop get on his radio and give his location and report that he was under fire, followed by, "Officer down! I need backup, right the hell now!"
Another shot rang out from outside and a bullet thudded into the motel room's door. Cena pivoted around the frame and got off a shot of his own, missing the blonde woman he was aiming at as she ducked out of the way behind the car.
Trying not to panic, Bayley cowered down beneath the window. She didn't even know what she wanted to happen at this point, thinking that it might actually be for the best if more cops showed up and arrested them. Better that than Ronda somehow getting into the room and killing both her and Becky. That prospect became a lot more likely only a few seconds later when Cena pivoted around the door frame again and fired his gun. Bayley saw his body jerk from the impact of a bullet, and he collapsed to the floor, blood quickly speaking out across his shirt from a bullet hole right about where his heart would be. Ronda had either gotten lucky, or she was one hell of a shot. Either way, the cop was going to die within moments.
Forcing herself to ignore the dying officer, Bayley snatched up his gun. Keeping herself and Becky alive was the only priority right now, and she had to act quickly if she was going to achieve it. She imagined that Ronda would right now be leaving whatever position of cover she'd taken up and sprinting for towards the room, intent on finishing the job she'd come to do. Then it occurred to her that she had one advantage: Ronda didn't know whereabouts in the room she or Becky were. She had to use that small advantage while she had it.
In one smooth motion, she stood up and pulled the thick curtain out of the way so that she could see out of the window. Sure enough, Ronda had just rounded the hood of her car, heading towards the room. Bayley hadn't fired a gun in anger before, but she had visited shooting ranges plenty of times. She knew how to steady herself and adopt a proper stance before firing. She figured she had one chance, and she had to make it count.
Everything slowed down even more as she took first pressure on the trigger.
Happy with her aim, she fired.
And missed. Ronda was still running at full speed towards the room.
Panic took over and Bayley squeezed off another round almost in a reflex action. To her own shock, it struck home, hitting Ronda in the side and taking her off her feet.
"Bayley!" Becky called out from behind the bed, clearly scared to death.
"I'm okay," Bayley said. "I just shot Ronda. Stay here, stay down. Don't move until I tell you."
"Okay," Becky replied timidly.
Bayley cautiously looked around the door frame. What she saw made her realise that she needed to act quickly again. Ronda had to be critically injured by the bullet wound in her side, but she was still alive. Her gun had bounced away from her when she had gone down, but she was now crawling towards it. Bayley knew that she had to get there first.
Sprinting out of the room, she reached the gun just before Ronda, and stepped on it so that her former partner couldn't pick it up. She glared down at the injured woman as she rolled over onto her back, coughing up blood as she did so. She could see that Ronda knew she was beaten. A strange thought crossed Bayley's mind in that moment as Ronda's glazed eyes looked up at her: if this was a Hollywood movie, she would have had some clever one-liner to deliver. It wasn't a movie though, and this wasn't a time to show mercy for someone who had been intent on killing her, so she just shot Ronda in the forehead.
Executing someone like that was cold-blooded to say the least, but it was necessary. So was getting the hell out of there before the cops showed up. She could hear sirens. Running back into the motel room, Bayley shouted, "Becky! Let's go! Ronda and Charlotte are dead, but we have to go before the cops show up!"
Becky got up from behind the bed, still holding the gun that had belonged to the female police officer. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, seeing Bayley's face and clothes spattered with blood.
"None of it's mine," Bayley assured her. "Come on, we have to go."
Following Bayley's lead, Becky grabbed her travel case and they ran out of the room. They were too late, she saw, her heart sinking to the floor. Three police cars had just roared into the far end of the parking lot, sirens wailing.
"Drop your gun!" Bayley quickly yelled to Becky, knowing that it was over. The cops wouldn't hesitate to drop them both, knowing that at least one fellow officer had been shot at this location.
Becky tossed her gun away and raised her hands, as Bayley did the same. Armed officers came piling out of the patrol cars, screaming at them to get down on the ground and put their hands on the back of their heads.
"They're going to arrest us both for murder," Bayley told Becky, wishing she could at least hold her hand as their dreams of a life together in another country crashed and burned.
"I'll stay with you, no matter what," Becky said, tears already streaming down her face as she got down on the ground. "I love you, Bayley."
"I love you too," Bayley said.
Then the officers were on them, pinning them to the ground as they put them in handcuffs and read them their rights.
"We didn't do any of the killing!" Becky protested, not that any of the officers were going to listen to her. "We were trapped in the room, in the crossfire!"
Bayley didn't bother echoing the protests. She knew that she and Becky both had fingerprints all over guns that had been used to kill people. Even though it was true that Becky hadn't shot anyone, the female cop had shot Charlotte with that weapon. Maybe Becky would be able to get a jury to believe that, or maybe not. Maybe she might be able to convince a jury herself that she had killed Ronda out of self defense after taking the fallen officer's gun, or maybe not. At least, if there was any comfort, forensics would prove that neither of them had killed a police officer. As she was forced to walk in the direction of one of the patrol cars, with Becky being lead to another, she realised that the future was very uncertain. For some time at least, even if it was only until their trials were over, they were both going to jail.
Bayley was the first to reach the car she was going to be transported in. Resisted against the officers for the first time, she turned so that she could see Becky for what might be the last time in a long time. "I love you!" she called out.
"I love you too!" Becky called back weakly, sobbing helplessly. Moments later, she was bundled into the back of another car.
The two cars, with their two prisoners, quickly roared out of the parking lot, leaving the scene of chaos and death behind. Would they ultimately be deemed to have been responsible for it? Or would they be allowed to go free after being deemed to have acted in self defense? Only time would tell.