"—and your whole goddamn family!" Shepard shouts at the turian's back as he walks away from the car. If he heard her, he makes no indication that he did.
She slumps backwards into her seat, wincing as the cuffs behind her back twist. There's no getting out of this, and she's fine with that. She's done time before. But she'd like to actually start doing the time while she's still young.
Fuck it. If she's going to sit in this car all night and day, she might as well be comfortable. With a little stretching and wiggling, she's able to slip her hands underneath and in front of her. She didn't even have to dislocate her arm to do it, which is nice. It's sore for weeks afterward.
Shepard leans back in her seat, enjoying her newfound comfort, such as it is. Glancing out the window, she sees Vakarian talking to a pair of turians crouched behind their patrol car. Their weapons are out and their eyes are fixed on the storefront.
If this really is a hostage situation, she thinks, the whole thing is amateur hour. There's only two cars here and they haven't even covered all the exits. And who takes hostages and hides in a grocery? There's too much exposure, and their security systems are hacked together garbage at best. Not like there are a lot of people looking to steal produce on the Citadel.
Which means whoever is in there is either stupid, or desperate. And Shepard knows from experience that neither of those is fun when there's collateral to worry about.
She laces her fingers together in her lap and sighs. Cops never move in hostage situations, no matter what species they are. Not for hours and hours. This'll have to make its way all the way up their lousy chain of command to someone who's actually ready to make a damn decision, and then after they negotiate for a couple thousand years, maybe they'll—
Shepard blinks. Vakarian's drawn his weapon. She watches him say something to the cops before he turns towards the grocery, and... smiles.
"Fuck me," she mumbles, as Vakarian charges forward.
Just when she thinks she has her big blue Boy Scout figured out, it turns out the son of a bitch is just plain crazy. He's gonna get himself killed in there. And then what? She gets to languish in his stupid car for even longer while they process the crime scene, take a million holos, verify and transport his body, and finally take her back to the station for a few days' worth of worthless, boring questioning before she gets to start serving her damn time.
Oh no. She will not stand for this.
Shepard lifts her hands and examines her cuffs. Standard issue. Magnetic locks. She's able to shift and twist them, but they're firmly attracted and tight around her wrists. Nothing short of the electronic key Vakarian carried could release these things.
Which left the "sore for a week" option.
A twist and a stifled cry, and her thumb is dislocated. She slips free of one cuff and snaps the digit back into place before she has time to recover, or consider how much it's going to hurt. She spends the next minute or so cursing violently before she starts on her door.
The lock is automatic, controlled only from the pilot's seat up front. No visible mechanism, no handles or panels, no way to open it without tools. The windows are bullet-resistant and shatterproof.
But Shepard is never without an ace of one suit or another. Secreted in the inner sole of one of her thick boots, she pulls out a slim cylindrical device that the Omega underworld had affectionately dubbed a "skullcracker." Pressure activated, the tiny piston at the tip would extend no more than an inch, but at a colossal speed and with tremendous force. It's a one-shot gadget, but used in the right place, one shot is all you ever need.
A single press to the window and cracks spiderweb in every direction, the shatterproof alloy too strong to collapse but now flexible enough for her to kick out.
Less than a minute after Vakarian runs into the building like an idiot, Shepard is climbing out of his car. She straightens and dusts herself off. Her thumb hurts like hell, but other than that, no worse for wear.
She glances around. The car is a ways away from the perimeter up the street. No one is looking in her direction. She can walk away and no one would even notice. Maybe she could get to the docks and find a spot on a nondescript freighter headed for the Terminus systems. If she was very lucky, maybe they hadn't found the time to impound her ship yet.
Half the money is better than none, she'd said. And that was still true. But despite all the logic she'd used to justify giving herself up, the temptation to run is very strong. Shepard is a survivor. Always has been. And part of that is knowing when to cut all your losses and walk away.
Besides, Vakarian's got bigger problems than one wayward bounty hunter. He wouldn't waste time looking for her. She hadn't even killed anyone.
Shepard turns away from the scene, takes two steps, and stops.
Assuming he made it out of there alive, of course.
Shepard digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. With a groan that becomes a growl, she turns and stalks back towards that stupid cop and his hostage situation. She knew her good nature would get her into trouble someday.
She ducks into an alley up the street before the cops can take any notice of her. Strides past the dumpsters and steps over a used stim needle, careful not to make any noise. Then she stops, staring at the ground.
There's always more than one way out of a place, and the cops didn't have any but the front covered. Vakarian had found a side entrance, but she has a better idea.
The Citadel is a massive station, with utility ducts and maintenance corridors big enough to lead a herd of elcor through. Odds are good that there's another way into that store below the surface level. Shepard kicks aside the debris in the alleyway, eyes scanning. She finds what she's looking for half-covered by the big grey dumpster.
Shoving the trash aside is easy. Getting the hatch open will be harder. It isn't locked—it's fused shut, either by Keepers or maintenance crews or simple disuse. She can force it open. Probably.
A few seconds before she's about to give up the cause for lost, the hatch violently gives way. Shepard stumbles backward and nearly falls, but the door is open. A quick clamber down a ladder and she's in a barely-lit maintenance tunnel. A slow, distant thrumming fills the hall. Some pulsing power source or ventilator or air scrubber, keeping a part of the station alive.
Shepard has her bearings, knowing the direction the store is in. She runs, the thud of her boots on metal in time with the noise in the tunnel. She passes a Keeper, crouched in the near-darkness, black eyes fixed on its work, many hands busy. After what feels an appropriate distance, there is a ramp to her right. She heads up, half-scrabbling, almost slipping and sliding down again.
The door at the top is fused shut too. She wants to kick it open, but she remembers the collateral. Shepard sighs. No fun whatsoever when there's collateral.
With a few heaves, the door slides open with the scrape of metal on metal, just enough for her to slip through. She's on a small landing, nothing but stairs to the left leading up. She takes them quietly, and at the top she peeks past the edge of a doorway.
Inside is a mess. She sees at least two dead batarians, one still alive. He's got some asari kid, threatening her with a gun. She can see Vakarian, and what must be the kid's mother behind him.
"No! Please, don't, she's just a baby—"
"Make him drop the gun!"
Vakarian throws his weapon to the ground. Shepard can't decide if that's the smartest or the dumbest thing he's done all day.
"Alright," the batarian says. "Now you're going to help me get out of here!"
Shepard knows a cue when she hears one. She steps through the doorway and walks forward.
The look on Vakarian's face is priceless. If she only had a camera, the holo alone would almost be worth this entire night's trouble. She's not even looking at the batarian when he spins around, she's enjoying it so much.
Shepard brushes some hair out of her eyes, taking her time so Vakarian sees the cuffs dangling from her wrist. Then she gives him her very best smile.
"I can do that."
