Crime Short Story I'd be Interested in Your Opinions on

GalwayGuy2

I made the first thread last night, but, I had second thoughts, and edited it out of it. Then I had third thoughts, but the thread was deleted.

So, here it is. I won't have any fourth thoughts

I decided to post it because a) I'm not used to critiquing of full narratives, and b) Meh, I can always write another crime story.

So, now for the disclaimers. Quite violent.

Also, each section is shown from a different narrator. You'll see what I mean, but I thought it would be fun to show the breaks in the story as separate posts.

Story

Three men got on a bus.

The first tried to get on with a grin, but grumbled when the driver called him on his ****.

The second wore a uniform of a hundred hues of green as much as it wore him.

The third had the taste of traveller on his tongue when he asked for a ticket.

All three men got on at different stops, sat on different seats, and kept their eyes away from each other.

But they were all here for the same reason and they were all headin’ to the same place.

OoO

Jack got ‘em all together. He visited them at different parts of the week, and by the end of it he had got a good crew for this job.

Now, Jack wasn’t a coward, but that didn’t mean he was a brave man. So, when he heard about all that money travellin’ through the country…God, he had to get the two toughest sons of a bitches that he knew.

The first stood a little too close for comfort. That shaven head and those army fatigues contrasted with his pot belly. But, you know, the clothes of a killer went with his iced eyes and sweating face and wet lips.

The second stood on Jack’s other side and had his arms crossed across his chest. A knacker with a shaven head and a look that could turn ya dead. Sure, he was a knack, but Jack wouldn’t trust another to protect him.

All three stared at a map that was drawn with Jack’s careful skill.

The knacker, Thom, shook his head, ‘Da **** is that meant to be?’

‘It’s a map I drew’.

The army man, David, laugh had an oddly high pitch, ‘It looks like somethin’ a girl would draw’.

‘David’s got the best of the situation. We can’t do **** with a map like that’.

David’s lips twitched in what could have been called a smile, ‘I don’t remember givin’ ya leave to call me by my name?’

‘Neither do I ’

‘For feck lads’, Jonny couldn’t keep the exasperation out of his voice, ‘The map isn’t that bad’.

‘IT’s bad enough, Jack. It’s bad enough’.

‘Well Thomlet’s see if ye can do better?’

‘I don’t have a drawin’ bone in my body’.

‘Well, lads and lassies’, David didn’t say who was the lad and who was the lass, ‘I’ve got just the thing for ye’.

With a theatrical flourish he drew a book out of his pocket and spun it onto the table. The hairs on Jack’s arms shivered away from the hair on David’s knuckles’. Jonny leaned forward to disguise his revulsion and flipped the book open.

‘A book of maps…Well, I can’t draw better than that.’

‘Jack, you couldn’t draw better than a five year old’.

‘Awhh, would you leave it out Thom’.

Before Thom could reply David interrupted the both of them, ‘Lads, I didn’t come hear to listen to two fishwives bickerin’’.

David leaned forward and pointed. ‘Now, Jack told me-‘

‘I don’t remember saying ye could be leader’

David’s eyes glimmered as they looked into Thom’s, ‘Neither do I’.

You know, when you put two men in a room together you know what’s going to happen then. After the arm wrestling and the bicep squeezing and all that shtuff, they’ll whip out their willies and measure their length. Well, Jonny wouldn’t let any man measure his willy on his watch. He can tell you that right here and now.

‘How about I be the leader then?’

Jack’s breath lodged somewhere in his balls when those two pairs of eyes glared into his own.

‘Er, or you know, decide amongst yourselves.’

David shook his head, ‘The sooner we’ve done this the better. We’ll decide on who’s leading who another time. Jack, you want to run it by us?’

‘Sure. Right. You see, I was with this one once-‘

‘-And only once’, Thom muttered under his breath and Jack politely ignored him.

‘And then she starts tellin’ me how she was havin’ problems with her boss. Something about blowjobs, and I’m like, you know, da **** are ya tellin’ me for?’

‘And the **** are ya telling us this for?’.

‘Thom’s right. Cut to the chase’.

‘Fine, fine. Right, and after a while I serve her a cup of tea-‘

‘Jack’, Thom said and David echoed.

‘Right, right, hold ye’re houses. Ye see, she tells me. No wait for me to finish. Now, she tells me her boss is one dodgy fecker. Ya know a crook during the tiger. He’s been transporting all the money he’s got offshore before the IRS come and clop his sausage and mash. But, the thing is, he’s literally transporting it offshore. He’s been bringin’ it by the same route during the same day and by the same time. Ya see what I mean? All we’ve got to do is waltz in there and take all that money’.

Thom narrowed his eyes, ‘There’s something off’.

‘Your friend’s right. No money can be this easy’

‘Well, there’s actually two guards.’

‘Three. Jack, ya didn’t tell me about three’.

‘Lads, lads. Ye’re massively overacting. These two lads are two ‘toughs’ from Tuam. They’re only wee men in their twenties and I doubt they have a gun to their name. All we have to do is barge in on them, wave or guns around, and then go off on our way’.

‘Why wave the guns around when we can just use them to shoot’.

Thom’s voice rankled with disgust, ‘And you’d do that would ya. Kill a few kids for a few thousand?’

Dave smiles, but before he could answer Jack cut across him. ‘No, no killing. We don’t want the Guardia up our backsides.’

‘If we cut the bodies small enough, the guards-’

Thom made a move beside him, but Jack stepped to the side and closed him off. He looked up and up into David’s eyes and, he could tell ya here and now, he didn’t like what he saw.

‘We’re not doing any killin’. You hear?’

Dave eyed him for a moment and Jack’s blood ran cold. But a moment later David lowered eyes and pouted his lips, ‘So afraid of getting your hands dirty’.

Jack’s heart hammered as if he had ran a marathon in ninety minutes. Good god that bastard set his back up. A friend of a friend recommended him, but, Jesus Christ, he’s one made bastard.
‘
Right. So that’s sorted? Dave? Thom?’

For a moment the temptation to tell ‘im to shake hands gripped him, but, looking at those two swingin’ bullocks, he thought better of it.

Thom kept his arms crossed as he nodded. David grinned at them both when he nodded. And Jack, well, Jack wouldn’t be surprised if **** ran down his leg. So, no, he didn’t feel like ****in’ noddin’.

‘Right so lads. We’ll see each other at the spot and I’ll bet it’ll go swimmingly.

GalwayGuy2

OoO

‘Jack. SHUT THE F UCK UP!’

‘Shoot that f uckin’ bastard!’.

Thom’s throat burned at his last yell. His ear rang with the hail of bullets and dirt burst into his eyes.

No, it definitely was not going swimmingly.

It had gone to **** at the start. David, the f uckin’ plank, started drippin’ sweat on the buss. His irises began to swell in his sockets and the f uckin’ fool had started sniffin’ like a f uckin’ elephant with a f uckin’ beehive up its f uckin nostril. For f uck sake.

They got out the bus separately. They went to the meeting stop separately. And Thom almost tore that man to bits. He screamed in his face and told him off for taking drugs on the job. And guess what that dopey bastard said to him. Just f uckin’ guess?

‘Well, it’s not your body. So mind your own’.

Not my f uckin’ body. Not my body! Oh Jesus, if Jack hadn’t gotten in between them, then God knows what would have happened. He had to stay between them as they hiked to the ambush spot and that snidey fecker kept throwing him the eye. Oh jesus, he and him were gonna have a chat after this. Not my f uckin’ body. He’s f uckin’ risking everybody’s.

They had got the spot. Evening sun had made the green leaves pulse and the grass burn. Even the brown of the dirt had stood out in sharp relief and the trunks of the trees were effervescent with light. They had stood atop a small hillock and eyed the curve of the road in front of them. See, the plan was for Dave, the f uckin’ prick, to stand in front of the road and wave his hands like the saviour himself had set soul in his body. Then, when the car had stopped, Jack and Thom would come rearing out and waving their guns and dragging them out of the car before they could say who was who.

But could that f uckin’ druggie handle his part of the job. Thom mentioned it and saw that flash of violence in Dave’s eyes. Yeah, you just throw a punch, I f uckin’ dare ya. Again, Jack came in between them. He told them, in more words that Thom would use, to stop acting like a bunch of cocks.
And, you know, they did. Jack and Thom had hid themselves on opposite side of the road and knob-gnosher had sat himself in the centre of the road like a f uckin’ turd.

So, there they were. Like an awkward threesome that didn’t know what to put where. The sun began to lower in the sky and the light left the world as if a switch had been thrown. He raised his hand an arm length from his face and could see the tips of his fingers wiggle, but that was about it.

Why the f uck hadn’t brought f uckin’ flashlight the f uckin’ edgits.

They had heard the radio first. Even in the dark Thom could tell that the others tensed as if some wannabe poet had put strings in the narrative with overused assonance. Two people were arguing over the radio and the radio was comprised of two people arguin’. Thankfully, Thom could hear the two lads in the car and couldn’t hear the gombeens on the radio.
‘Something isn’t right! WE should turn back right-‘

‘Look at nannie boy pissing his f uckin’ panties. It’s a bit of money who cares what’s in the trunk’.

‘Are you thick? Did ya see that look in the woman’s eyes? It almost tore me bollocks off!’

The headlights of the car lit along the road and moments later crashed upon that great Lummox in the middle of the road. For a moment the two men stopped their bitchin’ and the radio rang true and clear.

‘’Tis terrible Joe. The youth of today are in, ya know, revolt’.

Thom almost burst his hole tryin’ to hold back the laughter. Jesus Christ, what a choone to do a job on.

Thank f uck the lads in the car had started their racket. Thom didn’t know what he would’ve done if he’d heard old Joe’s voice.

‘Move your ass of the road!’

‘Just reve the car a bit. That’ll teach him’.

‘I’ll rev the car up your hole-‘

Jack was the first to move. He rose from beside the road and gave a great cry. Thom leapt to his feet and took a breath and gave an even larger roar. From his vantage point he could see the big red-haired f ucker in the car, and a little red haired f ucker too, turn at the sound.

He also saw the gun flash as one of them fired at Jack. The bullet thundered through his leg and sent him to the floor.

For a heartbeat both Thom and Dave stood frozen like a pair of feckin’ edjits. But when those barrels swung towards them, they both dived back into the darkness.

Bullets banged so close that his head rang and he had to roll atop the ground to dodge that hail of steel. He stumbled to his feet and then, realising the stupidity of that move, dove back to the floor as they fired at where his head would’ve been. Thom was down, David was gone, and Jack’s scream pierced his ears. That radio muttered beneath the bullets and each syllable was a slash to his damaged noggin’. He just couldn’t take that feckers screaming anymore and he had to tell him to shut the f uck. Then, Jack being Jack, he expected Thom to get up and save the day.

Each bullet caused Thom to flinch and he hadn’t the sight a hare had while it was up it’s hole. He had to see what those bastards were doin’ when takin’ a break from trying to kill them. Even though his whole body screamed warnings at him, he inched his body up the hill’s inclined. He peeped over the fluff of dirt that had hid him from the enemy’s eyes.

And, then, he saw the most stupid act he had ever seen in his life.

Maybe it was panic? Or fear of figures in the dark? Or maybe he hadn’t the sense his mother beat into him? But, regardless, the lad drivin’ the car decided to drive it straight.

Except, ya know, the only thing in front of him was a wall. And a f uckin’ hard one at that.

The headlights crashed and glass shattered. That radio dribbled into nothing and the only sound was Jack’s tears and the engines wheeze.

The only light was the little left in the black sky.

No light. Only sound. Jack.

Thom sprinted over and his fears were right. Jack was found within
seconds and he almost gave him a kick. Instead, he bended over him and covered his mouth with his hand.

‘Do ya want them to feckin’ kill ya? Stop screaming. Ya f uckin’ muppet’

Sometimes Jack would go right if you said left, but, thankfully, this time he kept shtum. For a moment Thom wanted to take Jack gun. Even though five bullets were enough for two people, he would’ve loved another gun. But then he’d leave Jack defenceless…

That moment of indecision cost him a decision as shouting came from the crashed car.

‘Why did you drive it into the wall!?’

‘You think I did this on purpose? Cop on will ya.’

‘Ah for feck sake you almost broke me neck…’, the memory of near injury must have brought back the realization of imminent injury, ‘Those lads might still be out there.’

Thom, during their talking time, decided to try and creep closer. Ya know, strength, guns, training, didn’t matter if you caught them with their pants down. He reckoned he could get the jump on one of them and hopefully that Lummox in the dark would give him a distraction to get the other.
Thankfully, their talk had covered the sound of his movements. But when they shut their yaps his feet had decided to trod on a particularly loud branch. It’s sound lingered in the air like a great big soggy fart. Thom paused. They paused. Hell, he reckoned Jack even paused.

‘Ya know, I reckon there are people out there. You get ‘em while I look for the flashlight’.

‘Right so. Try not to crash the f uckin’ car again’.

‘Ah will you piss off. And, ya know, make sure you don’t get shot’.

Things began to move fast. The car door slammed, but no footsteps trod on the pavement. Thom ran bent over. He had to get into quitter area. To his left a branch broke and he paused to listen to his hear hammer. Could that man have been so silent on the footpath and so loud in the field? He listened until he thought his ears would bleed and the sound of a sneaker on wet grass rewarded him for his efforts.

Softly, oh so softly, he crept closer. Ten steps away.

His shaking fingers made the bullet tingle. He forced it into the cartridge and bit his lip as he slowly closed the cartridge. When his teeth moved away blood dripped from the rip in his lip.

Five steps away.

Sweat coated his skin even though the air chilled him to the bone. Why, oh why, when he wanted silence, that his heart hammered and his chest drew great lungfuls of breath.

Four

Three

Two

On-

The whole world turned blue with a bang. His widened eyes caught Dave in front of him. The trees around him. And that red haired f ucker barely an inch to the left from where Thom stood. They both jumped. The smoke oozed out of the man’s gun and his finger inched closer to the trigger.
Thom’s fingers were faster as they pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into his neck.

That blue light sill lingered and turned the man’s blood as florescent as his hair as he fell into his pitch back shadow. As soon as the man hit its surface the light shut out and left them in darkness.

Thom paused. For one strange moment he wondered at the loud sound of a bullet. Jaysus, it never seemed this loud before. He wondered whether it was all the empty space of nature? Did it amplify the sound? God, this world is-

‘Thomas!’

Nobody called him Thomas. And who the f uck was that?

‘Thomas!? Did you get those bastards?! I told you not to get shot!’

Thom realized what was happening with the slow realisation of a boulder rolling down a hill. Wait, there’s another Thom that’s not me. Jaysus…
Light hit his eyes and they burned. He stumbled and tried to shields his eyes, but a voice roared at him to stop.

‘Hands above your f uckin’ head!’

He raised them and blinked at the flashlight. He had to hand it to them, these fella’s were fast and silent. The light haloed the big man’s frame and turned his body into a blazing light. But the gun stayed black, ‘Where’s my brother’.

God, Thom was really going to piss himself laughing one of these days.
Brothers? F uckin’ hell, it’s a riot.

‘Stop laughing’, the cock of the gun’s trigger rivalled the blast of the gun’s barrel, ‘Where my brother?’

Putting on a straight face Thom said, ‘An inch to the left of ya’.

The big man paused. By the look on his face he knew what he find, but he couldn’t stop from turning the light to the left of him. The white glow lit his brother’s splayed body within that pool of blood.

‘You-‘

God knows what would’ve happened then. Thom could barely move for laughing and Jack was out for the count. Thom reckoned he would’ve been f ucked if David hadn’t blundered on the scene.

Dave melted out of the shadows like an iceberg out of fog. Those hands covered the man’s entire head. Tendons pulsed beneath their pale surface and a crack ruptured the air. The man’s face stood at a tilt and he fell to the floor as if all his bones were broken.

Now, he is a jackass, but a man like that’s handy to have around.

‘I saw you showing your ass a few seconds ago? Get a wee bit afraid’, the laugh still lingered on Thom’s lips but the trembling began in his fingertips.

Dave looked him up and down, ‘You look more than a bit afraid.’

Thom tried to summon anger but it fizzled away before it could catch. He just shook his head and tried not too hunch over in exhaustion, ‘Let’s just end this.’

David picked up the flashlight and they went to Jack. Jack gave an almighty yell as they picked him off the floor and it fairly shook inside Thom’s achin’ head. The whole world seemed to wobble as he gave Jack a hand. A bitter taste began to flow into Thom’s mouth. His chest ached and called him to fall into a foetal position.

‘I reckon in it’s in the booth’, Dave said and glanced over at Thom, ‘You get the keys off one of ye’re men?’

‘Do I look like I got the f uckin’ keys’.

‘Well, I guess you’ve got your hands full. Maybe there in the ignition’.

‘Nobodies that…’, he just shook his head when David jingled the keys that he had found in the ignition, ‘Those f uckin’ edjiots’.

They shuffled over to the boot of the car. Jack groaned when he put his weight on his wounded leg, Dave sucked on his teeth when he slipped the key into the ignition, and Thom just wanted to lay down and sleep.
‘Come on Dave. Let’s get this over with.’

The god’s must have had a sick sense of humour. Thom thought that, if one Trunk was forbidden an automatic light, then this trunk should be it. The light hit it’s insides as it opened and exposed all the horror to the three robbers.

‘Oh jesus’, it was all to much. The murders, the bullets, the shocks, the blood, and now this. All the strength left his arms and Jack dropped to the floor.

The vomit rushed up Thom’s mouth and he almost didn’t hear Jack’s screams as he hurled his stomach out of his face.

GalwayGuy2

Author Note: Eh, this may read like erotica at some points, but I was trying to examine the strange dynamic that goes on between a sub and a dom. So, eh, yeah.

Story

Mark’s blow sent Sasha to the floor.

She had fallen more out of shock than fear as his strike had very little strength in it. He didn’t want to hurt her, or even injure her, but he lost his temper.

‘You told your boyfriend about the delivery!’

His voice made up for the lack of strength in his fist. Something about a man in anger set an ache through her cheek to her lips. She stood up and her fingertips to her cheek. His whole muscles were bunched as if the only thing holding him back was his chivalry.

‘Did you think I would take your cock on my back?’

‘You were happy to take it on your knees?’

She took a deep breath and paused before speaking, ‘It does not matter. You lost money due to your own foolishness-‘

‘You-’, he took a step towards and her cheeks flushed in a mixture of fear and arousal. But, fortunately, he stopped himself so fast that she thought she heard his muscles crack.

‘IT was not ****in’ Money! Do you have any idea about what you have done?’

Dread creeped from her bowls to her throat, ‘I thought there was money’.

‘No, you ****in’ ****in’…****er!’, he grasped his hair and pulled his whole head back until it cracked, ‘Do you have any idea about what you’ve ****in’ done!’

She had to sit down. Her hands shook and, though she did not know what was now in the car, she knew that she had made a mistake, ‘’What was in the car?’

When he looked at her his eyes were full of tears, ‘Do you have any idea what you have done?

Before she knew what she was doing she had caressed his cheek and pulled his sobbing face towards her shoulder. His arms tried to push her away, but they lacked strength and his body, of a man, nestled into her like a son with his mother. No words left her lips but the passage of a kiss atop his head.

Sasha had not wanted to hurt him. Not really. She just wanted to teach him a lesson. Show him that she wasn’t a doormat to wipe his dick in. She was a person with feelings, with emotions, and with desires of her own. But he had never seen her like that. From the first moment she had offered to ‘ease his ache’ he had treated it like a financial transaction.
Perhaps that is why she never got any joy out of this submission? She imagined the thrill of being at her boss’s whims during long lazy evenings, but the reality paled to her fantasy. She couldn’t be in control if he did not even understand her joy of submission. He did not let her slap his balls and he did not want to dominate her. All he wanted was her between his knees and her lips atop his cock. But, what he and most men did not understand was that when you are knelling in between a man’s legs, it is impossible not to get a thrill of submission. So, instead of treating her like someone who deserved to be pleased, he had treated her like a used piece of toilet paper.

But, she never wanted him to be reduced to this…well, maybe in her wildest fantasies…just a little.

He gripped her and his tears ceased. An embarrassment blush lit his face and his angry hands pawed away his tears. Strangely, this heartened her. He was still a man, and men knew how to solve these problems. Or so she hoped.

‘Look, we need to go’.

‘But, where-‘

‘No, there’s no time to talk. I…I don’t want to see you die’.

He took her hand and spirited her down the stairway to his car.

He paused with his finger on the car alarm button, ‘No, they’ll know it’s my car’.

‘Who are they?!’

He pulled her along. She had had enough. He was still treating her like an object and not like a woman. She put all her weight and even his strength, the strength of a man, could not pull her.

‘For **** sake. Do you want to get shot?’

‘Who are these people?’, she crossed her arms and set her feet.

He opened his mouth as if to shout, but the look on her face stopped him dead. Was that respect that flowered in his eyes, and, as his eyes lit along her angry length, was there more than a smidgeon of desire?

‘Look, I don’t have time to tell you, but I owed money to the wrong sort of people. They told me to carry a package and we’d be clear and they told me if I didn’t, they’d find a nice bit of a ground for me.’

That dread grew until she wanted to vomit, ‘What sort of men?’

‘The sort that deals in all sort of things’.

Her mind conjured up images of what would be in that trunk, but she pushed them away as the images burned her mind. They really, really needed to get the **** out of here.

They walked a bit. Then they ran. One person panicking was bad enough, but two people led to a circle of anxiety. He fumbled the keys and she almost screamed. But they got in and, then, realized that they had got in the wrong sides. He was in the passenger and she was in the driver. Then, like sensible people who have lost all sense, they got out of the car and swapped seat. They both paused as they opened the door and realised they could have just handed the keys to each other. With a strange sheepish anxiety they avoided each other’s eyes until they had started the car rolling.

They drove through the Galway streets. The light lit the inside of the car in a spectral glow. It showed the furrow that Sasha’s teeth made atop her bottom lip. IT showed Mark’s unmoving body, but turned his fretting hands to brilliance.

Sasha didn't blame him for being nervous. These people could do anything to stop everything from getting out. Her mind shifted to another nervous man.

Her and Jack had met in a bar. Something about the smoke and stink of that place drew her. Something about dangerous men with wandering eyes and muscled arms and their slight anger as she teased them. She didn’t quite know how she ended up in Jack’s bed.

Oh no, she definitely consented, reciprocally and fervently, but she wasn’t quite sure how it happened. Did he laugh her into bed, or did he love her into bed? Was it his small stature that she could push to the floor whenever she wanted? Or was it his soft hands that washed her body, and, like most men, lingered too long on her chest?

No matter. He knew what to do until she told him what she wanted him to do to her. And so she told him again. God, she never saw a man turn so sheepish. You’d swear she just asked him to murder her. He did it, but she could taste his nerves, and anxiety, as he slid into her.

God, some men need to be told ten times to ravish a woman.

Finally, he got the hint and played the dom, if he was a dom, to her sub, if she was a sub. Afterwards, she had-

‘We’re being followed’.

Mark’s voice cut across her memory like a slap of a wet fish.

‘What?’

‘I said we’re being followed. Turn left.’

‘Is this some kind of detective novel?’

‘Just turn ****in’ left’.

She turned the wheel so that his head would bang into the side of the door.

She smiled, ‘you’re welcome’.

He didn’t reply.

After a few more miles, he said, ‘I don’t see anybody else. I wonder…but we need the money. Turn right up here and continue until you get to a house.’

‘A house? Just one?’

‘Yeah?’

And, so, they did. They turned a corner, and there it sprung. It seemed to pop up out of the ground as if to say ‘Hey, here I am. You can’t leave without me. YOU CAN’T LEAVE!’

They had left the lights of city long ago. The gravel crunched beneath the tires. The world outside her headlights remained a mystery. She stopped in front of the house.

‘Mark, I don’t-‘

He kissed her and, in shock, she couldn’t kiss him back. He disengaged with a blush across his face, ‘Sorry, ya know, it seemed like a good moment.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘Ah well’, he paused for a bit of an awkward silence, Well, I guess I’ll be off’.

He opened the door and she said too quietly for him to hear, ‘Be careful’.
He walked up to the door and opened. Turning around he waved and, Mark being Mark, tripped over and fell out of the door. Sasha sighed and unbuckled her belt to help the oaf. She stopped.

‘Don’t move or look up!’

Her heart hammered and her mind screamed as she kept her eyes trained atop the house. Metal as cold as ice pressed against her temple. As she watched a figure stepped out of the house, pointed at Mark and lit his body with two quick flashes. Sasha swallowed and her neck creaked.

‘Don’t ****in’ turn!’

She didn’t turn and the voice kept talking.

‘You didn’t see any of us, so we’ll pretend we didn’t see you. You understand?’

She nodded even though the still grated against her skin.

‘Good. Don’t go to the law and don’t tell anybody. We will find you and we will kill you…kind of like a bad version of Liam Neeson.’

A low, insane giggle bubbled within Sasha’s throat.

‘It’s good that you can laugh…but, it’s bad that you need a warnin’.

She heard the violent burr in that voice and tried to dive forward, but the gun crashed into her head.

It crashed again and she smacked her nose into the steering wheel. Again, and again, that gun smacked in until her mouth was full of blood.

IT was only as the last blow flung her into unconscious that Sasha realised a simple fact.

The voice had the lightness of a woman’s.

OoO

A/N: Hmmm, I wonder should I remove the first line from this? It seems a little abusive, and that's not what I was going for? Tbh, I think the whole Mark and Sasha thing does come across as abusive, and that's not what I was trying to potray. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Also, I'm wondering if I should even publish the next chapter. The character makes Marsden in Pulp Fiction look like a samaritan. I'm kind of happy about it, but it's a hard character to read, and even write. Thoughts?

GalwayGuy2

A/N: Bit of a trigger warning here.

OoO

The trunk opened and the scent that flowed out sent David’s mind back through the years to another time.

The air had not yet filled napalm. The trees were free of the infestation of soldiers, corpses, and bullet holes. No, in this time, he was the only one with a gun.

Leaves so green that they had a verdant sheen crinkled at his touch. The sun burned through whatever gap in the branches it could so that David travelled through shade and light. A twig broke beneath his boot when he entered the clearing.

It alerted the family that lived there.

A man and a woman turned at his call. They would have come up to his chest and had attractive, childlike, bodies. He noticed they had brown eyes when he plugged them full of lead. The woman tried to run, but you can’t outrun a bullet in the back. The husband just took what he had to give then died with a sigh. The wife took a while longer.

Then he saw his saviour. Her blonder hair and blue eyes and small hands and soft expression. Oh, how his heart raced at the sight of her. As the light hit her as she lay beneath a baby blanket.

He dropped his gun and pulled down his pants.

Some people said Nam was ****e, but he reckoned it was alright.

His mind turned back to the present, but his vision superimposed with the past. That bay in a blanket could have passed for the eight year old between the locks of white powder. Why, good golly, his throat had dried with longing and his skin flushed in readiness. This child had black hair and brown eyes that had the whites bulging out.

‘We can’t be leaving her in there’, David’s big hand reached for the child.
Thom got there first. He lifted her up in his arms. Those blue eyes, beneath his dirty knacker hair, seemed close to tears…and even closer to murder.

‘A child..how can someone stuff a child in there.’

‘There all sort of people out there Thom’, David tried to put a grim tone upon his voice.

Thom’s glance bespoke violence. Why so antagonistic? He couldn’t…

‘Dave, be a dear and pick up Jack. I’ll carry this poor ****in’ child’.

David picked up Jack and ignored his weak groan. Could he know what sort of man I am? Old fear flashed through his guts. His mind summoned images of courts, castration and leering men within shower cells. Thom’s neck peeked out of his collar in front of David’s gaze. So soft, so skinny, so fragile…he could just…

The child stirred in Thom’s arms. She’d see a man die. David did not want to ruin that child. He wanted her pure and unsullied before he sent her to her resting place. And, after all, what proof was there that Thom knew?
He flung Jack into the back. No, he couldn’t know. David’s fear began to subside and it fell to nothing when Thom asked Jack if he was okay. David inwardly sneered at the knacker. No, a man like that will not be able to kill a man like me. Thom sat in the passenger seat and David sat in the driver’s.

‘So, Thommy boy. Got anywhere special you want to go’.

Thom threw him a look, ‘Just drive the ****in’ car’.

And so they drove to the city with the two babes dozing in the back seat.
The countryside flew by. Rocks reared in front of them and shadows watched from the corner of the light. David’s mind fairly swam at this stage. The ache after the murder and the ache for that child just proved too much. He had to…

‘What the **** are you doin’!’

Ara would the knacker just relax. Thom still ranted as David pulled out a pinch of snuff. He gulped it through his nose and it his head like a hammer. He could do anything, be anything…and hurt anything.

‘David pull this ****in’ car over’.

David gave him a lazy smile, ‘Try and take it off me’.

Thom, unsurprisingly, did not try and take the car off David.

They rolled into Galway city in a sea of red and blue. Sapphires ran along the walls and met streams of ruddy blood. Cars that swirled with dandelion flowers flew past in swirls of red and men in sunshine greatcoats walked the streets.

Jack cursed and David threw him a great toothy smile, ‘The baby’s awake’.
‘Jack’s right’, Thom’s eyes darted and his mouth worked, ‘We need to find someplace to hide’.

‘From what?’

‘From the guards! Are you thick in the head or somethin’?’

In that moment David came to the calm conclusion that Thom would be dead by the end of the night. But, he listened to what he had to say, so that he could get him when he wasn't lookin’.

Thom had stopped talkin’ and David flashed him a raised eyebrow to urge him on.

‘There’s a place where I can do what needs to be done…but what the **** Jack and I meant to do after that…’

As if on cue Jack groaned out, ‘And we didn’t even take the blow’.

‘I’m just happy we got that child’, Thom had spoken David’s thoughts, but they differed on the reasons why.

They parked the car as the hum within the city grew. The sirens took on urgency. A radio like rumble ran through the city.

Thom gave a hand to the child, but kept his eyes for the city. David, again, had to carry this bleedin’ fecker. He wondered how nobody had raised a shout about the three gentlemen staggering down the road. Although, even if the Guardia did come, they couldn’t come in time for the child.

Thom told David to turn right. Then go up some stairs behind a door. The room had two doors, one couch and black mould growing in the corners. One of the doors had the gleam of a kitchen and the other had that deepening darkness that led to a child’s bedroom.

‘Put him down on the couch. I’ll put lil’ miss to bed. Then, me and you need to have a bit of a chat.’

David couldn’t help but laugh, ‘Right so. We’ll do our business when the babies are in bed’.

Thom carried his prize into the bedroom and David put Jack on the bed. He could kill Jack now rather than later…but then that would give Thom a warnin’. He brushed an errant hair from Jack’s forehead and imagined those fingers squeezing the life out of him.

David stood up. Took out his gun. He’d kill Thom then take that child while the knacker bled on the carpet.

The light did not spread up to the bedroom door. Even when that lamp flickered it did not illuminate the child’s bedroom. David stood before the door. All but the wall behind the open door lay before him. A small shape lay inside the bed, and a tall figure stood sentinel at her side. He bit his lip and tried to keep in his groan of longing as he raised his gun.

But that flickering lamp gave a burst before it died. It lit the scene in front of him and brazened the wire hanger that held Thom’s coat above the bed. David’s silhouette was a darkness among the glow and he had only time to think wait...

The gun roared and a bullet broke through the door beside him. It’s hammer blow sent him stumbling back and a second later he felt the burning in his chest. Wait, he’s a knack…

The second bullet tore through his leg and sent him to the floor.

‘I could see that look in your eye. I could see it when you looked on that child. You sick-‘

Thom’s booth stomped into David’s leg and sent pain ripping through his mind. But it was nothing to his fear. After all his life of hiding the monster inside him, this man had found it out and would hurt him for it. The agony of Thom kicking him onto his back blinded all the reasoned thought in his head. Thom stood in between the kitchen and the bedroom door and both doors led into bottomless pits. Would they lead into David’s personal hell?

Thom pointed the gun straight at David’s head, ‘Say goodbye. You sick ****.’

In that frozen moment David noticed two things. First, the couch was empty and he could not see Jack anywhere.

The second thing was the figure with an unknown face stepping out of the kitchen door behind Thom. Its hand raised and the gun burned black in the darkness.

David smiled, ‘Goodbye, you sick ****.’

GalwayGuy2

OoO

The three men had been easy to find.

Rahel had sent out the word as soon as she dealt with the secretary and that Mark fella. Just one whisper that any information would lead to free drugs had sent the rats of this city scurrying for information.

A man in a suicide box apartment had seen them. He saw them while high and described them over the phone as a lion holding a young girls hand, and a snake carrying a bloody kitten. Rahel couldn’t stand the sight of a druggies distorted flesh and had sent her partner to knock some sense into him. After a bit of persuasion the druggie had spoken through his remaining teeth and told them a description based in reality. Her partner had left a packet of relief on the table for the druggie’s troubles and called Rahel to tell her he’d meet her at the apartment.

And, so, she had made her way.

And now her partner stumbled out the door with a hole where his forehead had been. Pity, she could have asked him how many people there were, but now she had to go in blind. Rahel shouldered him away, got blood in her suit, but at least could enter the apartment in a quick step.

A glance took in the scene and she knew she’d need an hour to tell what the **** was going on. Two figures stumbled away from each. Lamplight suffused the room in flickering swirls. A crimson glare burst towards her as a bullet smashed into the door frame. She dived behind the couch and returned fire towards the figure scuttling towards the kitchen. For a moment the yellow lit along the filaments of dust and the bullets tear through the air curled all around the room.

Her attacker’s gun clicked empty just as a white shape rolled into the corner of Rahel’s eye. She turned. A pale man with a bullet through his leg locked eyes with her.

‘No, no-’.

Rahel didn’t let him finish and the bullet entered through the front of his head and didn’t leave much of the back of his head. That one shot served as a fine full stop to their little duel.

‘Jaysus, the **** were you aiming for’, the voice of her attacker had a traveller’s lilt.

Her own voice had a heated spice of India, ‘Towards some man crawling around like a dog. I hope I didn’t kill your friend?’

‘**** no. I just wish you made it slower’.

So, no way of angering him into coming into the open. She picked four bullets out of her pocket, and slowly opened the chambers of her revolver.

That man’s voice came out with a hurried pitch, ‘Look. I don’t know why you’re here, but we can both walk away from this. I don’t know about you, but I feel like walking away from this.’

‘I came for a package. Give it to me and we’re square.’

‘A package…’.

As he paused the bullets glowed golden as she fed them in to her revolver. He didn’t even need to speak. Rahel knew how it would end. She knew as soon as he paused.

‘The package…there’s no way in hell you'll your hands on her’.

…Her?

Rahel had no time to think. The kitchen door frame creaked as it’s frame held a man’s weight. She jumped over the couch and came out firing. Thom must have thought the door would protect him. Hard to know where to shoot when your enemy’s blocked by concrete. He’d have ample time to fire at her as she took aim.

If she had not raised such a shout from her mouth that he shifted in shock.

In that frozen moment as he jumped, his forehead poked out from behind the door frame. Rahel shot at that sliver of skin and bone and blood bursted from his head like oil in the night. She didn’t stop. She kept moving and kicked the gun out of his hand. Don’t stop. Not yet. Don’t stop until the enemy can’t hurt you. Hit first, hit last, and protect yourself from harm.

The man’s already weakened skull broke beneath her fists. Even though his movements stopped she did not stop striking him. Even when his bone pierced her skin she kept hammering away. Only until her arms shook did she stop and stand.

She wiped the sweat from her brow. Aimed the gun at the remainder of his face and said, ‘It’s a pity. You seemed , as you Irish say, shound as a pound’.

She put an end to whatever misery he was in with a bullet through his brain.

Though the two bodies did not move, their presence spread throughout the apartment.

Now, was there not a third man? A man named Jack? But she searched the apartment and found, as these Irish say, ‘headsh nor tailz’ of him. And she did not find her package. True, they did not tell her what it would look like, but they said she’d recognize it on sight. But she had searched the wardrobes, the presses, the pockets of the slain, and no package had spilled out. Where….well, she hadn’t checked underneath the bed. But, only a…

She stepped into that darkened room. The coat on the hanger turned. Shadows deeper than the night lay beneath that bed and the image of broken nails tearing through her roared through her mind. But Rahel had lost the innocence of childhood long ago. No monsters of night could scare her as she was one of those monsters now.

Rahel flung the bed sheet off and looked beneath the bed. Her own widening eyes met the black orbs of a frightened child. That child scrambled to get away. Rahel’s hand shot out and yanked her back the hair. Kicking and screaming the child left gouges in her flesh as she flung her at the wardrobe.

The cock of the gun rang through the room, ‘Not another word.’

‘Please-‘

‘Not another ****in’ word!’

Though the child cried, she did not say another word. The bed creaked against Rahel as she sat atop it. What in the world was she meant to do now?

A child? They got a child? What did they mean to do…

No, she can’t think about that. She needed to keep a clear head. She’d work under the presupposition that the child would go to hell.

In Rahel’s head she had two choices. Doing a lucky number slevin on the kid was out of the question. She had to leave her or take her to the child’s original captors.

A child…they took a child…

The stink of rubbish filled her nostrils and Indian sun beat upon her eyelashes. Her childhood hands had been riven by calluses and rotting with infection by the time she finished rummaging through the rubbish pile. Anything for a bit of food, or a bit of metal to sell. After a hard day’s work she had gone back to that shanty of ****. Her parents spent the day arguing. They beat her…but they also spent every last cent to feed her.

The heat of the day stuck to her soul. Her blood pounded when she stepped into her house. Her eyes ached. The axe had burned through the air as she cut her parents to ribbons. Rahel had left that town with the stink of rubbish still on her skin.

Now look at her. She had everything she needed, and plenty of people to take her temper out upon. But a child…

Rubbish made her head swam and her hands burned in remembrance. She could not go back there. She could not live her life on the run with rubbish in her belly. She’d kill every last woman and child before she went back to that place.

Rahel had known from the beginning what the decision would be, but she had needed to validate it.

‘Get up. I’m takin’ you….just get up’.

A gun would make an adult move at command. It made the child fairly leap up. Rahel told the child to close her eyes and let her hold hands as they walked through the living room. She put on the gas in the kitchen, put a steel knife into the microwave and turned it on. They had to get out fast after that.

Sirens came closer. Rahel hoped, for the occupants of the other apartments, that they had a fire brigade. She stepped on the road before the child did and at that moment the apartment windows blew open with a red-roar.

It filled her ears with it’s sound and turned Rahel’s world to white.

A/N: I'll post the last viewpoint during the evening. :P

GalwayGuy2

OoO

Jack knew when to get the **** out of room.

The tension grew between David and Thom until it made his teeth ache. David, the thick b astard, seemed the only person who didn’t notice.

He had eased to the floor. The shape of David could be seen moving towards the child’s bedroom and Jack, for some reason that he could not specify, felt a chill grow in his insides. He had to move fast before the bullets sprang. He bit down on his groan as he stood atop shaking feet and made his way to the door. Each step made his head swim. Each breath made his chest burn. And each time he stalled he imagined a bullet through the back of the head. Sure, he thought Thom would win, but there’s no harm in being safe.

A bang came from the kitchen window and a gun shot from the bedroom. **** this ****. Jack almost threw himself down those stairs and almost screamed as he reached the bottom. He flung himself outside that door. His knee crumpled beneath him and he fell to the darkness of an alleyway. Just a moment. He’d rest just a moment.

He looked up as someone ran past. He caught the scent of vanilla perfume and gun powder. A glimpse of her face showed black eyes and red lips. He didn’t know which was colder. The look in her eye, or the barrel of her gun.

Suffice to say, that sight gave him the resolve to continue on his way.
A red car shimmered through the yellow light. For a moment Jack thought it would slam into him, but, silly him, he slammed into it. The lock opened at his touch. He groaned into the seat and found the keys in his pocket. Wait, why did he have…

Ah, the ****in edjit. He’d been heading towards their own car and he didn’t even know it. The engine groaned it’s way to life. He pushed on the pedal. God, he wondered what that woman was up to. He didn’t know her from Adam, but he knew the look of a killer when he saw it.God, had she found Sasha?

At her name in his head the remembrance of his want, and his shame, and the shame of his want, swam through him. She had squeezed his balls until the pain turned to pleasure. She wanted him to pound her rough, but, jaysus lads, twas a little bit kinky for his tastes. But her teeth bit his lip until it bruised and her fingers -

A woman crossed across the street. For a moment they both paused. He saw the gun in her hand and the red of her lips and the apartment aflame behind her. She only had time to raise her gun before Jack floored the pedal to mow that bitch down.

Bones broke beneath the tires. Each bone breaking pierced his mind. Oh jesus, she can’t be…the body behind him moved as it pushed itself up on trembling arms. He moved the clutch and reversed it back into her. He got out of the car and they yellow lights swirled together as he stared at the bloody heap on the floor. At least it stopped moving.

Bile surged so far up his throat that it spewed out of his nose. He’d just killed a woman….Oh god, what could be worse. At that moment his eyes had alighted across a girl s standing in the darkness of the street. She had covered her eyes with her hand and he recognized the tattered clothes. Oh god, don’t tell me….had he just killed…

‘Honey, keep your eyes closed.’

The child stiffened and for the first time he heard her voice.

‘Where’s the lady that held the gun to me?

He blinked at her Romanian accent, ‘She, eh, had to scatter. But keep your eyes closed’.

He never questioned what he had to do. He held her hand when she held it out to him and walked her back to the car. The fire lit on blood and amplified the sounds of sirens. A child would slow him down, but Jack wouldn’t leave her to the animals that had taken her.

No, he’d…**** knows what he’d do. Thom and David were probably dead, and if they weren’t then he’d be steering clear of them, and whoever had set the fire would think he was dead too. He had no income, he had no plan, but people went away with worse prospects and survived.

One of his cousins had grown up in a place that still spoke Irish and probably hadn’t seen a black man before. He’d visited it as a child, been to the pub , and stole from the pub, and then got his fair share of bruises. They’d know him. They’d mark him as something more than a friend, but less than family. They’d protect him as one of their own, but they wouldn’t treat him like it.

He glanced at the child in the mirror. She slept the sleep of one who needed it.

Jack shook his head. If he’d been through what that child had been through he wouldn’t sleep for a week.

As they moved out of the road, the sirens turned the night to rose. In that crimson glow he saw a figure that put a smile on his face.

He pulled over, opened the passenger door and said, ‘Well, fancy meeting you here’.

Sasha sat in the car next to him and groaned as she pressed a pack of peas against her face, ‘****, Jack. I never wanted…why’s their a child in the back-seat?’

‘I know this place in the midlands where no one will come lookin’ and few will ask any questions. You fancy living there for a while?’

Sasha glanced at the child and her features softened, ‘Sure. That child looks like she might need someone to talk to’.

The drove into that sunset in the night sky.

GalwayGuy2

OoO

Mommy and Daddy had to cut the lawn and now she had to play all by her own.

Teddy bears lay in the sunshine and held teacups in their paws. We’re having a rare spell of good weather, and she decided to play tea-party outside.

But noooooo. Mom and Dad just had to paint the fence. She heard them calling and turned back with a sigh. Oh well, guess I won’t be able to finish the tea party.

She stomped towards the house and put a scowl on her face. She’d let them know she was mad…oh my god, did Mommy get ice-cream!
She forgot those silly teddy bears and ran towards the house. She stepped into a trees shadow and the remembrance of a vague nightmare caught her. Voices threatening to sell her if her dad didn’t pay a debt. A fight. A bang…a scream.

Then a coffin that rattled and a pale white hand and an old Irish accent and a woman and fire and….

Andas she stepped out of the shadow the dream’s hold slipped off her. It got weaker every day and when she walked into her family home it shrivelled into nothing.

The sunlight lit off the wooden floor and showed rolling hills through the window. Her daddy and mummy sat holding hands and drinking tea, and…
And when she entered the house they smiled with the utmost love and all her annoyance disappeared upon the breeze.

: The end

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