Vital Signs

With the pedal to the metal, it didn't take long for Vicky and Luke to get to Lisa. Luke drove, and Vicky was riding shotgun, with a shotgun, ready for anything. Lisa was waiting with her hoodie pulled up, shaking, and hopped in the backseat as soon as they pulled up.

Vicky got a good look at her. She was covered in blood and broken glass, and looked like she was in a full on panic.

"Sweet Empress, Lisa. Are you okay?" Vicky asked.

Lisa took a deep breath. She was safe now. It was all over. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. She was numb.

"I'm hurt," she started, "I got shot twice, but they just grazed me. I'm not the one you need to worry about."

"What are you talking about?" Luke asked as he started to drive away. "Where did you get shot? What happened? Where's Moe?"

Moe. Lisa pictured his cold and dead face staring at her from the steering wheel. She could still see his bulging eyes and the trails of blood that formed little rivers down his face.

She sniffled. "He's dead."

"What the fuck did you just say?" Vicky asked in shock.

"Someone ambushed us when we were driving. They must have put a hundred bullets through the side of the car. He told me to get down at the last second, but they shot him at least twenty times, maybe more. He saved my life."

Vicky punched the wooden dashboard so hard that it cracked, and then started to cry.

"Fuck!" She screamed. "This can't be happening!"

Luke couldn't believe it either. "Are you sure he's dead? Maybe he survived. It's not the first time he's been shot."

Lisa just shook her head. "He was slumped over the steering wheel with his eyes open when they left. They shot him at least four or five times in the head. There's no coming back from that."

She started to cry a bit too. "He saved my life. He saved my life and now he's gone."

"Son of a fucking bitch!" Vicky shouted, punching the dashboard again. "I've known him my whole life. He was like my uncle." She started crying harder.

"Who would dare do something like this?" Luke asked. "Did they not know who you were? There's no way this was some random shooting."

Lisa nodded. "It wasn't random. I noticed one of the shooters. He was there last night when we roughed up those dealers."

Luke's heart sank in his chest. It was his fault. She had sent Moe off with Lisa on an errand that Sunny hadn't even known about, and now he was dead. Sunny might kill him too. He was starting to panic on the inside.

"We need to get to Sunny's, now." Vicky said through her tears.

"Are you sure that's such a good…" Luke started.

Vicky cut him off. "Just fucking get us there!"

Luke didn't say anything else, he just put his foot to the floor. Within about fifteen minutes, they were at her apartment building and going up the elevators to the penthouse.

Luke knocked on the door once. No response. He knocked again, still nothing. He was hoping they could just give up, but fate had other plans. Finally, the door opened. Sunny was inside, still in her evening dress. She could see Jenny at the kitchen table. They looked like they were drinking more wine.

Sunny gasped at the sight of them. Luke looked like a zombie, Vicky was almost sobbing, and Lisa was covered from head to toe in blood.

"What the hell happened?" She asked slowly.

Vicky ran up to hug her. "Moe's dead!" She screamed. "He's fucking dead, Auntie!"

Sunny's world collapsed in an instant. Moe was dead? That was impossible. There was no way that could ever happen. Vicky must have been mistaken.

"What are you talking about, Vicky?" She asked, her voice breaking a little bit. Jenny just sat at the counter with a stunned look on her face as Luke closed and locked the door behind them.

Lisa spoke up. "We were driving around on the East-side of your territory, when a car pulled up beside us and fired into his window. He helped me get down, but he didn't make it. They grazed me a couple of times too, but I managed to open the door and duck down. I looked up when they left, and I saw his face. I'm sorry Sunny, but he's gone."

She actually started to cry a little bit herself. Gangster or no, Moe was a decent person and had tried to help her out. And if it wasn't for his quick thinking, she would have been killed too.

"No," Sunny whispered, "no, no, no."

She threw her wine glass against the wall.

"No!" She screamed and started sobbing. Vicky and Jenny rushed over to her. They were all crying together.

Sunny stood up and detached herself from the others. She looked to Lisa, who had been standing with Luke, away from the group. "Did you see a face?" Her eyes were ablaze with fury.

"Yes," she stuttered. Sunny was intimidating on a good day, but that fiery stare made her outright fear for her life.

"I recognized them from a job that Luke had us do last night. He was there for sure. I broke his nose with my pistol."

Sunny's face contorted in rage.

"You," she said, turning her eyes to Luke. "You stupid, fucking, junkie cunt!" She screamed, before lunging at Luke, knocking him down to the hard linoleum floor.

She punched him once in the face. "You go off to score pills on your own and you don't even tell me about it! You put my best friend's life on the line and now he's dead, you worthless little prick!"

She finished the sentence with another punch to Luke's face. He spit blood, but didn't fight back. He knew he was only a few steps away from getting himself killed.

"Auntie what the fuck are you doing?" Vicky shouted and jumped on Sunny's back, pulling her off Luke.

"This is his fault!" Sunny screamed. "He's a fucking junkie who was trying to get more pills so she had Moe and Lisa rob some dealers last night. Did you not know about this?"

Vicky looked at Luke, clearly hurt. "No. I had no idea. I mean I saw them leaving the club together, but I didn't know what it was for. Is it true?" She asked.

Luke didn't say anything, he just stared at the floor in shame. Sunny got up and walked to the counter, pulling out a small sub machine gun from under the sink. Luke reached for the gun in his own pocket but before he could pull it out, Vicky jumped between them.

"Auntie, please. There's no way he could have known it would lead to this. Just stop! She screamed.

Sunny pushed Vicky aside and thrust the gun into Luke's hands. "You have two hours to bring them to me. I want all of them, dead or alive. If you're not back here by then, don't you dare let me see your face again."

She turned away and ran to her bedroom, with Jenny chasing after her. She slammed the door and they could hear sobbing coming from inside.

"How could this happen? Why would you do this?" Vicky asked him.

"We needed the money and I needed the pills. I was going to kick up to Sunny as soon as sold some of them. She never asked me how I earned before, I…"

"Shut the fuck up and let's go before I knock your teeth in. I'm supposed to be the stupid one here, not you." She said as she pushed him aside, heading for the front door.

Luke was shocked. "You're coming with me?"

Vicky just sighed. "Of course I am. Those bastards are going to pay, and I can't let you do this alone. Now let's fucking go already."

Lisa piped up. "I'm going with you too. Moe deserved better."

"Good," Vicky said as she walked out of the door, "because we aren't going to spare any of them, and we need as much help as we can get."

The ride to the house was quiet. The only noise came from Vicky's occasional sniffles and muttering curses under her breath.

Lisa was looking at her wounds. The sharp pain of the grazes had turned into more of a dull ache as the night went on. The only things that still really hurt were all of the glass cuts. She had tried to shake out most of it but there was still quite a bit that needed to be plucked later when she had the chance. She figured after this was all over, if they survived, then she would need to see a doctor to get herself looked at. She could deal with it all then.

"What is the inside of this place like? What are we going to be walking into?" Luke asked her, snapping her out of her focus.

"Um, it's basically one long hallway with five rooms. Two on each side and one at the end. That's where the main guys were. There were mostly just a bunch of passed out junkies in the other rooms."

"How many?" Vicky asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe ten or twelve of the junkies and four in the back room, but who knows how many they have there now. As far as the guys who were calling the shots though, they should be easy. Moe blasted off one of em's kneecap and cracked the other's skull so they shouldn't be much of a problem."

She finished slowly, taking a deep breath.

"That's good," Vicky replied, sounding distant. "So, here's how this is gonna go down. It's pretty straightforward. We are going to kick the front door in and go from room to room until everyone's dead ,except for whoever the leaders are. You said there were two, right?"

"Yes. They're brothers, I think. They look alike, at least."

"Wonderful." She said. "Those two we're going to take alive and bring back to Sunny, or at least one of them. No matter what, that has to happen."

They both nodded. "There's a shotgun and two pistols tucked away in the trunk. Which one do you want, Vicky?" Luke asked.

Vicky lit a cigarette. "I'm taking the shotgun. Lisa you can take the pistols. I don't think there are any extra clips so take both of them in with you."

"Got it." Lisa said. She looked out the window. "It's two blocks ahead on the corner. We should park a little down the street in case they're waiting for us."

"Sounds like a plan." Luke said as he got up to the street. She could see the small house on the corner. There didn't look like there had been any extra security around the place. They pulled the car over and got the guns from the trunk.

"Should we cover our faces?" Lisa asked as they started walking towards the house.

Vicky laughed. "Nope. I told you, we're out here to kill them all. And if for some reason they do get a look at us, then any survivors can get the word out about what happens when you fuck with Sunny."

"Whatever you say." Lisa said as they reached the door.

She took a deep breath.

"You ready?" She asked the others.

Vicky gave her deadliest look and raised the shotgun.

"I've never been readier."

Luke just nodded, repeating the sentiment. He put the sub machine gun's strap around around his back and kicked in the door as hard as he could. Luke and Vicky started walking down the hallway with Lisa at the back.

"Clear the rooms. We'll take the big one in the back." Luke said, turning to Lisa. He pulled a knife from a strap on his leg and handed it to her. "Use this until you have to go loud. We don't want to alert anyone until the time is right."

Lisa nodded and opened the first door.

There were three people in various states nodding out on the floor. She held the knife steady, and started cutting their throats, one by one. Every time she raised the knife, she could picture Moe, lying there in a shroud of glass and blood. That was all she needed.

She had cleared the second room already and killed four more without any resistance by the time Vicky and Luke were posted up at the end of the hallway. She moved to the third room, which was the only one that had a closed door. She opened it slowly and saw a familiar face. The broken-nosed fuck that shot Moe was sitting on the floor, holding a needle in one hand as he turned up to look at her.

"No fucking way." He said as she raised her pistol.

He quickly rolled out of the way of the shot and pounced on her. He wrestled the gun from her grip and tossed it to the floor. He flipped around to her back, trying to bring her down while punching her in the ribs. She tried kicking her way out of it, but his grip was too tight.

As soon as Lisa's gun went off, Vicky and Luke were about to toss open the door to the main room, but before they could, a shotgun blast shattered it and sent them scattering to the rooms on the each side of the hall. Vicky held her shotgun into the hallway and fired into the room twice.

She heard a scream come from inside, followed by a voice. "Who the fuck are you and what do you want? You don't know who you're messing with here. Just leave now and no one has to die."

Vicky laughed loudly. "That's not an option!" She yelled. "Everyone in here but us is going to die and they're going to die right fucking now!"

Luke poked his head out and fired a few shots into the room as well. Getting a sight of what was inside before ducking back into the room he was hiding int. There were two overturned metal desks that looked like they could take a bullet or two before giving in. They would need to get up close and personal to make sure they got them alive.

When the shooting in the hallway started, the man with the broken nose was distracted just enough for Lisa to squirm out of his grasp. She rushed toward the pistol on the other side of the room, but he was on top of her again before she knew it, and he stuck her with the needle filled with whatever he was shooting up.

She could feel her muscles going numb almost immediately, and her legs started to tremble. When she lost her balance, he delivered two quick punches to her face and got her on her back. He started choking her, and her world was quickly going dark. The drugs pumping through her veins were making her feel like accepting her fate, but she pushed through. She looked to the left and spotted her saving grace. Her knife was on the floor, just within reach. She used the last of her strength to grab it and plunge it into his side.

He let out a deep and bloody scream as he stood up, staggering away from her. She was coughing and her muscles were loose, but she still had some control. He was thrashing around and trying to get the knife out when she was finally able to get to the pistol. She held it up shakily at him and closed one eye for focus.

By the time he realized what was happening, she squeezed the trigger as many times as she could. The first one clipped him in the shoulder, and he dropped to the ground. The next four all caught him in the head and neck, and was nothing more than a twitching and bloody mess on the floor. She stumbled up to her feet and immediately threw up. Her head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open She tried to stand up again but fell over against the wall, cracking the door frame.

Luke looked back there. "You okay in there, Lisa?"

She barely heard it, it was like listening to someone talk through a tunnel.

"I don't know," she yelled. "I got the one who shot Moe, but he shot me up with a needle of something. I think I'm gonna pass out."

Luke turned to Vicky. "We've got to get her to a hospital. We don't have much time. We need to wrap this up."

Vicky nodded. They heard the ones in the back room reloading and Vicky charged in, bashing into the tables and knocking the two brothers off of their feet, with Luke running just up behind her, ready to fire. There was a third person in the room, standing and looking shocked at the sight of a woman sprinting in and tackling a table. He moved to fire, but Luke beat him to it. He sprayed him with bullets, making him dance like a puppet before he hit the ground.

One of the brothers stood up. "Fuck this. I'm sorry Mason, but I'm outta here. I'll get help."

He broke a window and jumped out of it. The other brother had a cast on his leg, and was trying to limp toward his gun.

"You little coward!" He yelled. "This isn't how you treat blood! I'm going to get you for this!"

Luke ran up to him and cracked him in the face with the butt of his gun, breaking his nose and a few teeth and knocking him out.

"We gotta get the other one," Vicky said. They could hear sirens in the distance.

Luke looked around. "There's no time. Lisa said they're related so I'm sure we can use one to find the other. The guard's on the way, and we need to get Lisa to a doctor, fast. I've got this one. Go get her."

Vicky ran down the hallway and picked up Lisa, throwing her over her shoulders. She was passed out, and covered in vomit. They didn't have much time, and she wasn't planning on losing another friend that day. Luke had already picked up the other man, and they ran out of the house as fast as they could, sprinting down the street to the car. Luke threw the goon in the trunk and then helped Vicky put Lisa in the backseat. Luke rushed to the driver's seat and they burned rubber, taking off into the night.

"Where is a doctor who's friendly to Sunny in this neighborhood?" Luke asked as he sped down the street.

Vicky thought. "There's one over on Meyer. It's only a few minutes away from here. I just hope he's home."

Within five minutes they were there, their tires screeching into the driveway. They rushed out of the car with Lisa in tow and Luke began pounding on the door. There was no response.

"Get out here!" Vicky yelled.

Finally, the door opened. A weathered and old looking, lanky man, with a long gray beard stood before them.

"Who in the bloody hell are you two and why are you banging on my door in the middle of the night?"

"Never mind who we are. All that matters is that we are associates of Sunny Morella and we need your help, now." Luke said, staring him down.

"This is highly inappropriate. I know that I owe Miss Morella, but that doesn't mean…" He started before Vicky cut him off.

"We ain't asking you, fuck face." She put her pistol under his chin. "We're telling you. Our friend needs help and if she dies, you die. You got it?"

He stepped back a little bit. "Yes, of course. Come right in. What happened?"

Luke stepped in. "Some junkie shot her up with a needle of something. We don't know what, but I think she is having an overdose."

The old man just nodded. "I see. Well if that's the case we need to wake her up as soon as possible if we are going to save her. Put her on the floor, I'll be right back with something to take care of this."

He went into the kitchen and they could hear what sounded like a refrigerator opening. He quickly came back with a long needle in his hand

"I need you to spread her out on the floor." He said as he took the cap off of the needle.

"What is that?" Luke asked.

"It'll help wake her up. I need you to hold her down, and hold tight. This stuff is going to burn going in, and she's going to come up quickly. Luke and Vicky took an arm each as they placed her on the floor.

Inside Lisa's head, she was having a wonderful dream. She was sitting with Al on a bench. It looked like one that they used to sit on back on the outskirts of the neighborhood where he lived in Endlane. They hadn't said anything to each other. They were just sitting and watching the Sunset. Lisa had an arm wrapped around Al's leg, as she always did when they would sit together like this.

It was the happiest she had been in a long time, but something was off. She couldn't place it, but there was something that just wasn't right. She looked over at Al, who was smiling at her. Not a normal smile though, something was off about that, too. It seemed fake. Not just fake, but desperate. She tried to call out to him, but the words wouldn't leave her lips. She wanted to ask where he'd gone and what had happened.

What had Sunny done to him? Were the Infinite Plains real? Was that where they were now? She tried to speak again but nothing would come. She looked over to the other side of the bench, which had suddenly gotten longer, and saw Moe staring at her with his cold dead eyes and blood running down his face.

The next thing she knew, the light went out and she was lying wide-awake on a cold floor, coughing and puking. She felt alive, like she needed to run but she couldn't move. Her body burned from top to bottom. She could feel every scrape from the glass, every punch that bastard hit her with and both of the bullets that had grazed her before. She was choking on her puke, until her friends turned her on her belly. The colors of the world were finally starting to come back to her.

"Where am I?" She asked, confused.

She saw Vicky's face. "You're at a doctor's house. He's gonna take real good care of you."

She sighed. That was a relief at least. "Did we get 'em?" She asked.

"Pretty much. One got away, but we'll find him," Luke said looking down at her. "But you don't need to worry about that now. This man is going to help you while we finish this business."

He turned his head up to the doctor. "Isn't that right?"

He coughed. "Yes… Of course I will. We'll have you better in a jiffy." He reached for her hands with his.

"Let's get you up on the couch first and we can start patching you up."

She only nodded. The shot was wearing off and she was beginning to feel dizzy again. They all helped her onto the couch and Vicky and Luke turned to leave. Vicky took one look back at the doctor.

"Remember what I said to you, doc. If she dies, you die. I'll hold you to that."

The doctor only nodded nervously as they ran out of the door. They could hear some bumping around coming from their trunk as they hopped in the car and took off again down the street. Vicky exhaled deeply.

"What a fuckin' rush, huh?" She said. Then she remembered why they had out there, and started to cry.

Luke sighed. "I'm so sorry Vicky. I had no idea what I was thinking. I never meant for anything like this to happen." He actually started to cry a bit himself. The full weight of what he'd done was now settling on his shoulders.

Vicky sighed, drying her tears with her sleeves. "I know you didn't. Moe knew what he was getting into. I just wish you would have consulted someone about this before things got out of hand."

Luke nodded. "I know I have a problem. I didn't ever think it would get this far and I'm going to fix it. If Sunny doesn't kill me first, that is."

"Don't worry about Sunny. She's known Moe since before either of us were born. He was like her brother. Those two and my mom were like best friends from what I always heard. She's going to need time to calm down and grieve. We all are. But she's not going to kill you. She loves you like she loves me. Maybe she won't trust you as much, and maybe things will never be the same, but she won't kill you. I'll see to that myself if I have to."

Luke sniffled. "I don't know how I can thank you."

"Get sober," Vicky replied coldly, "drugs don't suit you."

After that, the car was quite for the next twenty minutes except for a few times when the man in the back would thrash around a little bit. Thankfully, Luke had the quick thinking to gag him before throwing him in the trunk or they would've had to worry about him running his mouth. They finally arrived at the warehouse.

They pulled up alongside Sunny's unit. Vicky got out and unlocked the door.

"String him up with the chains. I'm gonna call Sunny and get her down here." Vicky said as she started walking toward the front gate.

Luke unlocked the trunk. The man in the back gave him with a look of defiance that was barely concealing the deep fear in his eyes.

"Alright buddy, spare me the tough guy act. You're going in there one way or the other, so let's make this easier for both of us.

He just glared at him.

"Really, dude? Why are you idiots always so Empress-damned stubborn?" He pulled his pistol out and cracked him on the head with it again. He took him out of the trunk and drug him by the feet into the warehouse.

Within a few minutes, Vicky was back and together they chained him up by his arms while they waited for Sunny. Around half an hour later, a car pulled up. Sunny and Jenny both got out. She looked distraught, but was no longer crying. Her face was pure hatred. Even Luke felt a little sorry for what Sunny had in store for the guy. Luke backed away as Sunny walked in.

Sunny approached him. "I'm sorry for how I treated you earlier, Luke. I know what happened wasn't your fault. Thank you for at least taking care of it. We'll talk more about this later."

Luke only nodded and gave her a quick thank you as Sunny walked past him and looked to the strung-up man. She looked over at Vicky.

"Get the tools and a fresh barrel."

Vicky jumped to it, with Luke following along behind her.

Sunny walked up to him slowly and looked him over. She punched him hard in the stomach, waking him up.

"So," she started as she stared him dead in the eyes, "you're the one who thought that it would be a good idea to fuck with me. Gotta say, I'm not impressed with what I'm seeing."

Just as she had finished saying that, Vicky and Luke had returned with the cart of various tools including knives, a saw, a screwdriver, a hammer and many other things that could make a person wish they were never born, and the barrel. After Luke opened it, the man could see that it was filled with some kind of liquid that was steaming and smelled extremely bitter. His eyes went wide with fear and images flashed through his mind of the things that could be about to happen to him.

"Close the door, Jenny," Sunny said, "and someone take off the gag."

Vicky walked over and ripped it off. The man began coughing and spat up a little blood.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" He asked as he frantically looked around.

Sunny gave a wicked smile. "So, you really don't know who I am then?"

He just shook his head wildly.

"Well then, I suppose you aren't quite as stupid as I initially thought. Nevertheless, we still find ourselves in this situation. My name is Sunny Morella and I am the most powerful woman you've ever met or ever will. I don't know who you think you are, but apparently you were selling things you weren't supposed to on my territory. Then when my friends, one of them whom I've known for over 20 years, tried to help you correct that mistake, you tried to have them killed. You got one, but missed the other, big mistake. They tracked you down, and now you're here. Any questions?"

"If you're so powerful, why haven't I ever heard of you? And what exactly are you going to do to me?" He asked, apparently getting some of his courage back.

She smiled again. "Why you haven't heard of me before is really not my concern. Maybe you aren't as informed as you thought. As far what I'm going to do with you, that part is simple. My friends told me that one of your buddies got out. And apparently, they heard you say something about blood, so I figure he's a family member of some sort. What's going to happen now, is you are going to tell me where we can find him. If you don't, I'm going to tear you apart, piece by piece and make you wish your mother aborted you."

He stared down at her. "And if I tell you?"

"Then I suppose my associates and I can go a bit easier on you. But that's only if you tell me now. It's your only chance. What's it going to be?"

He was silent for a bit. Looking around at each of the faces that were staring up at him, he realized that there was no other option. He figured that there was no possible way to get out of this alive, but at least if nothing else he would make his last few minutes in this world a little less horrible then they had to be. If this woman was as powerful as she said, then it was only a matter of time before she would catch up with his brother. And that very same brother had just left him to die and would deserve whatever was coming to him.

"Well," he heard her say, interrupting his thoughts, "we're waiting."

He sighed. "Fine. You win."

She frowned. "I was actually looking forward to taking the answer out of you by force, but I suppose I can save that for your partner. Now, what's his name and where do you think he'll be?"

He took a deep breath. "His name is Derek. He's my brother, but he's more than dead to me now. I don't know where you can find him. Your little friends here killed pretty much everyone who we know and destroyed our house. The only luck you might have is with our provider. Seeing as how you are such a powerful woman, I'm sure you've probably heard of Sammy Markoff, some folks call him Neon.

He saw a rage grow in her eyes. He could see all of the other people in the room turning to look at her. She must have known exactly who he was talking about.

"He ordered you to do this, then?" She asked, slowly and concisely.

He shook his head. "No. I barely even know the guy. He's my brother's friend or something. He just gave us the pills and said he could give us protection if we had any problems. My brother called him after your friends wrecked the place last night, and he told us that he would have our backs, but I don't think there's any way he could have known it was your territory or whatever, neither of us knew who you were."

She nodded slowly. "I see. So, you don't know where he might be now?"

"I have no idea, but he's a fucking coward, so I'm sure that he's already gotten himself as far away from this city as possible. We've got some family out in one of the nomad zones, so maybe he's going there. That's all I know, so that's all you're getting."

When he finished, he hung his head down and stared at the floor.

Sunny stared for a minute. "Well. Thanks for that, I guess. You've made my job a little easier, at least. You can rest easy knowing that your brother is going to get exactly what's coming to him, and anyone who helps him will too."

He looked back up to her. "So, what happens now? I can only assume that you won't be letting me go. Where do we go from here?"

She chuckled. "That's a solid assumption. I'm going home to mourn my best friend, and you aren't going very far."

He could see a dark grin cross her face as she pulled a knife from the table behind her. He hoped it would be just a quick swipe across his throat, but he had a sinking feeling that it wasn't going to be that easy.

"You see that barrel over there?" She asked.

He nodded.

"Do you know what's in it?"

"Not a clue."

"That's where most of my problems usually end up. It's an acidic compound that will turn any body into a nice paste with maybe a few bones sticking out of it. That's where you're going."

He started to panic, looking at the bubbling liquid coming from the barrel. "I thought you said you would go easy on me."

Her twisted smile returned. "This is going easy on you, dear. You don't want to know how things would have been the other way. For you, this is as easy as it gets."

She looked over to Vicky and issued a quick command.

"Open his mouth."

Vicky walked up to him and grabbed his jaw. He resisted and first, so she punched him in the side of the face to loosen it. He was still weak from having his head bashed twice already, and was starting to black out. He obliged, just wanting to get it over with.

Once his mouth was open, Sunny stepped up and grabbed his tongue, cutting it off with a swift slice of the knife she'd been holding. The searing pain brought him back from the brink, and he started screaming, looking at his own tongue in front of him as it was tossed into the barrel. His screams quickly devolved into bloody gurgles as he felt the chains slipping away from his arms. He tried to thrash about and shake them, but it was just too much, too fast.

They drug him over to the barrel. He was too weak to even stand on his own, even if his leg wasn't already broken. Vicky and Sunny had an arm over each of their shoulders, while Luke and Jenny pulled off the rest of the vat's lid.

"Vicky and I are going to dip him in, everyone stay back. Once he goes down, get ready to seal it." Sunny said.

Jenny and Luke both nodded and got ready to do their job. Sunny and Vicky dumped him, feet first, into the vat. Within seconds of his feet touching the smoldering liquid, his eyes went wide and his gurgling screams went up at least two octaves. It took all of Vicky and Sunny's strength to hold him still. By the time he was up to his thighs, he had passed out from the pain, never to awaken again. They lowered him down the rest of the way and stepped back as Luke and Jenny sealed the barrel.

Sunny spit on the ground. "Well, now that's over with. Let's get the fuck out of here. I need some rest and I'm sure all of you do too. I'll get someone on the nomad trail in the morning and we'll start planning…"

She paused for a second. The next two words were some that she never hoped she would have to say.

"Moe's funeral." She almost didn't hear herself say the words, like they were coming from someone else.

She took a deep breath and tried to keep it together.

"Just relax for now. I'll be in touch sometime in the next few days. I'm closing all the rackets down tomorrow out of respect. After that though, we need to go back to business as usual. Moe would know it had to be done. I'm sorry things had to come to this, but we'll make sure that everyone responsible gets what's coming to them."

She didn't say another word before walking off with Jenny and hopping back into her car. Luke and Vicky didn't have anything to say to each other either. It was then that Vicky remembered that Rose was back at the apartment waiting for them, and probably had worried herself sick.

She looked down at her clothes. Her nice dinner dress was now dirty and covered in blood, and would need to be tossed. She kept an extra pair of clothes at the club and made a note to stop there before heading home. She couldn't believe that Moe was gone, but she couldn't think about it then. She just needed to get back to Rose. That would make everything all right, wouldn't it?

Luke made it home first. Rose nearly jumped off the sofa when the door opened. She had been crying by the look of it.

"Where's Vicky? Are you guys okay?"

He didn't really feel like talking to her, but he didn't want to be rude. None of this was her fault, she was just a bystander in the whole mess. So, he took a deep breath and tried to put on a comforting look.

"We're fine. She'll be here soon, she had to stop at the club for something."

He was trying his best to stay out of the light from the lamp on the end table of the couch. He didn't know if there was any blood on him, and he didn't want her to see it if there was.

"What happened?"

He sighed.

"Honestly, Rose, it's a long story, and I think you'd be better off hearing it from her. We're safe and we're okay, just don't worry. She'll be here in a few minutes. I need to change."

He didn't wait for a response. He didn't want to answer any more questions and risk saying the wrong thing. He had no idea how much she knew about what they got into and it wasn't his place to tell her. Vicky would have to figure that one out herself.

She came home around fifteen minutes later. Rose ran straight up to her and wrapped her into a hug. She wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, and that she was fine, but none of it was true. She didn't know if anything was going to be okay ever again. All she could do was cry. She cried harder than she ever had before, sinking to the floor of the entryway with Rose in her arms. Rose rubbed her fingers through Vicky's hair and tried to soothe her, but she was lost to the world. Rose didn't need an explanation, that could wait until morning.

That night, both Sunny and Vicky would end up crying themselves to sleep, one in the arms of a best friend and the other in the arms of her now fiancé. Lisa had fallen asleep almost immediately at the doctor's house after he patched her wounds up and gave her a light sedative. Thankfully it was dreamless.

Luke didn't sleep until the moon was on its way down. After Vicky and Rose went to bed, he went out and sat on the balcony, chain smoking and stuck with his thoughts. He kept thinking about what happened to Moe and how close Sunny had been to killing him. She probably would have been right to. He thought about how the woman that he loved had slipped through his fingers and was getting married. Not only that, but he had no doubt driven her further away after this.

While he was pondering all of this, the next thought that came into his head was that he might be better off just taking the sixteen-floor high dive and safe all of them from more misery in the future. He knew he couldn't actually go through with it, though, so he crushed up a couple of pills, railed them and went back inside. He finally passed out just as the sun had risen over the horizon.

The only person who didn't sleep that night was Derek. He managed to catch a ride with a late-night taxi and was now sitting at the gate of a fairly large compound on a hill above the east docks.

"Look, buddy," the guard said to him from behind his glass booth, "I don't really give a good fuck who you say you are, but no one gets in here without an invitation from the boss. If you don't have a meeting with him, you need to get lost."

"No, you look," Derek snapped back, "all of my friends and my brother are dead because of a promise Neon made, us so I don't think I need an appointment. You can tell the big shot to get his ass out here now!" He screamed, beating on the glass.

"Again," the guard said, keeping his cool, "he's not even here, and even if he was, I wouldn't let you in. So, why don't you just go home and chill out. I'm sure whatever problem you have can wait until morning."

Derek was an inch away from pulling the small pistol he had tucked in his coat and pointing it at the guard when a car pulled up the road and into the driveway behind him. He turned and saw Neon behind the wheel and ran over to it. "

"Neon!" He yelled, beating on the window. Neon rolled it down slowly.

"Derek?" He asked, confused. "What in Empress' name are you doing here?"

"They came back for us."

"Those people who hit us last night. We found one of them and shot up their car like you said, but they came back. They killed everyone but me. They said they worked for someone called Sunny something, I don't remember the name. All I know is that we fucked up big time, and now I'm all that's left. You gotta help me, man."

Neon just started at him for a second. "Did they say Sunny Morella?" He asked, slowly.

"Yeah, at least I think so. Why does that matter?"

He saw something in Neon's eyes that he had never seen before. It was pure fear.

"Get in the car, now." Neon said to him quickly.

He ran across to the other side door and hopped in as Neon threw the car in reverse and started backing down the driveway.

"Where are we going?" Derek asked.

"Shut the fuck up," Neon answered coldly. "I'm taking you somewhere safe. You have no idea how bad you fucked this up."

Neon punched the steering wheel. "Why didn't you tell me the name before, you fucking moron?"

"I… I don't know," Derek stuttered out, "I just figured it was nothing. You're a boss and no one can mess with you, right? I didn't think a name would be important."

Neon just shook his head. "Well, none of that matters now. I'm going to take you to a safe house I have in the mountains until we can get you out of town. If you killed someone in her crew, they won't rest until they find you. You're lucky I owe you one from back in the day or I would put a bullet in you now and just be done with it. If she traces this back to me, I am beyond fucked, so consider yourself lucky that I'm a friend."

Derek didn't really know how to process everything. It all hit him at once. His life here was over, his new empire, his friends and even his brother. He would never see any of them again. He might not even be lucky enough to leave the city alive. As they drove on into the night, he tried to figure out just where he went wrong in his life and how he could have had such bad luck. At the same time, Neon was thinking the exact same thing.