Ashe blinked in surprise.

The heat hadn’t dissipated and for a moment Ashe wondered if she had somehow ended up in hell. Then the cloying smoke got to her and she coughed, falling to her back as more gunshots rang out. The armored figure was advancing, shooting at someone, and came to a stop over her.

What the fuck?

She was so certain the armored man had come to kill her and really didn’t have the mental capacity at the moment to consider otherwise, even though her eyes were telling her that the truth was much to the contrary. Ashe scrambled to her feet, coughing as she gripped her aching shoulder. If she survived the night, she was absolutely getting a fucking drink.

Bullets impacted all around, and she hurried behind the nearest corner for better cover. Whoever it was that had come for her was holding their own, their armor protecting them from the barrage to a degree that was complete bullshit. It wasn’t until one of the rounds ricocheted off of his shoulder that Ashe realized that his armor was far more reinforced than her own.

Hell, the scene almost reminded her of one of those armored bosses from some of the shooters she played. He just needed a minigun and the scene would have been spot on. Another support beam dropping to the ground startled Ashe from those thoughts and she got back to retreating from that mess. Some part of her considered helping him, but she wasn’t geared for that level of fight, so she left him to it.

She ran through the flames, emerging on the other side smoldering. Ashe was quick to reach up and put out her hair, which was on literal fire. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing the damage, but she could deal with it later. She hurried away from the flames before they could spread further and made her way out the other side of the megachurch into an open parking lot. Ashe didn’t stop there, especially not with the sirens in the distance, and hurried away until she was among the city streets once more. Pulling out her phone, she messaged the group that she was out of the ambush and somewhat safe.

Her phone lit up with an incoming call a moment later.

“Ashe! You’re alive!”

She couldn’t help but chuckle breathlessly at the relieved sound of her girlfriend’s voice. She rounded a corner before slumping against the wall of some random building and took a moment to finally catch her breath despite something on her still smoldering.

“I think I am? Wouldn’t surprise me if hell was just a reskin of Florida.”

“That’s the truth,” Crystal muttered. “I met up with Keiko and we have a car. Where can we get you?”

Ashe looked up, finding the nearest street sign. “I’m currently on Lombard… I can get a bit further from the fire.”

“Are you up for that?” Crystal asked.

Ashe stopped, considering the question. Her limbs were trembling, even her jaw was clattering her teeth in a shiver. No, she really wasn’t up to it at all, not that she was going to tell them that and make them worry even more.

“Probably, but that is just the adrenaline talking. Besides, we need to get to the hospital and help Caralina.”

“Ashe,” Keiko said, startling her. “The police have the hospital locked down. Some of the assholes that attacked you hit there first as a distraction. Caralina is missing and assumed to be taken by the pricks.”

She swallowed, fighting back the scream that wanted so desperately to tear free from her throat. That wouldn’t do any of them any good, and would just tip off the armed murderers hunting her. Instead, she sat there in silence, and almost missed it when the car pulled up.

“Need a ride?” Keiko said, hopping out of the front seat. She walked over and helped hoist Ashe up, getting a ragged gasp as her shoulder flared in pain. “That didn’t sound good.”

“Didn’t feel good,” Ashe whispered. “Fucking hell. Can’t believe I survived that. Guess I owe that armored bastard.”

Crystal winced as Ashe found herself being lowered into the passenger seat and got buckled in, Keiko taking care of everything for her. She watched her friend, her face covered by the Noh mask she wore as Hanabi, as she finished up and took the back seat.

“If we can’t go to the hospital,” Ashe started, then coughed, pulling her mask aside so she could spit the slightly bloody phlegm into the floorboard. “Where are we going?”

“Maybe a stylist to fix your hair,” Keiko said with a dry chuckle. “You’re kinda emulating Crystal a bit with the new look.”

“First off,” Crystal said with a sharp glare at the backseat, “we’re heading back to pick up Linda. With all this going on, I don’t trust things. She insisted on staying because the man was talking, despite my protests.”

Ashe’s fists balled around her pants, a white knuckled grip at the thought of something happening to her mom as soon as she learned the truth. It would be so damn cliché, but sometimes life was just that. The disaster of an evening was probably far from finished delivering the hits, and Ashe wanted to get ahead of some of the worst that could potentially land. Much as she wanted to be upset about her hair, she had bigger problems to deal with first.

Despite the aches and occasional cough, Ashe found herself being lulled by the soft rumble of the car and sometimes she would blink and lose track of just where in the city they were, the buildings sometimes familiar, but more often unknown. She was okay with that, as long as she could hold it together once she needed to put on the persona again.

That time came all too soon when they pulled up as close to the mayor’s home as Crystal dared. As Ashe looked out she wasn’t surprised that it was only slightly less ostentatious as Senator Ellington’s manor. She knew full well that Gray came from money, she just hadn’t understood how much of it until she saw the grounds.

Was it bad that she wanted to rob the place just on principle?

It would be a public service even, given how much he liked to donate to the Ellington elections. Shaking that thought aside, Ashe shook off as much of her addled state as she could, but she would likely feel like hammered shit for days to come.

Crystal pulled her bandana off and stuffed it into the center console, letting her blue sidecut free, though it was a bit messy. The hand she ran through it a moment later did little to help either.

“I’m going to see if they will let me back in,” Crystal said. “Can you let Linda know we’re here?”

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“I can do that,” Ashe said with a yawn.

She pulled out her phone and started typing while Crystal got out and walked over to the gate where security was quick to approach her. Ashe had just hit send when one of the guards grabbed Crystal by the arm. That lasted all of a blink before Crystal reversed it and threw the guard to the ground.

“Aww fuck,” Keiko said, undoing her seat belt before throwing the door open and pulling her gun. “Come on little ember, time to save your girl.”

“She doesn’t need saving,” Ashe said with a huff, moving to get out as well. “See, she’s already done.”

Sure enough, all three of the guards were down and Crystal was cuffing one of them with what was likely his own restraints. It was more than a little amusing as they strolled up to the scene.

“They got hostile the moment I mentioned needing to speak to Linda,” Crystal said, securing the second man and moving over to the third. “Now, this kind asshole is going to tell us why.”

“I ain’t saying shi—”

Ashe fired two shots, both impacting next to his head in a spray of gravel. He spit and sputtered, bits of rock coming out with it, but she was already kneeling. She grabbed a handful of his hair with her good hand and dug the still hot barrel of the handgun into his chin.

“Listen,” Ashe said softly. “I’ve had a day from hell and it continues to get worse at each turn. Answer the damn question or I kill all three of you and walk through the front gate anyway.”

“You don’t have the balls,” The man said, looking her in the eyes.

Staring blankly at the defiant man, Ashe turned towards one of the other restrained men and fired a single shot. The man’s head burst from the round, and the two restrained men fell silent as Ashe shifted her gun towards the second restrained man.

“I won’t ask again.”

“He’s stalling her!” the guy with a gun to his head screamed. “Someone told us to keep anyone nosy out.”

Ashe really hated it when she was right. She stood, almost mechanically, then shot both men. “How much you want to bet that the people that were supposed to pick her up were rerouted when they failed to kill me?”

Crystal was already uncuffing the bodies and pocketing the evidence. Ashe absently noticed that her girlfriend hadn’t been wearing gloves for that, so it was a reasonable precaution.

“Suit back up and storm the place?” Keiko asked, pulling her mask from her pocket.

Ashe nodded, then pulled Crystal’s mask from her pocket and passed it over. “We’ll need to find their security room and secure the hard drives, and check for network backups before we leave.”

“Just great,” Crystal said, stretching. “We aren’t getting a break, are we?”

Keiko snorted. “Are you kidding? It’s gonna be another moonless night.”

Ashe wasn’t sure what that was about, but she could take a guess given how Crystal chuckled mirthlessly. Ashe checked the ammo in her stolen gun and opted to swap the magazine for one of the others that she brought with before reloading her current one. Ashe glanced skyward, finding it rather cloudy. Hopefully they didn’t come up with some stupid ass name for everything, she really didn’t want such a reminder to be casually brought up by idiots.

“What did it look like inside?” Ashe asked, moving to the gate house where she found a clearly marked button and hit it, the gate swung open easily. “Security, layout, the works.”

“Didn’t see many guards,” Crystal said, taking point as they moved onto the grounds proper. “Layout was straight forward and I left Linda in the Mayor’s office.”

Ashe nodded, following along. Keiko was shaking her head as she checked her own pistol and took up a position on Crystal’s flank. Not one guard accosted them across the grounds as they moved down the path. If they had been there on a more casual visit, Ashe might have appreciated the trimmed hedges and vast flower gardens that adorned the grounds. Whoever tended to things clearly considered it a labor of love. Pity she was there to shed blood.

The front door wasn’t locked and the trio of wanted criminals walked right inside. The floors were polished hardwood, the real stuff, not that pressed on shit they sold at hardware stores that most homes used. The decorations were spartan, but well managed and modern. Once again, someone else was paid to make things look good and keep them in that state. This wasn’t someone’s home, it was a showpiece. Ashe would put money on the mayor almost never seeing this portion of the home, even with the open floor plan.

Ashe almost snorted, realizing she couldn’t even remember the man’s name. He was always the mayor or Gray’s father in her mind. Hell, she couldn’t even remember his last name, which really sold to her just how little she cared about them despite the impact they had on her life.

This was just another errand, nothing more than a single stop as she stomped through a really long fucking night that would likely go down as one of the worst of her life. Just as they entered the hall that Crystal had indicated held the office, two guards outside the door shit themselves in a blind panic as Ashe calmly aimed her gun and dropped both of them with little fanfare.

It was all so tedious, just a chore at this point. She knew intellectually that she was likely experiencing some form of shock, having nearly died several times over the past hour. She’d read about soldiers just checking out like that until the danger was done.

Dissociation.

Understanding what she was going through didn’t help in the moment, and would probably lead to other issues once her mind was clear. That was for future Ashe to deal with.

Ashe knocked on the door. “Linda Hamilton?”

She hadn’t bothered to disguise her voice, knowing that her mom would probably recognize her. At least, she hoped that she did. She hadn’t recognized her in the tunnel when she killed Kendall, though she had disguised it then.

The door cracked open, and Ashe let some of the tension drop from her shoulders at the sight of her mom looking back, even if she did have a gun trained on her. It wasn’t the first time that happened, and might not end up being the last. The cold brown eyes of her mom swept across the three of them, now in their full street regalia. If she had been trying to ignore the truth of things, the sight of them would have sold it.

The door swung the rest of the way open and the sniveling man behind the desk shrieked.

“Who are you? Guards!”

Crystal snorted. “All dead, I’m afraid. They decided to refuse us admittance then revealed that they were waiting for another group to arrive that was waylaid on their way here.”

“Funny that,” Ashe said, glancing at her mom before moving to step past her only to find a hand gently holding her back. “Please step aside, we’re short on time and your life is in danger.”

“So’s yours,” she answered softly. “You don’t have to do this. I can’t just keep looking away.”

Ashe reached up and pulled her mask down. “Mom, I’ve had no less than three attempts on my life tonight, and this man was behind at least one of them. Plus, we’re all but certain he was keeping you here until he could have those same people arrive to put you down. I’m done playing by other’s rules. Even if you arrested him, he would be out in hours, tell me I’m wrong.”

Her mom bit her lip, her eyes glancing back at the man who was too shell-shocked by the two guns currently pointed at him to do much more than whimper. There would be no justice for this man, not through the rule of law. Ashe knew that, and she could only hope her mom would realize that as well.

“I…” her mom trailed off, conflicted when a gunshot rang out.

Ashe blinked, her ears ringing at the proximity of the sound. She looked off to the side, past her mom, where the mayor, now with a gun in hand, had just been dropped. Keiko’s gun was smoking, and Ashe sighed. It was just so damn tedious.

“Thanks,” she said, patting Keiko on the shoulder. “Let’s get what we need, then vacate this shithole before the next domino falls and we have to deal with another mess.”

Her mom was just standing there, stunned, like it was the first time she was seeing her daughter, which in a way, it sort of was. Ashe wanted to say something to reduce the burden that she was putting on the woman’s shoulders, but she didn’t have the energy.

Maybe after the last fires were out and she had some damn sleep.