The group had been lying in wait until they'd left the building. They stepped out from all over the place. Alan noticed the first two walk out from behind a car and aimed his shotgun at them.

"Stop right there!" He called out.

"Alan…" Clay muttered to get his attention as more and more of them emerged, all with guns. He reached for his revolver.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" One of them said from outside Clay's vision, drawing his attention towards him while he pressed his back against Alan's.

There was one next to the man who'd warned Clay that already had his gun aimed at him. Clay wasn't much into guns, but he could at least recognize the one being pointed in his direction as an AK-47.

"Don't you move! Don't you fucking reach for that gun! If you move an inch, I'm gonna blow you away!"

His hand froze before his fingertip could even brush against the grip. His fingers were dead still, but the rest of his body experienced small tremors that threatened to bring him to his knees.

They were quickly surrounded on all sides, with a few of them shouting over each other to get Alan to drop his weapon.

"You're surrounded, man! Put that shit down!"

"It doesn't need to go down like this! Put down the gun!"

"I'm so done with this shit that I'd actually be happy to fucking kill you! Give me an excuse! Go ahead!"

Clay felt Alan look around. His body was so tensed up that it was like being leaned up against a brick wall.

The standoff only lasted a minute at the most, but time slowed to a crawl. Why couldn't Alan give up a little faster? With all these guns on them, things could only end badly for both of them if shots were actually fired.

So why was Alan being so obstinate? Clay gave in the second he saw how many of them there were.

"Alan…" He tried not to whimper, "…please!"

Alan turned his head to look at Clay from the side of his vision, stopped, then faced forward again.

He slowly aimed his gun lower until he had it pointed at the ground.

"Drop it! Drop your gun on the ground!"

Alan clicked his tongue but leaned down to place his shotgun at his feet before standing up straight and placing his hands flat against the back of his head.

Once there wasn't any danger of Alan getting off any shots, two of them moved in on Clay and ripped his revolver out from his tool belt.

"That's a shiny one!" The stranger commented as he turned it in his hand. He wore a pair of sunglasses and a backwards baseball cap. Like the rest of them, he was wearing a tactical vest. "You've been doing a good job maintaining it!"

Alan said he'd kick my ass if I didn't…

"It's even got something engraved on it…What's GCC mean?"

"Golden Cowboy Card," Alan answered on his behalf. It's how he'd known for sure it was Kyle's gun when he found him at the clothing store.

"Sweet, man. I miss Kevin's Heaven, too."

Everyone was still pointing their myriad varieties of guns at them, except one man who allowed his gun to hang from a strap around his neck while he placed a hand on the shoulder of the one who'd taken Clay's gun.

He signaled him to step away, which he did. This must be their leader.

He was tall, slightly taller than Clay and only a little less skinny. He had dark skin and darker hair cut short, just a step above a crewcut. He held Alan's shotgun by the barrel in one of his hands while he briefly looked Clay over.

He seemed unimpressed.

The man circled back around to stand in front of Alan. His voice was calm.

"I want to start by saying that I'm sorry we approached you this way. We knew you two would be armed, so I just wanted to make sure my men would be safe before we spoke to you. You understand, right?"

"I guess," Alan gruffly responded.

Don't get an attitude!

Clay imagined himself being shot in the stomach and left painfully crawling around before his life finally seeped out of him.

"Alright," the man continued, "we're looking for someone. We know he used to live here with you guys, so we thought it was possible he might have come back. He's part of our group, you see, and we're very concerned for his safety. Do you understand?"

"Sorta." Alan was now trying to not let his anger with the situation show, but he was doing a terrible job. Clay wasn't even looking at him, but just that one word told him the kind of expression he had on his face.

"'Sorta'? Please let me know where I lost you. I'll explain it simpler this time." His tone was friendly to the point of being patronizing.

"I get that you're lookin' for someone who used to be here, but I ain't met with nobody that's flown the coop."

"Mhmm…" The man hummed. Clay tried to turn his head to see what sort of face he was making.

"Eyes forward, quickdraw!" Someone in front of him said, snapping his attention straight instead. The man who scolded him had a goatee and a pair of normal eyeglasses that made him look a little older than he probably was.

Ignoring that, the one talking to Alan carried on with the interrogation. "See, this is a problem. I don't want to put you in an uncomfortable position, so how about we make an agreement, as adults, to not lie to each other. Does that sound fair? Is that understandable?"

"Sounds good to me," Alan answered.

"Excellent. Now, please tell me when and where you met with Richard. Is he in your building right now?"

"Now it's gonna be me not wantin' to put you in a hard place. I don't know nobody named Richard who ever lived here, far as I can remember," Alan sighed. "Not sayin' it's impossible, but there used to be a lot of people who lived here. Hard to remember all them names, y'know?"

"Yeah, I get it. It's--keep your hands out of your pockets, please--It's easy to lose track." Clay heard the sound of Alan's jacket being softly disturbed. A pat on the shoulder? "The thing is, I know for a fact you spoke to Richard recently. The story he had to tell was pretty memorable, right?"

There was a brief silence, then Alan said, "Don't touch me, asshole."

"Hey, hey!" The man rose his voice without losing any of its soft politeness; the rustling of clothing became hard slaps to Alan's shoulder. "I'm being polite, aren't I? I'm being an adult. You're the one getting ugly here, okay?"

"I don't appreciate havin' guns stuck in my face."

"I already explained it, though. You heard me explain it, right? We had to do that for our safety. Would you like me to break it down a little more for you? I don't want you to be confused!"

Alan's voice wobbled from the man's blows to his shoulder shaking his body. "I get what you're trying to say, but I already told you I can't help you out here."

"That's fine! It's fine if you don't want to help, man. I just wanted to make sure you understood where me and my friends are coming from. I don't want there to be any hard feelings. Everyone knows the best way to avoid bitter feelings is to make sure both sides understand each other, even in conflict."

These men were obviously looking for Radman, whose real name was apparently Richard, and somehow knew they'd spoken with him already. Did that mean the group leader could be the leader? Was he a player like Clay?

Clay tried to turn his head again to get a good look at him.

"Eyes! Forward! That's the last warning you're gonna get, dumbass!"

He tried not to make the same mistake a third time.

The slapping to Alan's shoulder stopped. "Sounds like everyone's full of energy today. I don't want to keep you guys from doing what you gotta do, so we're gonna make this quick."

His voice got a little further away as he took a step back from Alan. "I'm Ed, by the way. I already know a bit about you, including your name, so I thought it'd be impolite to not at least tell you mine."

Alan said nothing.

It's not him.

Alan already met the leader in the past and the way Ed spoke made it clear this was their first encounter.

Ed hummed again. "Search the place top to bottom."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Clay felt Alan jerk forward, just in time for two men to move in as well. When Clay turned around, he saw that Alan had the muzzle of two guns nearly pressed against his head, keeping him from advancing on Ed any further. In spite of that, Alan's hands clenched and unclenched with obvious intent to continue pressing his luck.

Clay started moving to put a reassuring hand on Alan's shoulder to try and calm him down before he got himself shot, but rough, calloused fingers latched onto his wrist and wrenched his arm behind his back.

"I told you a million times to face forward! You used to take the short bus or something!?"

Goatee-eyeglasses was the one who had Clay in a hold. He yanked his arm up hard enough that Clay impulsively attempted to pull away. In response, he felt his chin jerk to the side, followed by a floating sensation as he was brought to the ground.

His thoughts were dazed.

What was that?

Oh, he was just punched by someone he hadn't been keeping an eye on. Now the one holding his arm was bearing his weight down on his back and keeping him in place. The occasional pressure on his arm caused bursts of pain that brought him to his senses.

He heard many people talking at once. Most vividly was the man on top of him.

"You gonna behave!? Or do you wanna keep acting like an asshole!?" It felt like he was going to break Clay's arm.

"Aghh! Stop! Stop! I'm sorry! I wasn't going to do anything! You're hurting my arm! Please!"

He heard Alan as well, "You ain't goin' in my place! You ain't fuckin'--Get your guns out outta my face and come at me like men, you cowards!"

Four men kept Clay and Alan company alongside Ed while the rest of the group easily located the rod they used to bring down the fire escape ladder and start heading inside.

While Alan cursed and lied over and over again that he didn't know what they were talking about, Clay thought over his options.

He had 5 Stat Points. If he put all of them into Strength, would that let him overpower the man on top of him? He wasn't confident in saying it would. On top of that, even if he got this one off, there'd be nothing stopping them from riddling him with bullets right after.

[Sound of Silence] didn't have any slots filled up because he liked to have them emptied out at the beginning of every day. It wouldn't be much use here anyway.

The only thing left was to bet on the possibilities hidden inside his Mystery Box. It was still at a Common rating, but things were dire enough that…

No, that wouldn't work either. He couldn't reach it from this position.

"Why can't you be reasonable like your friend?" Ed complained as if he were talking to a child. "Didn't I explain our position? It's annoying, but I can explain it again for you if you're having trouble."

There was a cold pit in his stomach. He stayed on the ground and kept quietly apologizing.

So useless.

Clay did his best to arch his back and take some of the pressure off of his waist. He could at least keep Kissy from being crushed underneath him.

If their search was causing any commotion inside the building, he couldn't hear it over the one around him. They couldn't do anything except wait with their captors and hope for the best.

After half an hour, they returned to the alley and reported that nobody in the building looked anything like Richard. One of them was holding a 24-pack of Dasani water bottles wrapped in plastic.

"You're gonna steal my water, you fucking asshole!" Alan shouted. "What the fuck!"

"You got plenty left!" The thief responded almost defensively.

Ed shrugged. "At least the trip won't be wasted. I understand it's frustrating to lose supplies, but it could be worse. Considering our position of strength, you stood to lose a lot more."

At least nobody got shot…

Clay wasn't going to start relaxing yet, but at least there hadn't been any loud pops coming from inside the building during their search.

"Ed, you won't believe it; I found some comic books under one of the beds!" Another one said as he dropped down from the fire escape with the box Calvin had given to Clay.

You might as well shoot me…

"That's great, Cas," Ed pretended to clap. "We're all so proud of you!"

"Fuck you, man."

Ed grinned and put his eyes back squarely on Alan. "Alright, looks like you got him someplace else. Wanna make it easy for us and just tell me where he is? I think we understand each other enough that you can trust me with a secret."

"Fuckin' scumbags! You better not've touched nobody in there or I swear to God--!"

Ed cut Alan off with a blow to his jaw, jerking his face in the direction he swung his fist faster than Clay could properly register and sending his hat flopping to the ground. He'd briefly seen him reeling back, then the punch was already done.

Alan leaked blood from his mouth while Ed took over from there.

"Sorry, sir. It's just…do you think people's patience goes on forever? How many times do you think I'm going to let you yell at me? Didn't I already explain everything to you? Now, where is--?"

"I already told you I don't know! If this is about one of those traitors that abandoned me a few years back, then I wouldn't let 'em anywhere near me to begin with!" Alan spit a bit of blood onto the ground. "Fuck…"

Ed stared impassively at Alan, scrutinizing him for any sign of deceit. Maybe it was because a lot of what Alan said came from the heart, but it seems he couldn't find any.

"Fine. Let them get up."

Clay and Alan were standing in the alley while the gang kept them at gunpoint. The one who'd taken Clay's revolver was now also holding Alan's shotgun.

"We're gonna be taking your weapons. Sorry, can't risk you two shooting us on our way out." Ed waved goodbye and started walking away. "You might see us around, but let's be friendly from here on out, okay?"

The goons walked backwards with their guns still trained on them for a few steps, then turned around to walk properly and converse with each other. Clay definitely heard one of them mocking him to the amusement of the rest.

"Ooh~! Ooh~! I'm sorry! Oooh~! My arm~!"

Clay clenched his fists. He wanted to kick something over, but he turned towards Alan instead. "You okay?"

"Fuck no, I'm not okay," Alan said frostily as he stared at their shrinking silhouettes. "Those pieces of shit went into my home. God fuckin' damn it…"

Alan wiped some of the blood on his lip away with his thumb and turned to look Clay over. He at least tried to not sound as pissed off when he asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Clay rubbed his chin. "I've had worse. One time a guy even busted up my nose."

Alan forced a laugh.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another day was lost picking up after the ambush.

They checked around to make sure everyone was okay and saw that the group had turned everything upside down in search of Radman. They'd torn open closets, beat on walls to check for hidden rooms, and rolled over furniture. Clay spotted a tiny coffee table that couldn't have possibly hidden anything that had still been flipped over.

According to the to the people inside, they'd been equally unpleasant in their interpersonal dealings.

"They didn't have any business touchin' me like that!" Calvin complained. "I told 'em you ain't touchin' my shit neither! Then they pushed me over!"

Even when they have guns, this is how you act? You're lucky getting pushed over is all that happened…

"I swear, if I was even 10 years younger, I'd have…"

Calvin was unharmed, but very annoying while Clay helped him pick up.

Everyone else had similar stories—frazzled, but unharmed. Not letting the rest of the building in on Radman turned out to be a good idea, as everyone they encountered either didn't know who they were talking about or had obviously not seen him in two years.

"They asked about Richard," Jesse told Clay, "the boy that used to live on the second floor. I guess those men must have been with that gang a bunch of old tenants joined a while ago, or an enemy of."

For obvious reasons, Clay and Alan had to do all the work picking up Jesse's things a little later on. She was very particular about where her furniture went.

The real trial came when they'd started bothering Milly and Angie. From what Alan told him, Clay figured this was probably Angie's first taste of anything quite like this, and it showed.

She was still sobbing when Alan and Clay burst through the door, with Milly holding her close and soothingly rubbing her back while whispering assurances. They'd had guns put in their faces, with Angie receiving the brunt of a few threats if she didn't quiet down. Of course, this only made her more upset.

The little girl usually did nothing but get on his nerves, but Clay still felt angry that she had to go through something like this. He couldn't even imagine what Alan was feeling.

"Baby, I'm…" Alan sounded like he was going to apologize, but he moved in to hug her and lightly brush his fingers over her arms and legs. "Did those men hurt you?"

She shook her head against Milly's chest.

"Hey," Clay said gently while he knelt down next to Angie. After a trip to his room, he produced a packet of white powdered donuts he'd looted from the convenience store. "I've got a present for you."

"It's hic…It's all smashed up!" She said between sobs.

It tends to happen when one is forced to lay on top of something when they're hiding under a car.

"Guess I'll eat it, then." Clay opened the wrapper. "Don't find these every day, you know!"

"Nono! I want it! I want it!"

Hassling their daughter had actually screwed over any chance they had of getting actionable information on Radman. Milly was the only person in the building that knew anything about it, and she could have been misled into revealing everything if the men had been smart enough. Unfortunately for them, they'd given Milly the perfect excuse not to say anything beyond short sentences while she cared for her child.

Angie was so worn down from the encounter that it wasn't hard for Milly to coax her into taking a nap so she could discuss things with them.

"Look at your face…" Milly softly turned Alan's head to get a look at what Ed's punch had done to him.

"Asshole had a mean right hook. Didn't even see it coming." He tried to eat a cracker, but winced after chewing it a little. It probably wasn't what made him slam his fist on the table, though. "Damn it! How did those scumfucks know we spoke to that midget!?"

"I don't think they did." Clay spoke up from the other end of the table. Milly had given him a water bottle that was left in the cold to press against his face. "Not for sure, at least."

Alan looked up from staring angrily at the table to acknowledge Clay while Milly sat down next to him. "What makes 'ya say that?"

"It's just a gut feeling, but I feel like they would have pressed us a lot harder if they were 100% sure we knew where Radman was." Clay took a bite of a cracker as well. It didn't hurt to eat, at least. "I got the impression we were being felt out, you know what I mean? Don't you think they lost a lot of confidence after they checked the building and didn't find him?"

There was a silence, which made Clay feel like he said too much.

"Take anything I say with a grain of salt by the way. I don't know how to even begin navigating this kind of situation."

"Nono, I think maybe you're right," Milly reassured him. "It's just that I can't figure out how they'd get an inkling without being super sure. I can't wrap my head around it…"

"Fuck!" Alan slammed his fist on the table again. "I want to kill those motherfuckers so bad! Come into my home, scream at my little girl--!"

"Alan!" Milly squeezed his shoulders, tenderly rubbing her thumbs into him in an attempt to soothe his anger. "Please! I'm angry too, but Angie is trying to sleep!"

Alan's fist tightened on the table, but he ultimately relented and started rubbing his face. "I'm sorry, Mils. I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm a goddamn mess…"

Clay didn't enjoy seeing him like this, but what could he say? The only thing he could think to do was move forward pragmatically.

"Alan," Clay started as he looked off towards a recliner in the living room, "I appreciate that you didn't because I'm not sure what would have happened to us afterwards, but why didn't you just sell Radman out?"

It was obvious Alan didn't care much about what happened to Radman, so the easiest thing to do would have been to simply tell the group where he was.

"Well, they were comin' on so damn strong that I just lied on instinct. After that I was thinking that we all agreed we weren't gonna step in one way or the other. Tellin' them where he is as good as takin' a side." Alan took a napkin off the table. "I hate that little bastard, but I'm sure as hell ain't lookin' to give any sort of advantages to those creeps. 'Course, if they'd actually threatened to shoot me or my people, I might've caved…"

"There's also no guarantee they wouldn't have killed us after we gave them what they wanted," Clay added.

"That too." Alan stuffed the napkin into his mouth to soak up some of the blood.

"Didn't they say they'd be around?" Milly asked while still rubbing Alan's arm. "There's also no guarantee they won't come back, right?"

Clay nodded slowly. "I was thinking the same thing, but I'm also thinking that we could be out of the woods already. As long as we don't give them any reason to suspect us again, they might just leave us alone."

"It sounds like wishful thinking, dear."

Clay nodded again, this time in resignation. "I'm not going to deny it."

But it made sense to him. Logically speaking, if there wasn't any sign they could get to Radman through them, what would be the point of interacting with Alan's group?

Clay started tentatively throwing out ideas for precautions just in case, but he thought it was safe to assume that their trouble with the other group was over.