Julia sat on the couch of her living room flipping through the channels. She was bored and had no interest in the assortment of soap operas or game shows available on cable at this time of the early afternoon. She settled on a show about gardening and half paid attention to it while reflecting on her career and more specifically, the last job she'd been on. The doorbell distracted her. Standing, she moved to the door and looked out the peephole. Seeing DJ and Ken she opened it. "Hey guys, what brings you by?" She said genuinely worried.

"Julia, we need to talk. It's about Neros." DJ said

"Okay" Julia nodded, feeling no better but swinging the door wide in invitation for the two to come in. "Dela is up stairs in the shower, should I get her?" The two walked in and as she was closing the door she saw movement. Through the open door she saw three large SUVs pulling up across the street from her house. Julia slammed the door and ran to a window, peeping out through the blinds.

"No, it just concerns you" DJ started to answer. Seeing Julia's behavior alarmed him and he and Ken were soon looking through the blinds out the window too. Across the street over a dozen men got out of the three SUVs, each one with some type of automatic weapon, some of the weapons were obviously high caliber too. "We need to get back," he said as he grabbed Ken and Julia by the arms and dragged them to the kitchen at the back of the house.

The moment all three were on the floor behind her oven the gun fire started. The loud sounds from the guns and the repeated sounds of the bullets ripping through Julia's house kept them all low on the ground. They heard multiple dings as the oven was hit repeatedly with bullet after bullet. One large round punching right through and scoring a path down her shoulder, thigh and calf. She gasped and looked down at herself. She was lucky, one bullet, and all three hits were just flesh wounds. She looked around her home as it was shredded. Lights exploded in showers of sparks, furniture became flying splinters of wood and fluff, it looked like it was all happening in slow motion.

A muffled boom came from the garage. Then a second one from upstairs. Julia was worried for Dela. Suddenly an oblong ball came in through the windows to her right, bounced off a wall and some fragments of furniture before coming to a stop. She could see it clearly over Ken's body, he could see it too. He quickly rolled towards her sheltering her with his body. The word "No" was on her lips as she locked eyes with him. Then the flash went off and she could see no more.

*****

Something wet was spraying in DJ’s face and it forced consciousness on him. He blinked trying to clear the water from his eyes. He sat up and looked to his right at the source of the water. The sink was at an angle and the sprayer was broken, that's where it was coming from. But why was the sink at an angle? Why was he lying on the floor? He looked at the stove next to him. There were over a dozen holes the size of a quarter going through it. Realization dawned on him and he looked to his other side. Ken and Julia were lying in a pool of blood. He could see enough to know instantly that Ken was dead.

"Julia," he said gently, shaking her. She started to come around and he gave her light taps on the face while forcing her to look at him. When their eyes locked, hers shot open and she tried to look away but he held her firm. "Are you okay?"

"Ken" she said and by the look in his eyes she knew why he didn't want her to turn around. Her eyes dropped and she nodded her head. She allowed him to pull her in for a hug. Her head snapped up again "Dela!" She shot to her feet with DJ quickly following.

Looking around the house without looking at her feet she saw everything destroyed. The ceiling beneath the guest bathroom had partly collapsed leaving a hole. From it an arm hung from the elbow down, blood on one side and water running down the other. DJ saw it too.

He beat her around the island of the kitchen over to the arm. Reaching up he felt for a pulse on the hand. "She's alive. I'm going to run upstairs to try and get her." He said as he dashed for the stairs.

Once upstairs he realized just how hard that would be. The floor had collapsed in and looked like it was about to go entirely at any minute. He got down on hands and knees, crawling across the floor. He could feel the floor quivering slightly with his motions.

Making it to the bathroom and could see that Dela was unconscious and still inside the bathtub mostly, however, the bathtub was on its side three feet below him. His concern grew, there was blood, a lot of it. Not knowing how or where she was hurt he was loathed to move her.

Looking around he found her towel still on its rack not far from him. He grabbed it and laid it out on the floor between himself and her. He then reached and grabbed an ankle pulling her up onto the towel with a mighty effort from his prone position. Once she was on the towel he tied one end around her leg to make sure they would stay together.

Working his way backwards and dragging Dela on the towel he finally reached the relatively safe area at the top of the stairs. Crawling up beside her and ignoring her nudity, DJ began inspecting her body, looking for wounds. He found two bullet holes in her lower abdomen on the right side, one in her right thigh and one in her left shoulder.

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She was bleeding profusely. He quickly tore his shirt off and ripped it into two pieces, tying one around her thigh over the wound and stuffed the rest under her back below the exit holes for the two in her abdomen. He got up and ran into the nearest room, there was a half opened suitcase and he grabbed a handful of clothes.

Returning he used them to make more bandages. He worked as quickly as he could but the rate she was losing blood had him worried. Once he had her bandaged well he returned to the room and grabbed the blanket off the bed, laying it across her body.

He could hear commotion below and turned to look down the stairs. He saw a cop looking up at him. "Grab a stretcher" he yelled down. The cop nodded and disappeared around the corner, returning a moment later with two EMTs carrying the stretcher. All three started up the stairs.

"Just one of you, the floor feels like it will go at any minute." The stopped and the EMTs quickly worked out which, while DJ removed small pieces of debris. At DJ direction the man set the stretcher up on the floor beside Dela. Together they dragged her on the towel over onto the stretcher and, once she was strapped in, DJ helped carry her down.

"I found four bullet holes, right thigh, and two right abdomen, through and through. But I couldn't find an exit hole for the left shoulder." He told the EMTs as they loaded Dela into the ambulance.

As it left DJ turned back to the house. Julia was sitting on a small chair to the side of the door, an EMT was bandaging her leg. He recognized the chair as one belonging to Julia's kitchen set; it had miraculously survived as unharmed as he. The moment stuck in his head. Why should he remember such a trivial detail at a time with so much calamity.

He walked up to Julia and crouched down beside the EMT and looked up. "Dela's in bad shape, but she's a fighter. She'll be okay."

Julia's hands whipped out around his neck and yanked him in. She buried her face in his chest and began to cry. DJ put his arms around her, closed his eyes and leaned his chin on her blood soaked hair.

********

"I want to pick something up before we go see Doug" Gwen told Bobby, Pete and Ronald as she pulled into the small neighborhood. Pete was beside her in the passenger seat with Ronald behind and Bobby snoring away beside him.

As she rounded the turn into the neighborhood Julia lived in she spotted smoke and a moment later the presence of emergency vehicles. Multiple police cars and a single fire truck and ambulance were on the street and as she pulled up to them her apprehension grew. She heard Pete say "what's this?" but it didn't process. Her eyes were fixed on the house.

Gwen didn't even put the car in park before leaping from it and running for the house. "Oh shit" Pete exclaimed as he flailed for a moment trying to reach the brake pedal with his left hand. Catching it, he was able to stop the car before it ran into anything. Ronald quickly hopped out and got up front, placing the car into park.

As Gwen rounded the side of the ambulance she saw them loading a body bag and her heart broke. "No" she wailed as she reached for it. A police officer grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She panicked and tried to fight him off.

A cry of "Aunt Gwen" came from the side and stopped her in her tracks. "Julia" She cried back. Breaking away from the cop she rushed to her niece and they embraced. Julia was sitting on a chair just inside the house, the room was destroyed and the ceiling was caving in the next room over. "Are you OK?" Gwen asked, noticing the bandages.

"I'm OK, they're just grazes." Julia said.

"What happened?" Gwen asked, still squatting down in front of her.

"Were not entirely sure yet" DJ answered, Gwen hadn't even noticed him standing there until he spoke, as fixated as she was on her niece. "Best we can tell, this was an attempted hit on Julia. Instead they got Ken and maybe Dela too. She is in critical condition."

"Who did this?" Gwen asked, her voice cold as ice.

Julia and DJ looked at each other for a moment and DJ replied "Most likely, it was a man by the name of Vincent Neros. We recently busted him and his main warehouse but the evidence was too circumstantial to stick."

"Is he the one you were talking about yesterday morning?" Gwen asked and Julia nodded. Gwen closed her eyes for a moment and thought. Opening them with a nod to herself she stood, grabbed DJ by the elbow and said "come with me" as she dragged him outside to an area nobody would be able to overhear them.

As he followed her he looked back at Julia and shrugged. Julia stepped outside after them but didn't follow, instead she looked over her ruined home.

Once they were out of earshot Gwen turned to DJ and in a quiet voice said. "I need to talk to you." She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Truth be told, I am really fucking pissed off that you let this happen. But, I also know it wasn't your fault so I won't put any blame on you." She looked up at the tall wiry man. "You're too close to this now, aren't you?" He nodded and she continued.

"As it happens , I believe my team and I are too close to the case we're working on too." She gestured to the street with her chin where the three men were helping the police stop some reporters that were trying to film the scene. "I think we can help each other."

DJ saw the three men, took note of their condition, one in crutches and another with an arm in a sling. He turned back to her. "What did you have in mind?"

"To put it simply, swapping cases." She replied

"Is that even legal?" He asked

"Come meet my boss tomorrow at the bureau, we'll figure this out and-" She was interrupted by a calamitous boom as a portion of the roof collapsed. They turned in time to see dust spewing through the front door. Gwen saw Julia cover her mouth and saw the tears threaten to spill out. Turning back to DJ Gwen said "be there". Before running over to Julia and wrapping her arms around the woman.