“Fuck!” Redding jumped back into the hotel room, not bothering to stick his own head out there to get plugged. “Things are getting real fucking serious.”

He wasted no time in crossing the room to the door into the hallways. He looked through the peep-hole in time to see a bodyguard with a foot cocked back. He jumped back just as the door came open, banging against the wall. The wall behind him exploded with the sound of a shotgun blast just as he dove behind it. He raised the gun and sent two rounds through bodyguard's chest that rounded the corner, getting to his feet. He went to go back to the door but another bodyguard grabbed hold of his wrist, wrestling him across the room until he was backed against a wall, the barrel of the gun slowly coming around to point at Redding's own face. He brought his head back before cracking it into the guard's nose. He pushed the guard away from him, placing a foot behind the guard's own before coming down on top of him with an elbow that split open the skin of his forehead.

A few more of those and the guard was down. There was a pause now and Redding meant to use every precious second he had of it to searching the room for Mancini's stash. He found only empty inhalers and there was something that caught his eye. There was more leftover residue along the mouthpiece and a far more bitter smell to it. It immediately dawned on him what it was. He swiped a finger across the black film on the mouthpiece and touched it to his tongue, immediately grimacing and spitting. That was ultrajet. What Mancini was doing with ultrajet, he didn't know. Hell, what Mancini was doing with Darlia, he didn't know, but rumor was that she was hiding from the ghoul mob for some reason that was above his pay-grade. He stuffed the ultrajet in his coat pocket and snatched up the suppressed handgun, taking point in front of Joel as they left the room. They made it as far as the stairs before they had to quickly duck through the doorway to them. Redding slammed the door behind them, Joel already descending the stairs. Redding wasn't far behind, looking behind them every so often at the sounds of the door opening and footsteps following them down.

He raised his gun and fired off three rounds, two of them hitting a guard in his side and he slumped over. The sound of bone cracking and a scuffling echoed around the stairwell as the guard's body clumsily rolled down the stairs. At least one other was tripped up, as a yelp was heard before more grunting and the sound of falling down concrete stairs. They finally reached the bottom, Redding opening the door and flinching as a searing hot pain shot through his side. He stumbled back, his hand coming back red. “Shit.”

The guards chasing them down the stairs finally caught up, one's head exploding with a shotgun blast from the gun Joel snatched. The other tripping himself up as he scrambled back up the steps, blindly firing above Redding and Joel's heads. Redding peeked back up the stairs and fired two rounds through the guard, watching him slump and then slide down a few stairs before stopping. The first guard to come through the door into the apartment building's lobby caught buckshot to the chest, spraying blood across the wall while Joel smashed the barrel into the face of the one that followed. Redding took a quick aim and squeezed off two rounds into the chest of the other guard. He could hear the rest of them yelling in the lobby. He ran over and took the AK from one of the guards lying in the doorway. The door to the lobby was propped open by one of the dead guards' feet, offering Redding a sliver of a view to the lobby. “Where's Mancini? You have him?” He heard from the lobby.

“No.” Redding said, “Fucker's dead. He roughed up the Donna's sister, we roughed up [i]him.[/i]”

“Why don't you come on out here so I can rough up [i]you[/i], big man?” The guard on the other side of the door said.

He shook his head at Joel. “You know who's on the other side of this door with Darlia?”

“Two fucking corpses?” Came the other side.

“Redding Schmidt and Joel Woods.” Redding said.

“The pimp and the killer?” Another voice from beyond the door ventured.

“Yes.” Redding nodded to no one, “You are correct. Now, there's two ways we can play this out. We can come out there and kill all of you or you can clear the way for us and the Donna won't have your fucking balls cut off with piano wire for standing by while Mancini beat the shit out of her sister.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, it's true. If I'm lucky, I'll be the one holding the wire so I can laugh while you scream. Of course, no one has to get neutered if you let us pass.” Redding said, “You're making this harder than it needs to be.”

“Why don't we come in there and-”

“Didn't work out for your two friends, though.” He spied one of them moving into view of the crack in the door. He stepped back and squeezed off a round and watched the guard drop his gun and prop himself on the desk before collapsing. A hail of gunfire punched holes in the door as he dove back from in front of it. It let up as they reloaded and Joel kicked the door open, firing off twice with the shotgun and Redding heard someone go down. His fellow cleaner ducked back into cover as the firing resumed. Redding popped his head back out with the rifle shouldered, letting go a burst of four rounds into one of the guards and the wall behind him. Another guard showed himself from behind a pillar but before he could bring the shotgun to bear, Redding plugged him in the shoulder and neck.

“Need to get a fucking stim.” Redding said, trying not to look down at the spreading red at his midsection.

* * *

The door to Redding's apartment crashed open as Redding stumbled through. Joel wasn't far behind with Darlia and the three of them rested inside the hotel room. The stimpacks were still slowly taking effect, but bullet wounds did tend to hurt. Redding stayed in the corner, nursing his gut-wound and Darlia wasn't in any condition to protest as she was laid on the bed by Joel. The snipers on the rooftop didn't make it easy for them to leave. There was no talking from any of them, but they were all glad to be alive. Redding looked at Darlia and the feeling that he and Joel had stepped into something far bigger than just a simple job plagued his mind.