The van lurched as they hit another pothole, violently rattling the H10 crew members about in the dingy interior of the tin-can they called a van. The sudden movement had Cassidy chomping down on her tongue and caused her mouth to flood with the thick, coppery blood. “Hn,” she grunted, leaning over to spit out a mouthful before digging around in the breast pocket of her blue button down to fish out her ammunition.
“That’s fuckin’ nasty,” quipped Jackie, who was sitting on the bench directly across from her and blaring some kind of bubblegum pop music from her phone. “Somebody’s gonna have to clean that up when we get back.”
“Uh huh,” Cassidy hummed, not paying the blonde much mind as she slid the buckshot home into the weathered shotgun.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. “I’ll see to it once we get back.”
The snort emitted from the other woman let the former nurse know that her white lie had been seen through. “Whatever, just stay in front of me, hillbilly. I’ve seen you shoot before…,” she stopped, before grinning and adding, “...your aim is shit.”
Cassidy’s eyebrow twitched in response as Jackie’s snide comment hit a sore spot, but it was true, so she couldn’t really argue. The first time KillRoy had taken her out for target practice she had comically missed her mark by ten feet or more and the recoil of the 9mm had caught her so off guard that she somehow managed to give herself a black eye. Weeks of practice saw no improvement, until eventually Dave had given her the shotgun.
“Here,” Dave said, handing her the old 12 gauge as they trudged out to the abandoned train yard where the H10 Crew did most of their target practice. Cassidy accepted it, her grip careful as her boots made sloshing noises through the mud. “Don’t make that face, lady, you can’t fuck that one up,” he chided halfheartedly. The pair made it to the heart of the train yard and Dave crossed over to one of the box cars to start setting up coffee cans. “Shotgun shells aren’t like bullets, they make a big ass spray of pellets instead of one little hole. Even you can’t miss,” he teased while sauntering back to her side and plugging his ears with his fingers. “Go on, give it go!”
Cassidy huffed as if irritated, but was grinning all the same. Cushioning the shotgun against her shoulder, the raven haired woman leveled the weapon, aimed, took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger.
BAM--
"This is it, boys and girls. Ain't nobody gonna walk into our house anymore, you feel me? Let's get this done and make it real,” Dante said, his voice drawing Cassidy’s attention away from the memory and into the present.
’Gotcha,’ she thought, glancing over to their stand in leader. That was the reason they were all here and going to war, to avenge Dave, one of the most respectable and over all decent men in all of the Brighton. Or was, anyways, before one of those Breaker scum waltzed in and punched a hole in his chest. Cassidy’s jaw flexed as she bit back her rage, fingers twitching over her short’s pocket where her three little pills laid. She had a brief moment of confusion where she thought her anger had somehow manifested into the smell of singed hair, but quickly realized it was just a side effect of Dante taking his first hit of Neon. Her gaze narrowed in on the thick ebony locks that lay coiled on the ground, the ends still ember bright.
“Hey Jackie,” Cassidy started, a shit eating grin plastered across her lips. “Ain’t you fixin’ to ask Dante to clean up his mess too?”
“Shut the fuck up, Creed,” the shorter girl grumbled as she shoved a pill into her mouth. Cassidy responded with a cheeky wink, which only made Jackie groan further. “You’re such a bitch.”
There wasn’t much time for a smart ass comeback as the van chose that moment to roll to a stop and Dante Black ripped the entire goddamn back door off it’s hinges. “Mercy,” she breathed before shaking her head briskly and hustling after him and the rest of the crew. Their leader continued his path of destruction, tearing a hole in the side of AutoMach like it was shitty one-ply toilet paper instead of a brick warehouse. Cassidy followed close behind, but something barreled into her the moment she stepped across the threshold, knocking her shotgun completely out of her hands.
A skinny man was on top of her in an instant, the veins in his arms prominent as he reached down and wrapped both hands around her neck and gripped it with enough force to cut off her air flow. Cassidy bucked her hips but couldn’t manage to unseat her attacker, who she was beginning to suspect might be hopped up on meth instead of neon, given then half crazed look in his eyes, poor state of his teeth, and the way he was cackling like a madman. Her movements became more frantic as she tried and failed to draw in air, threading fingers through his short hair and yanking him closer while digging the thumb of her other hand straight into his eye. The Breaker let out a startled yelp but she didn’t let him go, instead channeling her best Mike Tyson and
biting the ever-loving shit out of his ear.
The methhead finally relented, letting go of her neck to get away from both her teeth and her eye gouging. Cassidy used this opportunity to snap her head to the side viciously, the stranger screeching as she ripped a chunk of his ear free and spat it back up into his face. He snatched it out of the air with trembling fingers and held it against the remaining bit, like somehow that would fix everything and it would magically adhere itself back to its rightful place.
And then, somehow, it did.
Cassidy looked on in horror as the flesh began to knit itself back together and realized that she had miscalculated; this man was most definitely glowing. The healing left him visibly preoccupied however, so Cassidy reached up to loop her arms around his neck and pulled him close once more, using the movement to roll them over until she was on top. The freckled woman stretched out and yanked up the fallen shotgun, slamming the butt of it repeatedly into the other man’s face. Each blow made a sickening crunching noise and blood splattered everywhere, but his skin just kept on trying to mend back together like he was Wolverine instead of some street punk.
’Christ, how much Neon did this kid take?”Finally she took the shotgun and pressed it flush against his chest before squeezing the trigger. The sound of the gunshot was deafening and the kickback was enough to jerk her whole shoulder back, causing Cassidy to let out her own yelp of pain. The hole left behind in the thug’s chest was cavernous and for a moment it almost looked like it was trying to fix itself again, busted veins branching out in an attempt to find their other ends, but after a second they stopped and his heart quit beating for good. She didn’t celebrate the victory, alternately choosing to get her ass behind some cover as swiftly as possible.
She found sanctuary behind a decrepit looking crown victoria and crouched down to palpate her neck before shoving another shell into her weapon.
’Five in the gun. Four in my pocket,’ Cassidy mused, picking up the hem of her shirt and attempting to wipe the blood of her face. She probably looked more like Hannibal Lecter than anyone else at this point.
Member
