alexmegami (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexmegami) wrote2012-01-16 01:36 am
alexmegami) wrote2012-01-16 01:36 am
LJ Idol Week 10: Sticks and Stones
Hard to believe, now, that this had all started with a mugging.
Just some asshole teenager grabbing an old woman's purse. Nadja had pounded pavement after him, shouting the entire way. The kid had freaked out and bolted, but she was captain of the track team. Eventually he'd dropped it rather than face her down.
The woman had been less than pleasant upon her triumphant return, obviously and deliberately scouring her things to make sure nothing was broken or missing, but Nadja didn't give a damn. She felt elated, powerful, like she was goddamn Batman.
She had pinned Danny to his bed the second he opened the door to his apartment - an easy task given that it was maybe twenty feet square - and only after she had exhausted her nervous, gleeful energy on him did she remember to explain. He'd grinned at her and told her it wasn't his ideal aphrodisiac, but he'd take it.
She might have forgotten to go home that night. Deliberately.
---
A bead of sweat trickled down her neck. The warehouse's heating system was old and rattling, covering up the sounds of her opponent. She twisted the length of pipe in her hand, reassuring herself with its heft. Her heartbeat and breathing were as loud as a hurricane to her ears. Were those footsteps to her left? She tried to still herself, anticipating the attack.
---
She hadn't been deliberately looking for trouble, she told herself. She'd just been keeping an eye out for illicit activity. A couple of thugs terrorizing a kid in the park had been beaten about the ears and sent on their way. An asshole that flashed her wished he hadn't given her quite so obvious a target.
Then it started to go deeper.
---
There. The sound of a chain scraping against the floor. The shadows were deep, but the little light coming in from the windows up top gave everything a soft haze. To her left, she thought. He was trying to come from her weak side.
Trang had always been a wedge between her and Danny. He was Danny's best friend, but he was nothing like Danny. Danny was quiet, studious, respectful. Trang looked like he'd fought junkyard dogs and won - barely. The animosity was mutual. Trang always made a point of speaking Vietnamese with Danny to keep Nadja out of the conversation. Now she wondered what they had been discussing.
---
It had been luck, really, if she could call it that. The car thieves had driven off before she could catch up, a shiny new Lexus in their possession. But trawling the docks later, she had spied into one of the loading bays and god, it was car graveyard in there, the Lexus pulled apart into bits, fixing up other cars, plates getting swapped and paint jobs being done - and Trang at the head of it all, barking orders.
Danny had begged her not to go to the police. "Let me talk to him," he'd said. "Nadj, he's my only family here."
She'd hated it bitterly, but she'd agreed. The next night, the bay was dead, as though no one had been there in years.
---
She'd have been gutted if he hadn't stumbled over some wires in the dark, his curses gutteral and vicious even if she didn't understand him. She swung wildly in the dark, felt the pipe glance off his shoulder, and she pressed forward, seeing the ghost of his face now in the dregs of the moonlight.
"You fuckin' bitch," he spat, the bowie knife in his hand as long as her arm. "I told him I'd have to kill you." He grinned, his teeth a slash of white. "He should have been smart and done it himself."
She didn't waste her breath on words, swinging for him now, trying to break his grip on the knife, trying to break his nose, trying to do anything that would take him out so she could get out of here, call the cops and end this nightmare.
---
When had she started to suspect? She began stalking Trang in her spare time. The carjacking was the least of it. Drugs. Prostitutes. Gun running. Trang's gang was in everything, it seemed. How could Danny not know this about his best friend? her mind said. How could he sweep this under the rug?
And then there was the race.
Five teams, each with a car that cost more than her family made in a year. She was getting pretty good at recognizing the gangs, now. Most of them were bit players. Not the Dragons.
They won handily, of course. There had never been a doubt in her mind. And then the driver stepped out of the car, and the world ended around her.
---
The first connection was deeply satisfying. Her rage built on itself as she pressed her advantage, slamming Trang left and right. He got in a few good cuts - her arm was on fire - but she didn't care any more. All she wanted was his bloody face staring up at her, begging for mercy.
Something in her wondered who this angry woman was.
When he did collapse, she stomped his hand for good measure, flinging the knife into the abyss of the warehouse. "You wanted me to die, asshole?" she said, her body heaving from the exertion of speaking. He mumbled something in Vietnamese and she kicked him. "Well, you were just too fucking late."
---
The cops weren't going to look too hard for her, she knew. Who cared why some gang lieutenant had gotten the shit beaten out of him? They had him in custody, and a mile of evidence to try him for.
She had ditched her clothes under the docks, hoping the water would destroy any evidence.
She pulled out her phone. Your move, she texted Danny.
She waited until she received a reply.
I'm sorry it's come to this. I never wanted you to know.
She stared at it. I'm going to get you back, she said. If I have to destroy everything to do it.
The phone beeped at her.
She threw it into the water, too.
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Also, even as far as people involved in organized crime go, Danny is a jerk.
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Yeah, Danny is pretty much a textbook sociopath. Things don't end well for him or Nadja...
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I'm actually a little surprised how positive a response she's gotten. I'm HAPPY about it, mind you. But a little surprised. :)
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(Also: I love your icon.)
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