"You ever played coyote?" The words came first, muffled and distorted like they came through a tin can. The pain followed after, daubed on like paint from a trowel all up and down his right arm. The next moment it was insistent, demanding and hot as it radiated up from his hand, but when he tried to jerk it back to his chest it stuck fast just like-- "[i]Puta madre[/i], are you fucking kidding me?!" Enrique half snarled, half whimpered as he hissed through his teeth and squeezed his eyes back shut. He'd been through a lot of things in his twenty years of life, even been shot once, but he'd never had--oh what the hell, [i]six[/i] nails?!--punched through the back of his hand before. They stuck out at odd angles like angry little quills, big nine-goddamn-inch carpenter nails rammed right down through the table, and he had a pretty good idea who put them there as the world started catching back up with him. He could practically hear things speeding up as the adrenaline started kicking in. "No, no, it's not a race thing." The white bitch in the black sundress admonished from where she sat across the table, flipping her hands up in an innocence that didn't bother to reach her flat, atonal voice. She raised one up over the stubble on her shaved, inked head. "Come on, man, it's not funny if I have to explain it..." But oh, Enrique got it. He got it enough to want to get up and knock her damn teeth out, only that was what got him into this mess to begin with. She'd shown up out of nowhere while he and his homies had just been kicking back, asking to score like she wasn't marching into his fucking house, and when they told her to get lost she [i]laughed[/i]. And then he'd pulled out his piece, smacked a bitch like she earned it, and-- Been punted across the room. Into his refrigerator. Where he must have passed out, or something, because not only did he not remember her playing Bob the Builder with his goddamn right hand, he didn't remember her turning the rest of his buddies into spare parts either. He could see them in the living room over her shoulder, lying there, soaking into his carpet and couch and...wall paper... "Jesus Christ." He muttered and closed his eyes, trying to take a breath. Having just lost cabin pressure, he was pretty sure he was starting to hyperventilate--his breathing came quickly, his heart was starting to race. His eyes were starting to spin in his head. They were [i]right there[/i], man, they were right there and [i]dead[/i]--it had just been another afternoon-- The woman snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, twice, close enough to make him blink and sharp enough to make him wince. "Hey. Hey. Pay attention. This is the important part." She said pointedly, letting her hand slap to the table as he swallowed and tried not jump. The important part--right. Now was the time to focus. Whatever fight Enrique had in him was leaving very quickly as he tried to find somewhere to look other than... other than. The trouble was the bitch wasn't any more comforting, her shark-dark eyes bored and hungry with no more recognition of him than a pair of black marbles. There was something about the way the muscles in her shoulders moved, the way they seemed to crawl through her forearms, but she was talking and he wasn't listening. He did better, tuned in, because he had the distinct impression that if she didn't think he got the message she'd make it clearer. "You and your little [i]cholo[/i] assholes are done here. Okay? Donezo." She was saying, slicing a hand through the air with apathetic finality. "I mean, they don't have much choice in the matter--pretty sure you're the only one juiced up here, they haven't moved in a while--but you're officially over. No more parties, no more girls, no more little white bags of what I can only assume is at least half talcum powder, you're through. And you know who else is through on this street? Your little boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Whoever it is that put a little vamp in you? Similarly donezo." She leaned back and tugged a cigarette out of a pack that used to be his and lit it with a Bic that used to be Roy's. It cherried to life as she took her drag, watching him without changing expression, before letting the smoke out through her nose. Enrique licked his lips, trying not to panic. "I don't--I mean, that's not--" "Wait, wait." She interrupted, raising a hand pointedly and closing her eyes. "You're about to tell me that's not your call to make, because whatever leech is giving you his backwash has made damn sure you know that. And when you do, I'm going to backhand your jaw off and walk out that door without a care in the goddamn world. And since we've established you've never played coyote before..." She leaned over and pat him on the back of his staved-in hand, getting to her feet with the kind of wry smile that barely moved the rest of her face. "I'll cut you a break and tell you that'll make this a whole lot more difficult for you." "So run off to see the Wizard, Dorothy." She added as she turned for the door with a two-fingered wave over her shoulder to the sweating gangbanger. "Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll give you some balls." She flicked off the light before she left. --- Michelle Darrens was a familiar, if not necessarily welcome, sight at the Sunset Lounge. Not because of anything she did--half the time she just drank herself into a stupor--but because drinking with her was a little like sitting across the way from an active tac nuke. Sure, it wasn't likely to go off, but did you really want to be [i]anywhere[/i] nearby when it did? Today was no different than most days, which meant she was there killing brain cells, boredom, and time by the droves. She wore her little black sundress like gang colors, moving with the liquid fluidity of the mildly drunk and the swagger of a John-Wayne-meets-Jason-Statham action hero. It was a cute little joke to herself, one most people never got. She slipped in past the toughs at the door with a snort at the familiar scent of death and cologne before moving for the bar top, saddling a seat and sinking to her elbows. "Tecate and a tequila for me and whoever owned the assholes on 7th and Lake. I broke his stuff."