[color=696969][center][url=https://fontmeme.com/fonts/punk-typewriter-font/][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/240122/96b51cbc48bd377db299e57ead156677.png[/img][/url][/center][b][color=634533]Time:[/color][/b] A.M.
[b][color=634533]Location:[/color][/b] River Port Abandoned Storehouse
[b][color=634533]Interactions/Mentions:[/color][/b] [@Conscripts] [@mole]
[b][color=634533]Equipment: [/color][/b] Knife, drugs, and wallet looted from dope peddler
[center][h3][color=634533]✠✠✠✠✠[/color][/h3][/center]

The metal pipe caught him square across the temple with all the finesse of a freight train meeting a daisy. White-hot pain exploded behind Vasco’s eyes, then settled into a pleasant sort of wobble that reminded him of looking through the bottom of a gin bottle. Now, he’d taken his share of knocks in this business—occupational hazard, you might say—but this particular wallop had his thoughts scrambled worse than Sunday morning eggs. 

Course, the mystery nut he’d been working on was helping plenty. That bitter-sweet buzz mixed real nice with the adrenaline. Pain was there, sure as rain, but it felt like somebody else’s problem. What was left of his thinking knew damn well he’d be nursing a headache that could crack granite once it all wore off. Assuming he lived to see morning, which was looking like a coin toss at best.

Maybe he could catch a few winks right here on the warehouse floor. Let Barrock mop up the rest of these palookas while he took a little siesta among the crates and blood stains. Hell, he’d slept in worse places.

That’s when he heard it—thought he heard—a woman’s scream.

[center][color=634533]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/color][/center]
[color=505050][i]Josephine’s screams echoed off the brick walls of the alley behind Murphy’s tavern. Vasco rounded the corner to find Josephine in the dirt, surrounded by five of Frankie’s crew who thought they owned every piece of skirt in the neighborhood. Jimmy Torrino—that grease-stained waste of his mother’s efforts—had her pinned to the filthy ground, his meaty hands where they had no business being, while the other four stood around treating it all like it was a show.

Red crept around the edges of everything. His fists started talking before his brain could tell them to mind their manners. The first punk went down with his nose painted across his cheek. Number two got acquainted with the business end of Vasco’s knee. By the time he reached the third, his knuckles were singing hymns in B-flat major.

He could hear Josephine yelling something but the words bounced off him like raindrops off a tin roof. The last hood tried to run. Vasco was faster. And angrier. And not in a forgiving mood. His fists kept finding faces long after they’d stopped fighting back. One of them was begging now, spitting blood and teeth. Vasco’s fists weren’t listening. It took three, maybe four more punches before her voice actually reached him.

When he turned to look at her, Josephine was pressed against the alley wall, her dress torn, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her cheeks. But it wasn’t gratitude in her eyes. It was horror. Pure, undiluted horror, and something worse—disgust. Like she was staring at something that crawled out of hell’s basement. And maybe she was.[/i][/color]

[center][color=634533]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/color][/center]
Aurora’s pretty face swam into focus where Josephine’s had been. The bodies scattered around him weren’t local boys anymore, but Black Maw Syndicate muscle, and their blood was still warm on his knuckles.

Without a word, he staggered toward the back room. His legs felt disconnected from the rest of him, but they carried him to where Rowan sat trussed up like a Christmas goose. The gag was doing its job, keeping all that self-righteous preaching bottled up where it belonged.

[color=C2B4A7]“Well, well,”[/color] Vasco said, his voice thick and slurred. [color=C2B4A7]“So much for that hero act, eh princess?”[/color]

Lights out before Rowan could even try to respond.[/color]