-Doc- Ambush

Well now, that was interesting.

When we don't feel comfortable seeking shelter in a shitty motel for one reason or another, we tend to sleep in whatever vehicle we're driving down to the pickup or drop point. Pretty standard stuff, and I normally wouldn't reveal this level of detail but it appears our competition has figured it out anyway. Middle of the night, I woke up and Steele and August were gone. My first groggy instinct was to chalk it up to a male bonding moment outside the van and go back to sleep, but then I realized that I woke up because a bunch of people were outside the van screaming and the doors were open and what the fuck was going on. Then I heard shots being fired: fucking fantastic.

I'm not usually a heavy sleeper, but I guess I was tired that night. But not tired enough for that gaggle of proxies, however. I silently slipped my glasses on, grabbed a few necessities from the van, and waited. I knew they were going to send one of their mooks after me eventually, so I took a moment to prepare a particularly nasty cocktail. Much like a magician who never reveals her secrets, I can't tell you what was in it, but the bitch who slipped in with the sole intent of gutting me (I'm sure) got a full dose of it. I held a cloth to her mouth to muffle her screaming, but she still flailed around quite a bit and kicked a few things over. Well fuck, so much for subtlety: I figured I might as well go for the dramatic finish at this point, so the moment she went limp, I picked her up by her shirt and tossed her out the back doors of the van. She landed in a gibbering crumpled heap on the ground, and moments later one of her buddies swung by to grab her. Awesome, get the fuck out of here, I thought. That still left me with the problem of how to deal with the goddamn shootout outside. I couldn't just leap out and book it.

Except I kind of did. Maybe not the smartest decision I've ever made, but the sniper bullets whizzed past my head and dented the van as I bolted. A few folks - strangers, I thought at first, tried to stop me. The bigger man got a shot of my venom, the boy...not in need of any treatment at that point, I pushed him aside easily and lunged into the underbrush. Suddenly, I recalled their faces: the diner. Fuck, I wondered how long they'd been tracking us to follow us there. Goddamn proxies. I swear I must've been a swift blur of adrenaline, because those snipers couldn't touch me. I don't know if they fired again, or if anybody else even attempted to stop me: all I knew were the soft stings of the brambles and the trees rocketing past me as I ran. It didn't take long to find August and Steele: they asked if I was okay.

I told them to shut the fuck up and run. Even from the paranoia and panic machine, at that point, it was a good way of motivating them. Yeah, we booked it. And long story short, we found our way to the drop point without the van, met our charge, and...well. I've written quite a lot here, I'll let you stew over it while I think of how to continue my story.

By the way, New Orleans was a lot of fun, and let's never speak of it again.