Gin Mills and the Goods

Prologue: Three Years Earlier

She woke up on the cold ground of a dark alley, staring up at the sky.

The moon was barely visible, a pathetic sliver of dirty white, a flicker of sickly yellow in the light-polluted air.

How long had she been lying here? It was difficult to tell. She certainly hadn't been conscious for all of it. But long enough for the light to shift, the noises of the city centre in the distance to rise and fall and rise again.

Her back was warm, which was odd. The ground on which the rest of her body rested was cold, the chill seeping into her bones.

She shuddered, and a dull lance of pain rolled through her back- hip and shoulder-blade.

Ah, right. That was why she felt warm. Her own blood, seeping out of the fabric of her suit jacket and shirt and spreading across the ground on which she lay.

...shit. She remembered now.

She groaned as the throbbing pain that she had been blissfully unaware of resumed with a vengeance, each pound of her heart sending fire shooting through her. She wouldn't be going anywhere on her own.

She almost snorted. Like that was her main problem.

Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed. A girl's voice pierced the night; shrill, silly with drink and loud excitement. From her spot on the ground, she couldn't make out what was being said. The girl obviously thought it was important if she was so loud about it.

Maybe she should have been louder about what she wanted. Maybe more forceful. Then they would have taken heed. Then they would have listened.

(Maybe?)

She recalled the feverish, almost mad look that she'd faced, seconds before the first shot had come, and reconsidered.

Maybe not.

At least they were such bad shots.

She felt a sudden, hysterical urge to laugh, remembering how, the second they'd realised the younger boy hadn't hit anything immediately fatal, despite having a clear shot from behind her, and she'd reached for her own pistol, they'd been running.

Shooting her in an alley, where the sound echoed and there was only one way out.

Idiots. She hoped the older boy liked his shattered kneecap. She hoped his brother enjoyed dragging him home.

Slowly, her smile faded.

The pain in her back probed at her mind, spread through her body, rendered her weak and numb. Her blood seeped onto the cold ground.

The roar of a car engine split the silence. It was nearby, she thought.

She stared at the moon. Her blood dripped. Her head ached. Her throat was tight.

She really was a sap, too. How could she have thought this would work? That she could really get them to agree? That they had felt the same crushing, crippling loss as her, which had spurred her to attempt this stupid thing in the first place?

Of course, they hadn't.

Didn't. Wouldn't.

She bit her tongue, forcing back the urge to cry, knowing it would hurt in more ways than one.

She wondered if anyone would find her before she bled out.

It would be easy- to slip under now, let her eyes close, escape the pain and the cold ground and the shame of knowing what a mistake she'd made. Leave someone else to deal with it, deal with them...

Deal with them.

As suddenly as it had come, the urge to cry all but disappeared. The pain in her back doubled, tripled, surging white-hot as she shifted, straightening her body and stretching her tense, aching muscles. She twisted her mouth into a snarl, not entirely all down to the pain.

Well, then.

That particular issue was settled, wasn't it? Settled by the bullets embedded in her back, his knee, and the blood on the floor.

It occurred to her, vaguely, that she might not be around to settle the problems that their stupid, badly fired shots had caused. Why that pissed her off so bad, she couldn't say. But the more she thought, the more she turned over the last few hours in her head, the angrier she became, the more aggression that clawed up her throat and clouded her brain. (Or was that the blood loss? She was finding it increasingly hard to tell.)

She had to get out of here. She had to.

The thunder of the approaching car was getting closer. She wondered if they were back to finish the job. Maybe she should try and sit up-

The car was on the road the alley led off of. She could hear it getting closer and closer, and hear muffled voices.

Cursing, she reached for her gun, but it was too far- she'd dropped it as she'd fallen and it had skittered just a few inches too far away. She reached further, but it was getting harder to focus, to see. Sweat broke out over her brow. Her shoulder-blade shrieked in protest, her hip was white-hot and she felt sick, but she reached further, her hand slick with her own blood, fingers scrabbling-

A car swung around the corner, and yellow light from headlamps rushed down the alley in a wave.

With a cry, she forced herself to reach, to snag the handle of her discarded pistol-

The car screeched to a halt, the driver stood up, she blinked away the black spots in her vision and her hand slipped on the grip of the gun, she lifted it-

A howl of fury echoed throughout the alley. The thud of someone all but falling out the car, the door slamming so hard the car shook, the pounding of feet running towards her-

She dropped the gun and slumped to the ground, chest heaving. She didn't need it now. She recognised that silhouette, the others now scrambling out of the back of the car.

"THAT BASTARD-"

"WE GOT HER, WE GOT HER!"

"GET THE OTHERS-"

She put her pounding head back against the cold ground and stared back up at the moon as they reached her. Someone took her arm, her back, tried to lift her up, but she shouted in pain and they stopped. Faces swam in and out of her vision, but she couldn't focus on them. She stared at the barely visible moon, her vision fading, and as her resolve hardened, as cold as the ground under her, she fancied she saw the moon become full in an instant, spinning back to full strength, leaving the shadow of the earth and becoming something new