Warning: Strong Language and Sexual References!
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Ary didn't really want to work with the police, but Rave did tell her to get a normal job and being a consultant for the Chicago PD organized crime division was normal, right? Either way she figured that this was a good way to piss Rave off and too keep him out of jail if it turned out he was involved with the gang again.
She really didn't believe that he had reclaimed his place as leader of the Bloodbaths, but he was definitely hiding something from her. It wouldn't hurt any to gain a few friends on the police force for future problems. With her track record she was sure there'd still be plenty of problems.
Ary called Wilcox the very next morning and they made arrangements to meet later in the day. Rave didn't say much to her before he left to go take care of some 'club business'. She didn't say much to him either, nor did she give Mason a head's up that she was going out for the day. She was tired of feeling like an adolescent that had to check in with their parents for everything.
The address that Wilcox had given Ary for the meeting turned out to be a shooting range. Wilcox and Keller were already there, leaning against the side of their simple, non-descript black car. She imagined that they were trying to look cool, but it wasn't really working out for them. They couldn't pull the cool detective look off very well.
"Good afternoon, Miss Harper," Wilcox greeted her. Keller just nodded his head in greeting.
"Afternoon, gents," Ary replied, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her flannel jacket. She glanced up at the stone building in disdain.
The last time she had been at an actual shooting range was when she was sixteen. Her Uncle Jack had brought her, Luke, and Mads along. It was right after he retired from the army and after all the crap he had seen in Iraq he wanted his nieces and nephew to know how to defend themselves. The little trip hadn't gone over very well with their moms and they had banned the kids from seeing him, but of course that didn't last long.
Ary had always thought she knew how bad it was for her uncle; that she had some inkling of what he had been feeling while overseas. It wasn't until she had actually killed someone with her own hands that she realized how naive she had been.
Everyone always tried to reason that there was no other choice in the matter, especially in times of war. It was kill or be killed. While that was certainly true, it didn't stop a person from thinking about all the what-ifs. What if that guy was just protecting his family? What if his family was being held captive and he was forced to strap that bomb to himself?
Even with Michael, who clearly had not been defending his country or family, Ary felt the what-ifs. What if Michael's father had abused him as a child and that's why he went crazy? What if he suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness? She never stopped thinking about the dozens of other ways she could have stopped him, without taking his life.
She had gotten so lost in her thoughts that she completely forgot about everything around her, until Wilcox loudly cleared his throat.
"What?" she asked, coming out of her trance.
"I said, don't tell me you're afraid of firearms," Wilcox said, giving her a strange look.
"Yeah, about as much as I'm afraid of ladybugs," Ary scoffed.
"Well, let's get started then, shall we?" Wilcox said, opening the door.
"What is this? A tryout?" Ary inquired as she followed Wilcox and Keller into the shooting range.
"We need to see if you can shoot a gun before we give you a license to carry one," Wilcox explained to her.
"Thank you, but I'm not really a big fan of guns, and I already have a license to carry a concealed weapon," she said, glaring over at Keller, who was trying to cover up a laugh with a cough.
"That's for Colorado. I'd feel better if you were certified in Illinois," Wilcox explained.
Ary knew he was just testing her. The bylines for carrying a concealed weapon weren't much different between the states. She'd checked when she had first registered for it, just in case she did have to cross state lines.
Ary didn't feel like arguing so she just let Wilcox test her. Her first test came when the middle aged man in a trucker hat asked her what kind of gun she wanted to shoot. Ary knew that most cops carried Glocks, especially in the city, but honestly she had never shot one before. She didn't feel like taking any chances so she stuck with what she knew.
"A Beretta M9 is fine," she told the bored looking guy behind the counter.
"A Beretta? Not exactly a common choice," Wilcox commented.
"It was the first handgun I learned how to shoot," she shrugged.
"Because of your uncle?" Keller spoke for the first time that day.
Ary shot a look over her shoulder. "Glad to see you did your homework, kiddo," she told him. His jaw tensed and Ary had to bite back a smile.
Because of Keller's age and the way he acted, she knew he was still a rookie detective. He mostly trailed behind Wilcox like an overly eager little puppy. He probably got teased all day by the other detectives. It probably hurt his ego a bit that his mentor was focusing on her and not him. That's what made this all the more enjoyable for her.
"Let's get going, children," Wilcox interrupted before she and Keller could get too far into their cat fight.
Ary took the gun and box of bullets from the counter and followed Wilcox. As they got farther into the building the sound of gunfire got increasingly louder. Ary had to fight to keep herself from flinching at every gunshot. She had to fight even harder to keep herself from flashing back to the day that she killed Michael. She figured she should be thankful it was that day she remembered and not the day that she, herself, had been shot. That flashback usually came with severe heartburn.
Ary tried to ignore everyone around her as she put on her protective gear and loaded her gun. It had been a while since she had been tested on anything and she'd forgotten how nervous it could make her. Trying to drown out everything except for the paper target in front of her, Ary raised the gun. Her hands shook a little and she desperately hoped that the detectives didn't notice it.
She aimed the gun at the chest area of the paper man, took a deep breath and just went to town. She unloaded the entire clip in just a matter of seconds. That hadn't originally been her attention. She had planned on taking one shot to get used to the kick back of the gun, but there hadn't been much of one. It wasn't as bad as she remembered it being.
All of her bullets hit the target and two of them were reasonably close to the heart. If she didn't know any better she'd have guessed that the person that shot off that round was at the shooting range at least once a week. She was lucky if she touched a gun more than once a month.
"Not too bad. Not great, but I'm pretty sure you won't accidentally shoot a civilian," Wilcox said as he studied the bullet holes on her paper dummy. Behind them, Keller was struggling to hold back more laughter.
"Accidentally shoot a civilian? Do you cops shoot with your eyes closed, or what?" she asked as she disarmed her gun.
"You got some attitude, you know that?" Wilcox told her.
"You're pretty sassy yourself, old man," Ary said. She must have caught him off guard because he just stared at her a moment before he started to chuckle.
"I liked that reply. That was pretty funny," he praised her.
They moved on after that. Their next destination was to a gym down the street. Ary feared that she'd have to do a physical fitness test. Although she could be considered as somewhat in shape, Ary did not enjoy working out. She didn't get the hype of running in a stationary position on a treadmill. It was like wasting bullets at a shooting range.
To her surprise, Wilcox suggested a sparring match between her and Keller. Both were happy to oblige. Ary was sure Keller was looking forward to the chance at knocking her on her ass. She made him look bad, which admittedly wasn't a hard thing to do.
As Ary and Keller circled one another on the mat, it became obvious to her that the rookie detective had never been in an actual fight before. Sure, he probably sparred with someone in the gym, but he'd never had to meet someone fist-to-fist on the streets. When it came to sanctioned fights, it was all about psyching the opponent out. Keller was doing that in the way he was bouncing around the mat on the balls of his feet, faking lunges at her.
Ary didn't fight like that. With the few classes she had taken on fighting and self-defense the instructors had taught their students to watch and wait. Ary didn't like that either. Fighting wasn't a waiting game. It wasn't like chess where the players could sit back and come up with their entire game strategy before the first move was made. The way she fought was to just dive in and figure out the strategy as she went. As someone who was generally smaller and weaker than her opponent, like now, the only way she could win was to catch them off guard.
Ary wasn't a master of martial arts. She'd taken a week long course in high school about self-defense and basically the only thing she learned from that was how to knee a guy in the nuts and then use a rape whistle. The two judo classes she'd taken in Colorado were basically just a slightly more intense form of yoga. It was all meditation and crap. Most of her moves she learned from watching MMA fights on TV. Another thing she learned from TV was to always go for the feet, and that's exactly what she did.
The moment that Keller lunged for her again, Ary lunged at the same time. Keller was caught off guard and tried to side step her, which set him off balance. Ary just finished off the job by kicking out his knee of the leg he was putting all his weight on. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.
"You were pretty calm out there," Wilcox commented as she walked near him to grab a bottle of water.
"Yeah, it was hard to keep from laughing as Goldie Locks pranced around the mat like he had ants in his pants," Ary snorted, rolling her eyes.
"You've been in a few fights," Wilcox continued, ignoring her sarcastic reply.
"I took a self-defense class at the Y," she shrugged, coolly.
"You're a smart kid. You shouldn't hide it behind all that angst and sarcasm," Wilcox said, giving her a serious look before he relaxed again. "You did good. Come by my office tomorrow and we'll discuss your first assignment," he said as he walked away.
Ary couldn't help but to smile as she watched the old man leave. Then she turned back to Keller who was limping around the mat. She gave him a big smirk, before she grabbed her things and headed out of the gym herself. It felt good to kick some ass again, even if the ass kicking had only lasted about ten seconds.
It was just a few hours before dark when Ary got back to the club. She'd spent the entire afternoon letting Wilcox and Keller treat her like some lab rat. Really, it couldn't take a lot to pass the test to become a cop. She'd seen some officers who looked like they'd had their patrol car for lunch. She figured that the two detectives were just trying to gain a few laughs at her expense.
It had felt kind of nice to show off her skills a bit. She had been trying to goad Rave into a sparring match with her for weeks now, but he always refused. For her own pride's sake she kept telling herself that it was because he was afraid she'd kick his ass, but she knew it was because he was afraid of hurting her, even in sport. He took the whole 'abusive boyfriend' thing very seriously. She knew it had more to do with his dad than with her family's image of him, but he always shut down when she brought up his family. She didn't press the matter.
Ary decided to go to the front of the club to let Mason know she was back before heading upstairs to get cleaned up. He had called her twice while she was with the detectives. Undoubtedly he had discovered that she had made a break for it. She knew that Rave had appointed him as somewhat of her bodyguard. Seriously, no one needed to spend all day, everyday sorting out little colored umbrellas. She felt bad for him. In her quest to piss Rave off, she was also making Mason's life a living hell. Babysitting her was not an easy feat.
"Honey, I'm home!" she announced as she opened the door to the front part of the club.
When there was no instant reply, she knew something was wrong. Her guard was immediately up and even though she had basically just announced her presence the the entire world, she slowly crept forward into the room, trying to be as quiet as possible.
As she got farther into the room, she noticed that some of the liquor bottles stacked behind the bar on shelves were smashed. A cold shiver went down her spine, making her wish she still had the Beretta in her hands. She didn't like using guns, but she had to admit that holding one did make her feel a hell of a lot safer.
She didn't see anyone out on the dance floor so she decided to slowly inch her way towards the bar. It was obvious some sort of skirmish had gone on back there. She was really hoping that Rave and Mason had gotten into it after Rave discovered she was gone, but deep down she knew that was impossible. She had no missed calls or texts from Rave. He didn't know she had left.
Mustering up all of her courage, Ary stood on tip toes and peaked over the edge of the bar. Her heart immediately dropped. Lying motionless amongst the shattered glass and spilled alcohol was Mason.
"Mason!" Ary jumped over the bar and dropped to her knees next to Mason. "Oh my God!"
He was still breathing, but there was a small pool of blood mixing with the alcohol underneath his head. She didn't know if he had been shot or what and she didn't take the time to examine his body thoroughly. She just pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed 911, trying to keep her hands from shaking too much.
Ary was so concerned with fussing over Mason and waiting for her phone to connect to the 911 operator that she didn't notice the man come up behind her.
She felt a sharp pain at the base of her skull, just behind her right ear and then bright colors flashed before her eyes before everything went black and she lost consciousness.
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Cliffhanger! Shocking coming from me, right? I know you guys hate me right now lol.
So...super cool about the chapter titles Wattpad automatically puts in now, but it totally sucks because I have to edit all my chapters now? Argh! Anyways, hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you thought of the chapter!