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the shooter wasted no time, moving with complete certainty, dragging the man to the nearest car like a sack of meat, knife already out, gleaming in the light. the tire hissed, the car sank a little, and the man, still bound by bucky's makeshift restraints, thrashed like a worm on a hook.
he made no move to stop him then either. bucky watched with an almost morbid curiosity, and an even darker compliance, listening as the man descended from defiance, to anger, to desperation, to fear. screams dissolving into tears. he'd been here before. only he'd been the one holding the knife then.
the car sank lower, the man sobbed, and bucky twitched the same time frank pulled the man out from under the car by his leg. bucky stared as frank asked if he cared if any were left alive. he didn't know. he couldn't tell if the guilt he felt was because it was wrong—or because a part of him understood exactly why it wasn't. ❝ i don't care what you do. but they aren't going to keep those people alive if they don't have a buyer. ❞
bucky made a face. something akin to anger, or disgust as the shooter explained who they were up against. ❝ then we better get moving. ❞ bucky said, walking briskly towards one of the dealers cars—a stereotypical black suv, ❝ hit them hard and fast, make sure they have no time to kill or use them as hostages. you know where this warehouse is? ❞
Frank doesn't say much, just walks over to whoever got pointed out and starts dragging them towards the nearest car. A knife gets quickly taken out from his vest and he punctures the tire; resting the man's head underneath the car. A small hiss is let out as the vehicle moves slightly and the man starts struggling with him; just bound arms swiping at him to get away. The car looming over them as it slowly moves down.
"Where are they? They were supposed to be handed over to those assholes at the Crossroads church and they didn't make it. What happened!" He barked at him, holding him in place as the 'boss' struggled with Frank.
[Fuck you!]
Frank takes the knife out and makes another puncture in the tire, the car moving even more now. "You think your head can survive the weight? You know you'll feel every inch of it happening. The car slowly crushing your fucking head as it bursts open finally crushing your damn brain. You know you survive 15 minutes after?"
[Fuck you! Fuck you! FUCK YOU!]
The man screams before crying as the car moves closer and closer.
[I don't know! I don't know! They didn't show up! We stashed them at our warehouse with our merchandise! We had nowhere else to put them, they fucked us over!]
Frank punctured the tire again and watched as the car slowly descended down on the man, his screams filling the air before he pulled him by his leg away from the car.
"—You care if any of them are left alive?" He asks the stranger, looking at the way he moved, he had a feeling he didn't. It's not like they had the time to be fucking around anymore.
"I'll take you up on your offer,too." He added, knowing he meant he'd help with the women when they found them. "We get them to safety and find out more later. This church," Frank shook his head, his jaw set tight. "They start indoctrinating low tier drug offenders, give them the salvation speech and then have them do shit like this to prove their loyalty. If those assholes didn't show, it means something went wrong on their end."
he didn't have to stay. arguably, it would have been smarter if he'd disappeared before the shooter arrived, circled back, and observed from a distance. but the shooter hadn't been targetting him, therefore, they must have been after the gangs. enemy of mine enemy, or something like that. bucky was crouched over one of the survivors, rummaging through his pockets for anything useful.
❝ only loose cash and bullets, ❞ he said, looking up as the shooter approached. there was something off about him, the same way there was something off about bucky. not broken, not exactly, but set wrong. more like a jaw that had been knocked out of place and healed without care. too hard. too tight. and the eyes, he'd seen eyes like that reflected back at him in the mirror too many times.
❝ i didn't call the cops. it's not a hit. and lately . . . i've been doing this a lot. don't really have a name for it. ❞ whatever this was, he was still figuring it out. bucky stood slowly, watching as the shooter dug his foot into one of the goons sides hard enough to make him whimper and twitch. bucky made no move to stop him. ❝ half of them work for la fierra. she's been supplying the coast with guns and explosives. didn't know about the women. ❞ and wasn't that a fucking oversight on his part. bucky's expression hardened, jaw tight, angry. pale gaze swept the area, inspecting the faces of the men that he'd bound and disarmed until he spotted the straw buyer.
❝ if anyone's gonna know where their boss is, it's him. ❞ bucky pointed. ❝ cops'll be here sooner rather than later. i've got a container on highland drive. ❞ the implication was clear: bucky was willing and able to help secure the women intended for utah.
"Got anything on our guest?" Frank radioed Micro again.
[ Nope. Got nothing. Which is really saying something, Frank. I'll keep looking, but so far I'm just getting weird garbage.]
"What do you mean?"
[ Well...the kind of stories people in the community tell each other to even scare us. Undying assassins, spooky disappearances, unknown and forgotten government projects that still run in some zombiefied way. This guy, his training, he should be known, but I'm not finding a damn thing, Frank. Someone's hiding him, or he gets help from someone and they are way up there in a very big chain. ]
"Alright, I get it. We don't know jack shit about him." Frank grunted and lowered the volume on his radio. Didn't want Micro's voice to come out while he's talking to the man. One thing for sure is that he's got some kind of code or strict guidelines because he didn't come rushing towards him after he shot and killed one of those assholes.
"Got anything good?" Frank asks, walking towards the man. He can see now that a few of the bastards are still alive, there's a twitch on his face, his trigger finger tapping, but he doesn't say anything about it. The way this man moved, he wouldn't get a shot off to kill the rest before hitting the sand like these idiots did.
"First: did you call the cops? Second: is this a hit? Third: I don't do this shit often. I don't even know what the fuck the protocol even is at this point. I doubt it involves us sticking around here for long. I'm trimming down the family tree. I just needed one of these assholes," his foot started digging into the side of one of the men who were bound," to tell me where their boss is. They were bringing a shipment of women from down south up to a cult in Utah. This is one of their stops before they make the handover. I need to know where those women are."
he'd taken the sentries out first, moving in quickly before the two groups could notice their missing men, by the time he'd stepped out into the fray, there were only six men remaining. the fight was almost entirely one-sided as bucky moved between them with devastating precision, incapacitating his enemies with brutal efficiency until a shot whizzed over his shoulder.
the bullet penetrated the throat of a man that had snuck up behind him. bucky snatched a hold of the mans jacket before he could fall, using him as a human shield as he turned to stare at where the shot had come from.
a beat. two. nothing. not aiming for him then. a good shot, an expert marksman, evidently not a member of either of the groups attempting to trade guns. bucky dropped the body unceremoniously to the ground, stepping over him as he gargled his last futile breaths. there wasn't much else he could do except wait for the shooter to join him, so bucky secured the scene instead. disarming and binding the survivors of the gun deal before he moved to inspect the equipment while he waited.
@wintrb0rn
April 19, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Somewhere far from the strip, a meeting between two groups of dirt bags in the desert is happening. Frank is quietly watching from far away, his scope on one of them as he gets ready to pull the trigger. Before his finger can even twitch, there's a blur of a man punching the shit out of them. Small pops of gunfire go off; he can see the light from their muzzles in the dark.
Frank's jaw is clenched tight. "Micro, who is that?" He taps his radio, but he hears nothing but static before a voice cuts in.
[Don't know. Can't get a good read on his face. Maybe a hitman?]
He looks into his scope again, and quickly fires a shot at one of the men creeping up from behind with a gun. Nothing but blood flies into the air as the bullet goes through the man's throat. "Not a hitman. He wouldn't be attacking both groups, and now he's got my position." He says, looking at the man turn his head towards him in the hills.
"Guess, we'll see what his deal is. I didn't see blood splattering everywhere. He might be one of those 'I don't kill' types. Fucking, Saints, everywhere."