TarotofTruth

Fox slowly opens the door of their hideout and peeks her head in to see if anyone is lounging around inside. When she notices the coast is clear, she signals Rembrandt, who’s holding a medium-sized blanket in her arms to come in. They make their way to the fridge and Fox searches it for some milk. “We need to hurry before anyone gets in here.” Rembrandt urges in a hushed tone

Fox scans the shelves. “Why is there so much half-eaten takeout in here?” She crouches down and sees a carton in the back. “Ah-ha, there we go.” She smiles as she pulls the carton out. But her smile quickly fades. “There’s barely anything in here! Who the hell would put an empty carton back in the fridge?!” Fox sniffs the carton and gags from the smell. She looked at the date and saw that the expiration date was almost two months ago. “And this is rancid!”

Rembrandt shushes her. “Quiet! You’re gonna wake him up! I just got him to fall asleep!”

Fox lowers her tone. “Sorry..”

“Wake who up?” A voice comes up from behind them

Rembrandt let out a small yelp before slowly turning around and seeing Swan standing there, drinking a Coke.

Fox slowly moves in front of Rembrandt. “Swan! Hi! You’re looking wonderful today. Did you do something new with your hair? Whatever you did is fantastic!”

Swan raises an eyebrow. “I..didn’t do anything?” she says in confusion.

Fox goes over to Swan and starts pushing her towards the door. “Well, I think it’s about time for you to go out and get a haircut.”

“Why? What’s wrong with my hair?” Swan stops in the doorframe

“Mercy says you need one!” Fox pushes her outside

“Wait, she did?!” 

Fox doesn’t answer and closes the door. Then, suddenly, the blanket in Rembrandt’s arms starts moving. She moves the blanket and reveals a small baby who appears to be about six months old. 

“I think we woke him up..”

“Quick! What do we do before he starts crying?!”

“I don’t know! I never had a baby before!”

Swan walks back in. “One more thing, have you guys seen Ajax? We’re supposed to-” She stops herself when she notices the scene in front of her. “What in the actual..”

“We can explain!” Rembrandt starts

“What the fuck is that?!” 

“A baby” 

“No shit, where did the baby come from?”

Fox and Rembrandt look at each other. “Swan.. we didn’t think we would have to be the ones to tell you this but..when a boy and a girl love each other very much-” Fox gets interrupted.

Swan buries her head in her hands. “That is not what the fuck I meant. Why is it here?”

Rembrandt gasps. “Don’t you dare call your new nephew it! His name is Pipsqueak.”

“Phillip” Fox corrects

Rembrandt rolls her eyes “We’re still working on it.”

“Nephew?!”

Rembrandt shushes Swan and holds Phillip/Pipsqueak to her chest. “Don’t raise your voice or else you’re gonna make him cry” She rocks the baby back and forth. “And yes he is your nephew. Fox and I are his new parents”

“I swear to sweet Jesus if one of you tell me that you two stole someone else’s baby I am gonna-”

Mercy runs into the room “Did I just hear someone say baby?” 

Rembrandt shows her the baby in her arms “Meet Pipsqueak”

“Phillip” Fox corrects again

Mercy lets out a high-pitched squeal as she goes over to the other two Warriors. “Can I hold him?”

Ajax walks into the kitchen “Hey what’s with all the noise in he- what the fuck” She stops herself as she watches Mercy carefully take the baby from Rembrandt.

“Ajax meet your nephew Pipsqueak.” Rembrandt smiles

Ajax snorts “Pipsqueak?”

Rembrandt crosses her arms “What’s wrong with the name Pipsqueak?” 

“It’s not a gerbil Rembrandt.”

“That’s what I said, I say we name him Phillip” Fox says tossing the expired carton of milk in the trash.

“Pipsqueak is a good name!”

Ajax sat on the counter “How do you even know if it’s a boy?”

Fox rubs her arm. “He may or may not have peed on me when we first found him.”

“Okay back to my original question, where did you find him?” Swan asks

“The park..”

“You two stole somebody’s baby from a park?!”

“Technically we didn’t! Me and Rembrandt were at a jungle gym-”

Ajax butts in “What were you two doing at a playground?” She asks teasingly

Fox looks down feeling a bit embarrassed “Long story..”

“Anyways while we were at the park we noticed someone left their baby by the water fountain,” Rembrandt explains.

“So you just decided to grab the baby and bring it back here?” Swan asks

“No, we waited half an hour to see if his parents would come before deciding to grab Phillip and bring him back here.” Fox corrects

“What type of monster would abandon such a cutie.” Mercy looks at Phillip and starts making silly faces. “Yes you are a cutie, yes you are,” She says in a baby voice

Swan sighs “You know we can’t keep him, Cleon is gonna lose it if she sees a baby here”

“He was gonna catch a cold if we didn’t grab him! Can we just keep Pipsqueak until we can find his parents?” Rembrandt begs

“Look Rem-” Swan gets cut off by Mercy holding Phillip up to her face. 

“Come on, you can’t say no to his cute little face”

Before Swan could answer, Mercy lowered Phillip down slightly to reveal her puppy eyes

“M-” Swan cuts herself off as she looks to her right when she notices Rembrandt and Fox doing the same thing “Goddammit”

Swan already had a hard time saying no to Mercy and Fox as it is. The day Mercy sat Fox down and taught her how to do puppy eyes, Swan already knew she’d lose any battles when it came to those two, Rembrandt being added to the equation made it even worse.

“Pretty please”

Swan threw her hands up “Okay fine!”

“Yay!”

“Whipped” Ajax coughs

“Fuck you”

Mercy swats Swan on the arm “No cursing in front of Pipsqueak.” “Well Pipsqueak doesn’t know what we’re saying” Mercy cradles Pipsqueak in her arms. “Of course he does, don’t you cutie pie?” She asks in a baby voice while tickling his stomach.

Pipsqueak laughs for a few seconds before scrunching his face and letting out a very loud wet poop in his diaper which makes her immediately stop. 

Ajax’s hand immediately flies to her nose to cover it from the smell “Damn!”

Pipsqueak starts giggling

“Okay that thing is a demon”

Mercy looks at Fox and Rembrandt “Was there a baby bag?”

They shake their head. “Just the baby” Fox answers

Mercy raised an eyebrow “Then where did you get the diaper he has on now if he peed on you?”

“Oh that’s not a diaper, we just used one of Ajax’s shirts” Ajax’s gaze shoots over to the two younger Warriors “You did fucking what?!”

“The shirt had sleeves attached it’s not like you’ve been wearing it anyway!” Rembrandt quickly says in defense. 

“I swear if that’s my shirt I got from the Van Halen concert your asses are grass!”

Fox lets out a small squeak and hides behind Swan. “Guess that means we have to go on a quick shopping spree.” Mercy says before putting Pipsqueak in Swan’s arms. “Wait what are you- “ Before she could resist, the baby was already in her arms. “The fuck am I supposed to do with it?”

Mercy looks at her, confused. “Hold him?”

Rembrandt goes over to Pipsqueak and kisses his forehead. “We’ll be back soon, Pipsqueak.”  

Fox lightly runs her thumb across his cheek. “We promise, bye Phillip”. 

“You guys are just gonna leave me alone with a baby with a shitty diaper?!” Swan says in a bit of a panic

“Relax, you’ll be okay. The store is only a couple blocks away, we should be back in the next hour,” Mercy assures

“Besides, you have Ajax,” Fox says, making sure the blanket fully covers Phillip.

Ajax hops off the counter and walks out still having her hand over her nose “No you don’t!"

Swan looks down at Pipsqueak, who has an innocent look on his face. “I guess you’re kinda cute.” Pipsqueak’s hand goes into her hair and smiles. Mercy’s heart melted as she saw how gentle Swan was with the baby. “Well, we’ll leave you to it.” She kisses Swan’s cheek before heading out the door with Fox and Rembrandt

Pipsqueak’s innocent smile quickly turns into a mischievous one when the girls leave. He balls his hand into a fist and begins yanking at Swan’s curly locks.

“Ow! You little fucking shitstain!”

Pipsqueak stops and his smile turns into a look of fear

“Shit-”

Before she could say anything else, the whole place started to fill with crying. Swan runs outside and calls out after the girls who had luckily only gone a few steps. “Wait how do I get him to stop crying!?”

“Try singing to him!” Mercy shouts back Swan groans and begins rocking Pipsqueak in her arms. “Hush little baby don’t you cry..I’m gonna punch Ajax in the eye-” “Swan!” “Okay damn!”

                                          __________________

Cochise and Cowgirl walk into the den amid a conversation. “Like I told him, I don’t care if you drive a Buick I’m not-” Cowgirl cuts herself off when they get hit by the stench that was filled in the room. “Damn it stinks in here”

“What in the hell..” Cochise sees an exhausted Swan holding a screaming baby in her arms. Swan sighs in relief when she noticed the other Warriors.  “Thank goodness! Cleon isn’t with you guys is she?”

“Uh, no, she’s still gone for the weekend,” Cowgirl says, completely befuddled at what she was  looking at

“Here’s a better question, why is there a baby in here!?” Cochise exclaims “And what the hell happened to you?” “Fox and Rembrandt found him at the park. They left with Mercy to get some baby stuff about an hour ago and left me on babysitting duty. Little fucker thew up on me after I gave him some of your apple juice.”

 “You fed him my apple juice?!” “I’ll pay you back later but can you guys please take him for ten minutes so I can change?” Cowgirl shakes her head while still holding onto her nose. “There is no way I’m touching that thing” “I’ll give you five bucks” Cowgirl and Cochise look at each other. “Each” Swan adds on Without hesitation, Cowgirl goes to Swan and takes Pipsqueak from her. “You know I’ve always loved the kids” The moment Pipsqueak left Swan’s arms, he immediately stopped crying. Swan lets out a sigh of relief. “Fuckin’ finally.” Swan stretches her arms which felt almost completely numb. “ You know when Cleon’s getting back?” She asks Cochise The other girl shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Could be today, could be tomorrow. Who knows” It wasn’t a rare occurrence for Cleon to leave Coney for a few days. Nobody knew exactly where she went or where she was doing but none of the Warriors had the nerve to get into their Warlord’s business. But after Cleon came home from one of her trips with a stupid grin on her face and some poorly hidden hickey’s on her neck, it didn’t take long for Cowgirl and Mercy to figure out that Cleon was sneaking off to hook up with someone. They tried to pry for details but all they got from her was a “Don’t worry about it” Cowgirl bounces Pipsqueak in her arms. “Whoever she’s scurrying off to go see sure knows how to keep her occupied”

Swan gags as she gets a whiff of her shirt. “I need to get out of this. Listen, the others should be back soon, but if Cleon comes back just hide the baby.” Cowgirl gives a salute “You can count on us”

                                        _________________________

“Okay, I’m back. Thanks for-” Swan stops herself when she notices the mess “Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit” Cowgirl looks under the couch cushions as Cochise looks through the cabinets in the kitchen.

“What’s going on?!” Swan says scaring the shit out of the other two Cochise and Cowgirl cautiously approach Swan. “Hey…” Cowgirl says with a nervous laugh Swan looks around. “What happened in here? Did the others come back?” “No, but-” Swan sighs “Where’s the baby?” “Funny story actually-” “Where. Is.The.Baby” “Cleon came back while you were gone and she needed us to help get rid of some squatters” Cochise explains. “And I did exactly what you said and hid the baby” Cowgirl adds in The Warchief crosses her arms “Okay great. Now where is it?” “We don’t know” Cowgirl looks down. “When we came back he wasn’t where I left him..” “HOW-” “Please don’t yell..” Swan rubs her face and takes a deep breath to calm herself down. “I was gone for fifteen minutes. How do you lose a baby?” She asks calmly “My Aunt got pushed down the stairs when she was seven months pregnant,” Cowgirl says adding absolutely nothing helpful to the conversation. Cochise looks at her dumbfounded. “We are so dead” Swan puts her head in her hands. Cowgirl looks at her “Wait hold up, what you mean we?” “You two were the ones who lost the baby while I was gone!” “You wouldn’t’ve had to leave in the first place if you never gave him Cochise’s nasty ass apple juice!” Cochise gets in the middle of them. “Let’s just calm down. Nobody is getting killed.”  She looks at Swan. “He couldn’t have gone far. We’ll look for him together and if we don’t find him you aren’t going down for this alone.” Swan began to feel a bit calmer which did not last long. The door opens and Mercy, Fox, and Rembrandt walk in with various baby items. “Look for who?” Rembrandt asks. Fox looks around and furrows her eyebrows. “Where’s Phillip?”

Mercy sets the bag full of baby formula on the couch and picks up some cushions off the floor. “And why is it so messy in here?

Swan, Cowgirl, and Cochise exchange glances waiting for someone to speak up first. “Um hello?” Fox says “Swan you were supposed to be watching the baby where is he?” Mercy asks Swan doesn’t make eye contact with them. “He’s missing..” Fox drops the box of diapers she was holding. “What” Rembrandt’s eye began to twitch. “You lost our son?! Cochise looks at an invisible watch on her wrist. “Oh won’t you look at time, gotta go.” She quickly starts going out the door. Swan’s eyes widened. “Same my, shift starts in ten so..adios!” Cowgirl follows Cochise out. “Bitch, what happened to not going down alone?!” Swan shouts after them A few seconds later Cowgirl and Cochise come back with their heads hanging down as Cleon had them by the back of their vests. Everyone in the room freezes. Fox kicked the box of diapers behind the couch. “Cleon hey…you’re back early,” Fox says laughing nervously Cleon lets go of the girls she was holding and pushes them towards the others. “So does anybody want to explain to me why I got a call from Masai saying somebody saw two people wearing our colors kidnap a baby?” Fox was the first to speak up. “Okay, who’s to say it was us? We have very common colors.” “I just saw you kick a box of diapers” Fox looks away “Fair point” “Also why did Masai call you? The Riffs aren’t even in Brooklyn.” Cochise asks

“You know Tiny?”

“The new leader of Satan's Mothers?” Swan asks

“That motorcycle gang from Sheepshead?” Mercy asks out of curiosity

Cleon nods. “Yep, his son is missing”

“Shit.” 

“Ajax already spilled that there was a baby in here. Now I suggest one of you start talking” “Goddammit Ajax” Swan mutters. Rembrandt starts walking up to the Warlord. “Cleon there’s something I need to confess..” Fox quickly grabs Rembrandt. “What are you doing?!” Rembrandt grabs Fox’s hand and gives her a bittersweet smile. “Fox it’s okay, let me do this” She lets go and then goes over to Cleon. “Cleon” “Yes?” Rembrandt looks Cleon dead in the eyes before taking a breath. She then points to the side. “It was Swan” “What?!” Cleon looks over at Swan. “Is this true?” “Hell no! Cowgirl was the one who lost him!” “You were the one who told me to look after him! Fox, Mercy,  and Rembrandt were the ones who took him in the first place!” Cowgirl exclaims Mercy puts her hands up in defense “Don’t look at me I had nothing to do with this” Cleon pinches the bridge of her nose. “So you mean to tell me you knuckleheads kidnapped a baby and now you don’t know where he is?! It’s a fucking baby! How do you lose a baby!?” “My Aunt-” “Shut up,” Cochise and Swan say simultaneously.

“It’s not like we just kidnapped him. Phillip was by himself for like half an hour so we just took him before anything bad could happen. We didn’t think he’d belong to a gang let alone that bloodthirsty motorcycle club from Sheepshead!” Fox explains “That’s right you didn’t think- hold on you named him?!” Cleon shouts Ajax runs into the hideout. “Satan’s Mother MC just pulled up outside.” She says out of breath before locking the door “Are they packin’?” Cleon asks “Knives and chains” “Damn!” Cleon paces back and forth “What do we do?!” Cowgirl asks “I can go back out and stall them” Ajax offers. Swan goes to Ajax “I’m going with you” Fox steps up “If anybody’s going to face the MCs it should be me.” “Everybody shut up and let me think! Nobody is going anywhere.” Cleon instructs “We’re in this mess because of me. I was the one to convince Rembrandt we should take him in the first place. Let me do this please.” She begs Rembrandt looks at her “Are you crazy?!” “I said nobody is going anywhere, that’s an order! And what the fuck is that smell?! I’ve been smelling it since I came up in here!” Cleon says “Baby shit” Swan answers Suddenly there’s a loud bang on the door.  “We know you’re in here Warriors! I know you have my boy!” A voice shouts “Okay we need to find that damn baby before they start breaking shit,” Ajax says a bit above a whisper. “We already checked everywhere! We have no clue where he could be!” Cochise whisper shouts A brick came crashing through the window almost hitting Mercy who got out of the way just in time. “Holy shit!” The muffled sound of a familiar cry began to fill the air. Everybody’s attention immediately went to the oven. “Now there is no way-” Rembrandt runs to the oven and opens it to reveal Pipsqueak lying on the second rack. She quickly takes him out and cradles him in her arms. “You put him in the oven?!” She shouts at Cowgirl “Don’t look at me! I don’t know how the hell he got in there!” Cowgirl says as the banging on the door gets louder “I’m gonna open the door, none of you say shit. Let me do the talking” Cleon orders before putting her hand on the knob. Right when the door unlocks, it swings open almost breaking at the hinges. Instinctively, Swan stood in front of Mercy just in case anything went down. “Took you a while to open the door, Cleon,” Tiny says with a creepy smile. “Where’s my kid?” Tiny looks behind Cleon and sees Rembrandt holding Pipsqueak who is still crying. He turns to his right hand, Goober. “Go get him” Goober goes to her and takes Pipsqueak out of her hands then goes back next to Tiny who’s eyes never left the tagger. “That girl fit the description Fathead and Kev gave?” Goober leans over to get a good look at Rembrandt. “Yep” “Perfect” Before anyone could react Tiny pulled out a blade and began charging towards Rembrandt. He lifts his arm preparing to stab the smaller girl. Rembrandt squeezes her eyes shut preparing to feel the pain. “No!” Fox quickly got in front of Rembrandt and grabbed Tiny’s wrist before he could stab her. Without thinking, Fox lowers his arm and lands a punch on Tiny’s face. “Fox!” Rembrandt holds Fox’s arm and drags her back. Tiny spits out some blood. “You fucking bitch!” He tightly grips the knife changing his intended target Ajax and Swan exchange a look then give each other a nod of approval before jumping in and blocking Tiny from getting to Fox. “You’re on Warriors turf, put away the knife,” Swan says “If you wanna touch them, you and your little band of bitches gotta get through us first” Ajax threatens. Cowgirl, Cochise, and Mercy join them, forming a complete wall in front of Rembrandt and Fox. “Us too” Cleon comes to the rescue and moves him away from the Warriors. She puts her hand against Tiny’s chest before he can let some more bloodshed. “Okay everybody calm down!” “Your people kidnapped my son!” Tiny shouts. “And where the fuck were you?! My people said they saw your baby abandoned at a park for half an hour! They were just trying to do the right thing and look after him! You really think we’d hurt a kid?! We wouldn’t do that shit man!” Cleon shouts back. “Then why the fuck is he crying?” Cleon picks up the brick that was on the ground and shoves it into Tiny’s hands “Of course he’s crying! Your goons threw this through the damn window! Go take a look and you won’t find a scratch on him!” Rembrandt looks Tiny. “We didn’t mean any harm. We just wanted to make sure he was taken care of.” “We just got back from grabbing some baby stuff, it’s right there on the couch” Fox points behind him. He looks at a dented box of diapers on the ground and the bag of formula not far from it. “Any marks on him Goob?” “None boss, just a shit-filled Van Halen shirt” Goob answers. Ajax’s eyes widened “See there you go. Now you got your son who’s unharmed and new baby products for him. Nobody’s got to get hurt.” Cleon reasons “Goob give him to me” Goob gives Pipsqueak to Tiny. Tiny looks at Pipsqueak. “Were these girls good to you Smasharthur?” “What the-” Mercy quickly elbows Cowgirl in the side signaling her to stop talking Pipsqueak aka Smasharthur looks at the Warriors and giggles. Tiny smiles at his son. “There’s my answer.“ He looks at Cleon. “Look, I can’t for long, Smasharthur’s mother is going crazy but I’ll tell you guys what. Since you found my son and kept him safe after my dumbass crew ditched him, maybe we can get together sometime to talk about an alliance between Satan’s Mothers and The Warriors, deal?” Tiny stuck out his hand Cleon looks at the others before looking back at Tiny. “We’ll think about it.” She shakes his hand. Tiny looks at Goob “Alright, grab the stuff, and let’s get out of here.” Tiny walks out while quietly singing to Smasharthur. “Cat's in the Cradle, and the Silver Spoon. Little boy blue and the man on the moon. When you comin' home son, I don't know when, but we'll get together then.” Goob grabs the diapers and formal then gives one last look to the Warriors. “Sorry about the window..” He says before leaving and closing the door behind him. The room is dead silent until Cowgirl is the first to speak. “Now what the fuck type of name is Smasharthur?” “Right?!” Cochise says “Maybe Pipsqueak wasn’t such a bad name after all” Fox says “He still has my shirt..” Ajax says Swan looks at Cleon “We really gonna have an alliance with the deadliest gang in Brooklyn?” “Let me worry about that, you guys worry about getting that smell out of here and fixing that window. I need a damn drink” Cleon walks out. Swan looks at the shattered window. “Son of a bitch.” Mercy rubs Swan’s back and kisses her cheek. “I’ll go look for a hammer and some nails.” She says before disappearing upstairs to look for the toolbox “I’ll get the wood” Swan goes outside. Cowgirl grabs a broom. “I got the glass” “I’m gonna disinfect the oven,” Cochise says going into the kitchen. Ajax still was staring at the door “That baby has my shirt” Fox looks at Rembrandt who hasn’t said anything “Are you okay?” Rembrandt looks at Fox. “Fuck you“ She runs out. “Rem, wait!” Fox goes after the tagger. After catching up to her, Fox stops in front of her. “What’s wrong? Talk to me” She scoffs “What’s wrong? You’ve still barely recovered from what happened in Union Square and you go on and punch the leader of the most dangerous gang in the city! He could have killed you and you have the nerve to ask me if  I’m okay?! The fuck is wrong with you?!” She pushes Fox “He was gonna stab you!” Fox argues “So what?! “You were gonna get hurt! Did you just expect me to stand there and let it happen?! I could’ve taken a knife to the shoulder!” “You’re not Ajax and you’re not Swan so-” Fox cuts Rembrandt off. “I know I’m not! I wasn’t Swan or Ajax when I fought that cop but I’m still here. I knew the risks then and I knew the risks with Tiny but I still did it anyways.” “That’s the problem! You keep thinking you’re invincible but newsflash Fox; you can still die like the rest of us!” “You want me to apologize? Because too bad because you’re not gonna get one out of me. If I could redo what happened, I’d do the same thing over and over again. I don’t care if I die-” “I do!” Fox and Rembrandt look at each other in complete silence. “Rem..” “Forget it, you’re never gonna understand” Rembrandt began to walk away. Fox grabs her hand to prevent her from going anywhere. “Then help me understand,” She says gently. Rembrandt looks up at Fox with tears streaming down her face. “At Union Square, we thought that cop killed you. I thought I watched you die. I thought I lost you. You are my best friend, I can’t stand the thought of going through that again.” Fox carefully took a step closer and used her thumb to wipe Rembrandt’s tears away, her hand lingered on her face. “You won’t. I’m right here.” Rembrandt puts her hand over Fox’s “Not if you keep doing stupid shit.” “I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m gonna keep doing stupid shit if it keeps you and the others safe” Tears began to flow down Rembrandt’s face “You fucking idiot” Fox kept quiet and hugged Rembrandt tightly. Rembrandt wraps her arms around Fox’s neck and hugs back tighter as she begins to sob into her shoulder. Fox’s hand moves up to the back of Rembrandt’s head. The tagger makes her grip even tighter. As if she was in a deep sleep and she’d wake up to Fox disappearing if she let go. Rembrandt’s tears began to slowly stop a few minutes later. “I love you..” She says quietly with her head still buried in Fox’s shoulder “I love you too” Ajax coughs “Ahem!” The two girls quickly separate from each other. Rembrandt quickly wipes her tears away “Jesus Ajax you scared me!” “How long have you been standing there?” Fox asks Ajax raises an eyebrow as she looks at the both of them “Since now. I’m not interrupting anything am I?” Fox glances at Rembrandt.  “You’re my best friend”  Echoes in Fox’s head. She frowns slightly. “Nope, nothing at all.” Ajax crosses her arms in amusement. “Uh-huh”

“So..what do you want?” Rembrandt asks Ajax snaps her fingers. “That’s right! So remember what I said earlier when I told the both of you what would happen if I found out that you used my Van Halen shirt as a makeshift diaper?” “Oh no” Ajax nods and starts stretching “Yep. Best believe I’m cashing that check. Now which one of you wants to go first?” “How long is our headstart?” Fox nervously laugh Ajax chuckles “It’s cute that you'd think I was gonna give one to you two ”

All the Warriors were gathered in their hideout waiting for their leader to come down. It’s been over 20 minutes since they’ve been summoned there but there has been no sign of their leader.

“So when did Cleon say this meeting is gonna start?” Mercy asks.

The others look at her in pure confusion.

“Meeting? Cleon never said anything about having a meeting?” Swan says

“Then why are we all in here?”

“Cleon told me she wanted to go over different designs for our tag,” Rembrandt says

“Cleon said she had a job for me,” Ajax says

“She said the same to me and Cowgirl” Cochise says sitting up from the couch.

Fox scrunches her eyebrows. “Me too.”

Cowgirl’s eyes slowly began to widen as she began to realize what was going on. “Guys, what day is it?”

“Eighteenth, why?” Mercy answers

Swan immediately gets out of her seat. “Okay we gotta get the fuck outta here”

Ajax throws up a peace sign before heading to the door. “ I’m out! Deuces!” She twists the handle but the door doesn’t budge.

Rembrandt grabs her bag and goes over to the window. “If we’re quick we can make it to Nathan’s before she gets down here!”

Mercy stands up “Is someone gonna fill me in on what’s going on?”

“We’ve been duped!” Fox exclaims

Cochise puts a hand on her back and swiftly rushes her toward the door where Ajax was still struggling with the knob. “We’ll tell you everything once we get out of here”

“Ajax what’s the hold up?” Cowgirl asks impatiently.

Ajax keeps rattling and pulling on the doorknob. “It’s not opening.”

“What do you mean it’s not opening?!”

“Was I speaking fuckin’ Japanese? It won’t open!”

“Calm down, the hinges are probably rusted.” Swan switches places with Ajax. Swan twists the doorknob while ramming her shoulder into the door attempting to bust it open. After several attempts, the door is still unopened.  “Okay she locked us in here”

“Fuck!”

Rembrandt attempts to pull up the window but it appears to be stuck. “The window isn’t opening!”

“Try harder!”

A voice came from up the stairs. “Warriors…it’s time to play” footsteps creaked down the stairs

“Too late”

“Son of a bitch!”

“We’re doomed!”

Cochise picks up a chair. “No! I am not going through this shit again! I refuse!” She went to the window to smash it open but Swan grabs onto the leg of the chair to stop her from going any further.

Swan sighs “We all know you won’t fix that window, go sit down”

Cochise huffs and puts down the chair then sits back on the couch. Cleon enters the room holding a giant box.

She sets the box in the center of the coffee table. “Gather ‘round my Warriors you know the drill.”

Everyone besides Mercy lets out a loud groan.

“Cleon I really don’t see why we have to keep doing this” Swan says as they all approach the table.

“Because we’re finally all back together and now we have a new member with us. So why stop tradition?”

Mercy inspects the contents of the box. “What’s so bad about a bunch of board games?”

“Right, you’re still new here. This is Cleon’s way of doing team bonding exercises.” Cowgirl explains.

“How is this team bonding?”

“Because it isn’t” Ajax interjects

“Don’t mind them, these help strengthen our communication skills as a group,” Cleon says pulling out a monopoly board.

“Strengthen our communication skills my ass.” Rembrandt mumbles sitting on the floor.

“I’m sure iit’s not that bad.” Mercy says which got a chuckle out of Swan

~~~~~~~~~

“YOU MOTHERLESS PIECES OF GODDAMN TRASH!” Fox shouts

“DON’T YELL AT US BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME!”

The group was currently in the middle of playing a game of Scrabble. Cleon was in the lead, Cochise was in second, Swan was in third, Rembrandt in fourth, Mercy in fifth, Cowgirl in sixth, Fox in seventh, and Ajax in last. They are currently on their fifth argument of the night.

“This is a word game! You put the letters down on the board to make a word, how am I not playing this right?!”

Cochise sighs “Fox for the last time, fuckbag is not a real word! You use real words playing the game!”

“Fuckbag is too a real word!”

“Tell me please, what page is fuckbag on in the dictionary? Better yet, use it in a sentence.”

“Here’s a sentence for you. I am going to lose my shit if you guys keep blocking my words you, fuckbag!”

“Come on just let her use the word” Rembrandt pleads.

“No! I’m tired of letting Fox get away with this shit! You need to give your girlfriend a fucking dictionary!” Cowgirl jumps in

“She’s not my g- that doesn’t matter. You guys let Ajax put irregardless!”

Ajax looks at her “That’s because irregardless is a real word!”

“Nobody says it but you!”

Swan looks over at Mercy. “Not that bad huh?”

Mercy lays her head on her shoulder. “We’ve only been playing for fifteen minutes and I already have a headache. How much longer is this?”

“Oh sweetheart we’re only on the first game, you’ve only got about twenty-six more arguments  to go”

Mercy buries her head in the nape of Swan’s neck as the arguing gets louder.

“Now you’re just making shit up there is no way in hell hemoglobin is a real word!” Fox exclaims

~~~~~~~~~

Nobody ended up winning Scrabble due to the fact that everyone collectively agreed to end the game after Fox flipped the table over after she was denied putting the word “Magnavox” after Cochise was allowed to put in the word “hobgoblin”. It also made the others put Fox in a chair in the corner for the outburst. She found it ridiculous but chose not to complain since she knew that the games would get worse from there.

Pictionary was the next game of choice picked out by Mercy. Two teams against each other. Cleon, Cowgirl, and Swan against Ajax, Mercy, and Cochise. Rembrandt decided to keep score since she believed being on anybody’s team would be a disadvantage for everyone else.

Cochise was frantically drawing on the sketchpad trying to get her teammates to guess it before the time runs out. The drawing looked interesting to say the least

Mercy squints a little to decipher the drawing  “Is it..a bird?”

“Looks like a boomerang.” Ajax guesses

Neither were correct so Cochise kept adding to the drawing

“A very sprouted potato?”

“Is it a boomerang?” Ajax asks

Cochise rolls her eyes at Ajax

“Tumbleweed?” Mercy guesses again

“Definitely a boomerang”

Cochise didn’t answer and kept focusing on the drawing

“Chair?”

“It’s a boomerang!!”

Cochise went a little faster, frantically scribbling on the page

“Is it a-”

“Boomerang!”

Cowgirl puts the sand timer on the counter as all the sand reaches the bottom. “That’s time”

“Fuck!” Cochise slams her fists on the table. “Wasn’t right the first time you said it! Why the hell would it be right the next thirty times?!” She shouts at Ajax

Rembrandt looks at the drawing. “What was it supposed to be exactly?”

“A horse..”

Cowgirl immediately picked up the notepad to further examine the drawing. “Co’ this looks like a fat turd with pieces of raw spaghetti sticking out of it.”

“Fuck off”

~~~~~~~

Cleon’s team ended up winning by default since Cochise dropped out of the game after almost strangling Ajax after she kept shouting “xylophone”  when it was Mercy’s turn to draw. The next game on the list was Monopoly. Ajax was the cannon, Cowgirl was the top hat, Swan was the iron, Cochise was the boot, Rembrandt was the thimble, Mercy was the purse, Cleon was the battleship, and Fox was still in the corner. It’s been forty minutes and they were only on their third round

Rembrandt rests her chin on the palm of her hand. “How do you win this game?”

“The last person to run out of money wins I think.”

Ajax rolls the dice and gets a double fours. She moves her piece eight spaces and lands on the community chest square. “Prepare to go bankrupt bitches.” She picks up a card which turns out to be a Go To Jail. “Oh come the fuck on!”

Mercy takes the dice from Ajax as she puts her piece on the “Go To Jail” square. “Bankrupt my ass.”

“Looks like someone has trouble avoiding getting thrown in jail.” Swan mumbles

Ajax glares at her “You wanna say that a little louder captain wise ass?”

“Oh I think you heard me loud and clear”

Mercy rolls the dice and gets a six which takes her to Fleet Street which happens to be owned by Ajax. Mercy gives the dice to Swan.

“Uh, the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ajax asks

“Passing the dice and ending my turn?”

“Don’t you think you’re forgetting something?”

Mercy looks over the board “Nope, don’t think so.”

“You forgot to pay me”

“Pay? What are you talking about, I don’t owe you anything.”

Cleon sighs “Mercy just give Ajax the two hundred dollars, you landed on her property.”

“So what? She’s in jail”

“That doesn’t mean shit I still own the property!”

“I’m not giving my hard-earned money to a criminal!”

“That’s not how you play the game!”

“Can you guys stop arguing so we can finish the game? We’ve been playing this forever” Cowgirl groans

“Shut the fuck up Cowgirl, you don’t get to complain after stealing my property. You knew I wanted Trafalgar Square!” Cleon shouts

“I WISH I WAS NEVER BORN!” Ajax shouts

Cleon got up from her seat “ME TOO! DO YOU THINK I WANTED ANY OF THIS?!”

“THIS HOUSE IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!” Mercy shouts

Rembrandt joins in the screaming “MERCY GIVE AJAX THE GODDAMN MONEY SO WE CAN FINISH THE GAME!”

“I AM NOT GIVING MY MONEY TO A JAILBIRD!”

Swan grabs Mercy’s hand which catches her attention. “Just give her the money.”

“But-”

Swan lowers her voice and pouts slightly. “Please’

Mercy sighs and smacks two hundred dollars in monopoly money on the table. “Fine”

“HA!” Ajax takes the money and puts it with the rest

Mercy crosses her arms and looks at Swan. “You are so lucky I can’t say no to that cute face.”

Swan winks and secretly slides something underneath the table to Mercy. “I know.”

Mercy glances down and notices a five hundred dollar Monopoly bill next to her foot. She smiles and kisses Swan on the cheek. “I always knew I could count on you”

“OOOOOO MERCY AND SWAN ARE CHEATING!” Fox calls out from the corner

Swan’s head snaps over to her “Aren’t you supposed to be in timeout?!”

~~~

Monopoly was also a bust. Nobody ended up winning after the arguments that took place back to back. Everyone was tired of the board games for the night so the last game in the team bonding exercise was “Never Have I Ever”. Since it was the last game, Fox was finally let out of the timeout chair.

“Never have I ever used a fake ID.”

Ajax, Cochise, Cowgirl, Mercy, and Swan put down a finger

“Never have I ever slept with an ex’s parent” Rembrandt says

Cowgirl and Mercy put a finger down which got a strange look from everyone else.

“Okay, both of you explain now.” Cochise says

Mercy sighs “Look in my defense, I was desperate at the time and I didn’t know they were related  ”

“How do you not know what your partner’s parents look like.” Rembrandt asks

“I had poor taste when it came to the people I dated”

“Still do” Ajax says before taking a drink of beer which received a middle finger from Swan

“Cowgirl?”

The girl just shrugs “Cheat on me, I fuck your dad. Sounds like a fair trade.’

“I’m sorry what?!”

“I respect that” Cochise and Cowgirl do their little handshake

“Every single day I re-evaluate my life choices to figure out how the hell I ended up meeting all you people” Fox sighs

“Never have I ever been framed for a murder I did not commit,” Mercy says which made everybody but her put a finger down.

Swan puts down her last finger “And I’m out.”

“Low blow Mercy.”

“Sorry not sorry.”

“Never have I ever been a part of The Orphans” Fox says

Mercy groans and puts down her last finger. “I’m out too”

“Never have I ever got hit by a train and lived” Rembrandt says

“Okay, now these are just starting to get personal.” Fox pouts putting down a finger

“That’s the part of the bonding. We get to know more about each other.” Cleon explains

“Oh I’m pretty sure we know more than enough about each other,” Ajax says

Without hesitation, Cowgirl blurts out “Never have I ever slept with my parole officer to get a shorter sentence”

“We agreed to keep that a secret!”

“See I guess we don’t know everything about each other.” Cowgirl says smugly

Swan joins in “You do know that parole officers can’t change the amount of time you get, right?”

“Didn’t know until she was getting her shirt on” Ajax took another swig of beer

“Was it good?” Rembrandt asks before taking a sip of Pepsi

“Like that would’ve mattered/” Cowgirl says

“Okay fuck you, never have I ever given a lap dance to a homeless man!”

Cowgirl rolls her eyes and puts down a finger. “Look that was a one-time thing and I was not proud of it! I was drunk!”

Rembrandt spits out her drink and starts choking. Fox pats her on the back to help stop the coughing.

“Are you okay?” Fox asks worriedly

Rembrandt tries to get her breathing regular. “Y-Yeah I’m fine”

“If it was a one time thing why did you go back to him huh?!”

“Because that homeless bum swiped my wallet! Never have I ever beat up a cop that was undercover!”

“I don’t think it was your turn-” Fox gets cut off

“That asshole had it coming and you know it! Never have I ever had a hard on for a dude that tried to kill me!”

“Okay fuck the game I guess” Cochise gets up and grabs her bottle of apple juice from the fridge

“Never have I ever stolen Swan’s chili, replaced it with wet dog food, and tried to blame it on Fox!”

“That was you?!” Swan shouts

Fox slams her hands on the table “I told you it wasn’t me! You owe me big time Ajax, I was stuck on fucking laundry duty for two weeks because of that shit you pulled!”

Ajax shrugs “You still ate it didn’t you?”

Swan was about to get up but Mercy pulls her back down.

Ajax looks back at Cowgirl. “Never have I ever got bitten by a guy and decided to hit him back up!”

“You saw that?!”

Cochise, Fox, and Rembrandt look at Cowgirl in disappointment.

“Cowgirl..” Cochise says sorrowfully

“Please tell me it’s not..” Rembrandt trails off

Cowgirl looks down “Yeah..”

“I guess that means I win” Ajax smiles triumphantly

“Never have I ever flirted with a cop to get out of a loitering ticket only to get a ticket for harassment  and chased down five blocks!”

“Okay then since we’re going down this route and airing it all out there. Never have I ever lied and told Cleon I was on patrol when I was really hooking up with a guy in the back of his rusted-up 1961 pickup truck!”

“You did what?!” Cleon looks at Cowgirl

“Wait I can explain-”

“Team bonding night is over, Cowgirl upstairs now!” Cleon points to upstairs

The other girls besides Cowgirl cheer in relief.

“Never have I ever lied to Cochise about drinking her apple juice.” Cowgirl mumbles before going upstairs.

Cochise stops cheering and looks at Cleon. “What she say?”

“I’ll see you guys later.” Cleon quickly goes upstairs.

. “Cleon get your ass back here we’re gonna talk about this shit!” Cochise gets up and followed those two up the stairs

Swan puts her arm around Mercy. “So, what did you think about your first team bonding night?”

Mercy sits and thinks “Well I’ve learned that you guys are full of secrets, Cleon loves board games, you’re willing to break the rules Cochise can’t draw, Fox needs to read a dictionary, and I never want to do this ever again.”

Swan winks at her “You know I got you, babe”

Mercy grabs Swan’s hand. “But seriously, this was actually kind of fun. Me and my parents would never do anything like this when I was a kid. I think I’ve finally found my real family.”

Swan smiles softly at her and kisses her forehead. “I’m glad you did, I’m sure the others think the same too.”

Rembrandt goes over and sits next to them. “We do, things have been different since you’ve got here, in a good way that is. Swan’s been smiling a lot more”

“Rem’s right, we never thought it was possible but we have actually found someone who was able to pull the stick that’s been shoved up her ass” Ajax chuckles

“Fuck you Ajax I’m getting you back for the dog food.”

It was a normal day at the Warriors’ den. Everybody is off their respective jobs for the rest of the evening. Fox and Rembrandt were sat on the floor attempting to build a card tower. Cowgirl playing darts in the corner. Cleon channel-surfed on the couch trying to find something good on TV. Ajax was in the back lining up a trickshot on the pool table. Swan was reading some Shakespearian book while Mercy sat on her lap playing with her hair. Everything was nice and calm.

...until Cochise barged into the room.

“Okay now which one of you whores did it?!” She shouts scaring everyone in the room except for Swan.

Right before placing the last card, Rembrandt yelps in fear making the tower collapse and for Ajax to accidentally push the cue through the cloth of the table.

“Goddammit Co’!” Ajax shouted in frustration after missing her shot.

“Our tower” Fox pouts

“Who are you calling a whore?” Cowgirl asks defensively

“Just because of the moment of weakness I went through five years ago does not make me a whore!” Mercy exclaims which got a weird look from Swan.

“Wait wh-”

“Calm it down with the whores, there is a child in here.” Cleon reprimands

Fox groans. “I am not a child! I’m legally an adult just like the rest of you. I’ve heard the word whore before”

“Watch your language,” Swan says not looking up from her book.

“So nobody heard my question? Who did it?!” Cochise asks again

“Did what?” Rembrandt asks picking up the fallen cards

“Who drank my apple juice?!”

The room went quiet as everyone stared at Cochise as if she just said Cyrus had rose up from the dead.

Ajax breaks the silence “What?!”

“Please tell me you are not being for real right now,” Cowgirl says

“Nobody is leaving this room until someone fesses up!”

“You seriously almost broke the damn door because of some apple juice?!” Cleon gets up

“How do you know if someone even drank it?” Rembrandt asks

“Because I put it in the fridge unopened last night with a big red sign that said ‘Do Not Drink Me’ and now come ten minutes ago half of it is gone.”

“Probably was Ajax, she can’t read for shit,” Swan says flipping a page

“Fuck you too paper pusher”

“Ajax just give her the money for her drink.”

“Okay now hold the hell on, why am I automatically the number one suspect?”

“Weren’t you the one who ate my sandwich from Ruby’s?” Rembrandt asks

“Okay that’s not fair you had that in the fridge for like three days!”

“I was waiting for the right time to eat it!”

Cochise starts walking up to Ajax. “I knew it!”

Cleon gets in the middle of them. “Okay calm down, did you see her drink it?”

“No but I-”

“Ajax did you drink it?”

“No!”

“There you have it. She didn’t drink it now let it go.”

“I’m not letting it go because someone still drank my stuff!”

“Cochise it’s just a bottle of apple juice”

“It’s not just a bottle of apple juice. It was a bottle of Martinelli’s apple juice!”

Swan finally takes her eyes off her book and looks over at Cochise. “Are you talking about that weird-looking bottle that looks like a jug of piss?”

Cochise almost snaps her neck to look at Swan. “Jug of piss? So you drank my shit!”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with what I just asked.”

“Swan, did you drink it?”

“No, I hate apple juice. Besides I was busy last night.” Swan goes back to reading her book.

Mercy started braiding the tips of Swan’s hair “I can vouch, I was with her”

Ajax hangs the pool cue on the wall with the others. “Oh, we are well aware.”

Mercy looks in her direction “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Ajax chuckles “You two aren’t the quietest. We heard all the screaming and bed rocking you guys were doing.”

Rembrandt shudders “Even I did and I wasn’t even in the house. You two are disgusting. What type of weird sex talk do you two have going on?”

Swan and Mercy look at each other in embarrassment as they remembered the events of last night.

* Flashback To Last Night *

“SWAN! SWAN! OH MY GOD! RIGHT THERE! GET IT! IT’S SO BIG AND HAIRY!”  Mercy screams at the top of her lungs, jumping on the bed.

Swan’s hand immediately goes to Mercy’s mouth to cover it. “Keep it down! Do you want all of Coney to hear you?!”

Mercy grabs Swan’s head and turns it to the giant spider that is crawling on the wall behind her.

“HOLY SHI-”

* Present Day *

“What was so big and hairy?” Fox asks

Swan slams the book shut and tosses it on the table. “Can we just get to the bottom of who drank Cochise’s nasty-ass apple juice?”

Cochise crosses her arms. “If you didn’t drink it how do you know it’s nasty?”

“I was with you when you bought it, you got it from that drugstore around the corner where everything is almost always expired and there are possums living in the ceiling. I’d rather take my chances with Rembrandt’s cooking than eat or drink anything that came outta there”

“Hey! I am not that bad of a cook! Right Fox?” Rembrandt looks at the younger Warrior for backup.

“Rem, I love you but you almost burned down the apartment making instant ramen.”

Ajax sits on the arm of the couch next to Swan and Mercy. “Okay it’s not like this a bottle of Brandy we’re talking about, it’s just a bottle of some drugstore apple juice. Why are you so pissed about it?”

“It’s the princple of the thing. Somebody drank something that clearly wasn’t theirs and they need to suffer the consequences.” Cochise glares at Swan “And I’ll have you Swan know that the so-called nasty ass apple juice cost me five dollars.”

“Five dollars?!”

Cowgirl grabs a chair and pulls it up to the others. “Okay hear me out. What if..nobody drank it, maybe it just evaporated.”

Cochise pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration “Half of the damn unopened bottle evaporated? Cowgirl say some stupid shit like that again and I am kicking your ass.”

Cleon grabs an extra chair and sits Cochise down. “Okay let’s just go around the room and ask who drank it. Nobody will be getting their ass kicked, right Cochise?”

“I don’t-”

Cleon clears her throat. “RIGHT, Cochise?”

Cochise huffs. “Fine no ass-kicking will take place in this room if you admit to drinking my five-dollar apple juice.”

Cleon takes her seat back on the couch. “Great, again Ajax did you drink the apple juice?”

Ajax rolls her eyes “For the seventeenth time I didn’t drink the goddamn apple juice”

“Fox?”

“Nope, apple juice upsets my stomach.” Fox starts resetting the cards for the tower

“Cowgirl?”

“Was on patrol last night, didn’t get in ‘til morning.”

“Mercy?”

“I try to avoid acidic drinks when I can, wasn’t me”

“Swan?”

“Like I said, apple juice is disgusting and I try to avoid arsenic poisoning when I can.”

“Rembrandt?”

“Slept in all day, haven’t even gone into the kitchen.”

“Okay see, nobody says they drank it and I believe them.”

“Bullshit, so I guess Vermin and Snow just miraculously broke out of jail and got into the apartment to drink half my stuff”

Mercy looks confused. “Who’s Vermin and Snow?”

Swan rubs Mercy’s leg. “Long story, I’ll tell you later”

“Look, we gotta go to the store and restock tomorrow. How about I give you a twenty and you can grab a few bottles while we’re out.” Cleon offers.

Cochise sighs heavily. “Fine, now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna drink the rest of my Martinelli’s before the thief gets the rest.” She gets up and goes to leave the room but not before taking one last look at the other girls in the room. “This better not happen again or else everybody in here will feel my wrath.” She points to everyone before slowly backing out of the room.

The others look at each other expecting someone to speak up about what had just happened. Swan looks over at Cleon who had oddly not been suspected throughout the whole thing.

“It was you wasn’t it?” Swan chuckles

Swan and Ajax were doing some scouting around Coney Island to make sure there was no trouble happening. Normally it would be a job for Fox and Rembrandt, but Fox ended up catching a cold, leaving Rembrandt to stay at their apartment to take care of her.

They walked down the pier in complete silence. Ajax shoves her hands in her pockets and glances at Swan.

“So…Swan”

“So..Ajax?” The other Warrior says not turning her head to look at her

“You and your lady doing anything special today?”

“Uh, no? Why would we be?”

“Oh no don’t tell me you’ve forgot,” Ajax says in disappointment

“What the hell are you on about?”

“Day of love, that ringing any bells in that giant head of yours”

Suddenly, Swan stops walking and looks up to the sky. “Ajax..what’s today?” she asks with her eyes closed

Ajax chuckles “I think you know already Warchief”

“She’s gonna fucking kill me”

It was no secret that Valentine’s Day was Mercy’s favorite holiday. She would always go on about how she loved the holiday; whether it be about the decorations, the romantic gestures, gift-giving, or rather the quality time together with your significant other. Now that she was in a committed relationship she could finally experience all the joys of the holiday in full effect. When Swan found all that out she promised she’d give her a Valentine’s Day she’d never forget. But now that she’s forgotten that threw a curveball in her plans.

Swan looks down at her watch and notices that it is only a quarter til noon. She has more than enough time to buy gifts. Floral shops should still be open, right?

“I’ll be right back!  I’ll meet you at the hideout!” She says to Ajax before taking off running

“Wait where are you going? Swan! I was just- And she’s gone”

Swan runs into the floral shop that was across the way from Nathan’s and goes to the front desk. “I’m gonna need all the roses you have, It’s an emergency”

The cashier doesn’t look up from her journal. “Sorry sweetpea but we just sold our last few this morning I’m afraid we’re all out.”

Swan huffs ”How does a flower shop run out of flowers?”

“Roses are high in demand this time of year, they sell like hotcakes. If you come back tomorrow I’m sure we’ll have some by then”

“I don’t have until tomorrow, I need them today”

“We have some red marigolds in the back, I’ll be more than happy to ring those up for you”

Swan wanted everything to be perfect. Roses were Mercy’s favorite flowers and she was gonna get them no matter how long it took. Swan checked her watch again and saw that it was two o’clock. Only two more hours until Mercy got off her shift from the bar.

“Forget it” Swan leaves the floral shop

Sadly the five other stores she went to gave the same answer. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to go out of Coney to look for the flowers.

___________________________________________________

Wasn’t until almost two hours later she found a drugstore in Homecrest that still had some roses in stock. Swan went above and beyond and purchased a bouquet that contained 85 roses. She was gonna leave it at that but one of the workers managed to get her to buy a big red teddy bear and a heart-shaped box of chocolate-covered strawberries. She hopes that Mercy won’t be too mad at her when she gives her the presents.

Swan walks outside and immediately feels water hit her skin. “Oh fuck me!”

It was raining and it was coming down hard. She was far from dressed for the water. She had on a grey cap-sleeve shirt, her vest which happened to not have any sleeves, her combat boots, and a pair of leather pants. It looked like the rain wasn’t stopping any time soon and she still had about an hour and a half until she got back home.

A man wearing a trenchcoat who was walking by checks her out and wolf whistles. “My pleasure sweet face” He says with a shit-eating smirk

Swan flips him off “Fuck off sicko”

“Back at you whore” He spat back

She didn’t have the energy to get into a fight with one of the many perverted guys in NYC, she had a girl to make it back home to. Swan starts walking back in the raining until she noticed a stray dog stop in front of her. A small smile formed on her face. “Hey little buddy”

The dog began growling at her. Swan freezes but quickly realizes that the stray is looking at the teddy bear

“No this isn’t for you,” She says before taking small steps backward

The dog crouches and starts inching toward her, growling even more.

Swan takes off running and the stray dog goes right after her

“Stop it! Bad dog!”

___________________________________________________

It was going on almost 7:34 at night and none of the Warriors had heard anything from Cleon’s second in command. Mercy couldn’t help but pace the room failing to not think of the worst possible scenarios in her head. Saying that she was worried about her girlfriend was an understatement.

Cochise and Cowgirl went out to look for Swan about an hour ago but came back empty-handed. Between Cleon and Mercy, they weren’t sure who was more worried. On the other hand, Ajax was getting a bit concerned as well and the guilt started to eat up at her

Suddenly the door of their hideout swung open and there was the girl everybody was looking for. Standing there looking like a wet dog holding a wet teddy bear, the bouquet of roses that were miraculously still intact, and dented heart-shaped box. Swan closed the door breathing heavily as she tried to catch her breath.

“Swan! Thank god!” Mercy ran over and pulled Swan into a tight embrace which was immediately reciprocated.

“Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea what time it is?!” Cleon exclaims walking over to them

Swan moves the wet hair that was covering her face. “Sorry..”

“You better not fucking do that again you had us all worried sick!” Cowgirl scolds her

“It won’t happen again, I swear”

“It better not” Cochise came over holding a towel for Swan to dry herself off with

“You better have a good explanation as to why you ran off and vanished for eight hours.” Mercy says taking the towel from Cochise

Swan limps up to Mercy like an injured puppy and holds out the gifts that were in her arms, still struggling to catch her breath due to the fact she was freezing. “Happy Valentine’s Day, I swear I didn’t know that it was today. Please forgive me.” She apologizes

Mercy’s heart melted when she finally paid attention to the giant bouquet her girlfriend was holding. “Swan..” she says with a bittersweet smile on her face as she begins to put together what happened.

“Please don’t break up with me.” Swan breathes out as Mercy uses the towel to wipe her face

“Oh, Sweetie...Valentine’s Day isn’t until tomorrow”

Swan looks at her “What”

Mercy giggles “It’s February 13th, you got the date wrong”

“But Ajax said-”

Everyone’s head turned to look at Ajax who was trying to sneak out the door. Cowgirl grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back to the group

“Ajax what in the hell did you say to her?” Cleon asks

She puts her hands up “All I did was make a joke to have Swan think it was Valentine's Day. In my defense, I tried to tell her I was fucking around but she ran off before I could tell her! How in the hell was I supposed to know she’d be gone for the whole damn day?!”

Much to everyone’s surprise Swan begins to cackle and puts the gifts she got for Mercy on the counter. The others began to look concerned as they began to suspect Swan was becoming delirious from the possible hypothermia she received.

“Are you..okay?” Cochise asks which makes Swan laugh even harder

Mercy puts the towel around Swan “Okay I’m getting you home.” She tries to move Swan back to the door but she doesn’t budge

Swan looks at Ajax “So you mean to tell me I was running for almost eight hours, ended up in Homecrest which by the way was over an 80-minute walk from here there and back; to get some roses that were sold out at the other fifteen stores in the area; ran three of those eight hours in the rain; got chased by someone’s mangy mutt for three blocks and ended up spraining my goddamn ankle over a fucking prank?!”

Ajax scratches the back of her neck “Pretty much”

Swan turns around and pretends to leave but turns back around and tries to strangle Ajax. “You motherfucker I’m gonna kick your ass!”

The other Warriors quickly got in the middle of them, Cleon protectively stood in front of Ajax while the other three held Swan back.

“Okay! Okay! Calm down!” Cowgirl says struggling to hold her back “Mercy get her out of her and dried up before actually she catches hypothermia” Cleon orders

Mercy puts her jacket over Swan and ushes her to the door “Come on, let’s you home Romeo”

Swan held the jacket closer to her body “I’m so cold” She whimpers

“I know you are baby” Mercy says grabbing an umbrella from the rack hanging off the wall

___________________________________________________

Mercy took Swan back to their apartment and ran her a hot bath. After Cleon had stopped by to drop off Mercy’s gifts and make Ajax apologize, they were finally all alone resting on the couch. Mercy grabbed the biggest blanket they had and wrapped it around her girlfriend who was still shaking but a little less than before. Swan was lying back on the couch with her legs resting in Mercy’s lap.

“Wanna tell me one more time how you sprained your ankle?” Mercy asks since she had just finished wrapping up Swan’s leg

Swan buries her head in the blanket “I tripped on a pothole in the pavement and tried to save the flowers..”

Mercy laughs as she picks up the box of chocolate-covered strawberries. “You really went out of your way to do all of this just for me?”

Swan sits up and grabs Mercy’s hand “This was just me showing that I care, I was terrified as hell when I thought I had forgotten Valentine’s Day. You said it was your favorite and you never had anybody to spend it with. I wanted to make our first one special for you. Now I can’t because of my stupid ankle.”

“You did make it special. There’s a very high chance you’re gonna have a cold in the morning which means I can stay in and take care of you.” Mercy brings Swan’s hand up to her lips and kisses it softly. “And that’s the best gift I can ever receive”

Swan blushes and begins to avoid eye contact “But I should be taking you out on a perfect date”

Mercy grabs her chin and makes Swan look at her. “Me taking care of you is the perfect date. You’re always out doing the same thing for the other, it’s about damn time someone does the same for you. Valentine’s Day isn’t about extravagant dates or the gifts, it’s all about the person you spend it with”

“Pretty sure that’s Christmas”

Mercy playfully rolls her eyes and then looks over at the bundle of roses that took up most of the coffee table “As much as I love and appreciate everything you did today, were the 85 roses necessary?”

“Well I tried matching each rose with a reason why I love you but they ran out

Mercy takes a strawberry out of the box and puts it up to Swan’s mouth “Shut up and eat a strawberry Romeo”  

Ana opens her eyes and weakly smiles as she sees her daughter. “There’s my girl” Jazmine smiles back, sits on the bed, and brings the tray to her mother’s lap. “Made you breakfast.” Ana’s hand shook slightly as she picks up a strip of bacon. “I see you’re getting better at this” “Who knows, I can be the next Julia Child in no time” Ana starts laughing which quickly turns into a coughing fit. Jazmine quickly grabs the glass of water and puts it up to her mother’s lips for her to drink. Ana grabbed the glass and took a few sips. “How are you feeling? That cough didn’t sound too good.” “My throat was a little dry, that’s all.”Jazmine wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe that or not. Over the past few months, her mother slowly started to become unrecognizable. Skin got paler, hair lost some of its volume, and she's been getting skinnier by the day. “You’re making that face again Jazzy, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” “Ma..I’m scared. When we went to the doctor he said that recovery would be three to five weeks at most. It’s been almost four months and you haven’t been getting any better. You’ve been coughing a lot more and getting cold easily. What if..” Jazmine felt tears forming in her eyes which didn’t go unnoticed by Ana. Ana brings her hand up to Jazmine’s face. “Look at me.” Tears started to fall out of her eyes when she made eye-contact with her mother. “Don’t cry for me, birdie. There is nothing for you to worry about; I am right here. I’m not going anywhere. I am not leaving you anytime soon.” Ana wipes Jazmine’s tears away with her thumb. “Promise?” “I promise.” Ana holds up her pinky finger Jazmine wraps her pinky around hers and kisses Ana’s hand. “I love you.” “I love you too. I think it’s time for my antibiotics, could you grab them for me?” Jazmine goes to the dresser and picks up a bottle of Moxifloxacin. The bottle felt a bit light, too light. She shook the bottle to hear the remaining pills clatter together, but it was silent. “You’re all out, I’ll pick up some more from the pharmacy.” She goes to the door “Jazzy stop.”Jazmine looks at her mother “Sit back down.” She sits back down on the bed. “What the matter?” “It’s not fair that you’re doing all this for me. You should be out enjoying your childhood, spending time with friends, going out on dates, going to school. You shouldn’t be suffering because of my sickness.” “I have been-” “Don’t lie to me, just because I’m stuck in this bed doesn’t mean I can’t hear the messages your school leaves.” “Well someone has to take care of you. God knows Dad won’t even bother to give you attention let alone drive around the corner to get you your meds.” Jazmine’s father, LeRoy Schuyler walked out on them the second week after they found out about  Ana’s diagnosis. Doesn’t matter how many times Jaz tried to call him, he never picked up once. LeRoy had a habit of leaving for days at a time and not coming back until a week later. If it weren’t for his missing belongings, she would’ve thought something might’ve happened to him. As time went on, Ana started falling apart and Jazmine was the only one left to pick up the pieces. “Don’t you dare try to say he’s never given me anything. Your father might’ve not been the most attentive but he’s given you to me and that’s the best thing he could ever give me. I don’t care about the medicine, I care about you. I appreciate you staying home and taking care of me, I really do. But the pills are just getting too expensive. Child services almost took you away from me when you got caught stealing. I can’t have you doing that again. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. I can’t lose you.”  Ana cusps Jazmine’s face in her hands “You won’t lose me, I swear. But just let me do it this one last time. I’ll be fast they won’t even see me.” “Jazmine..” “One last time..please.” Ana pushes Jazmine’s head down slightly to place a kiss on her forehead. “You have a good heart, Jazmine. Don’t let anyone try to take that from you.” Jazmine looks up “Does that mean-” “This is the last time and I mean it” Jazmine was about to get up from the bed but Ana grabbed her hand. “Wait, before you go. Turn around.” Jazmine turns around no questions asked. Ana takes off the silver chain necklace with a golden swan pendant that hung around her neck. She moves Jazmine’s hair out of the way and clips the necklace around her neck. “There, much better.” Jazmine looks down at the necklace and touches the swan. “Ma.. I can’t take this.” “Nonsense, consider it as your good luck charm. It looks better on you anyway.” Jazmine and Ana share a long hug and pull away a few minutes later. “Now get out of here,” Ana says ruffling Jazmine’s hair. Jazmine laughs before getting up and walking towards the door “Make sure you finish your breakfast” “And you make sure you make it home alive”                                        ____________________ After a small ten minute walk, Jazmine makes it to the Brownsville Pharmacy. But before walking in, she pulls her hood over her head. Normally the saying goes “don’t steal from the same twice” but she couldn’t care less about that rule. It was the only pharmacy in the area with the medicine her mother needed. There was the option of going to Little Caribbean or Crown Heights but she could only go so far given the type of area she lived in. Jazmine would’ve gotten mugged before she would have the chance to give her mother the pills. Then there’s also the alternative of standing outside the door and begging customers who are walking in. Unfortunately, the pharmacist recognizes her face and the last thing Jazmine wanted was to get the cops involved. She walked in through the front and checked her surroundings. It was mostly empty except for a guy wearing a long trenchcoat, the pharmacist behind the counter doing a crossword puzzle, and a group of kids who looked like they were part of a little league baseball team.This was gonna be a simple in-and-out job. Find a way to distract the pharmacist, hop the counter, grab the pills, and run like hell. If all else fails, running like hell will always be the final step. After figuring out a distraction, Jazmine picks up a box lighter and a bottle of nail polish remover. She goes to the back of the pharmacy where the magazine display was and started pouring the nail polish remover all over it. If her assumption was right the nail polish remover would help create the perfect fire. Jazmine flicks open the box lighter and stares at it. Was this going too far? Should she just go beg outside and take her chances with the cops? What if the fire gets too big and burns down the store? What would her mother think? “I can’t lose you” Ana’s voice echos in her head She’d understand if she wasn’t able to get the pills ..right? Her mind then goes back to how her mother appeared before she left. How frail she looked, the way her hands shook whenever she tried to pick up something. “Fuck it. Time to make the world a little brighter” Jazmine throws the lighter into the display which lit up like a Christmas tree in December. She knocks over the display rack to catch someone’s attention and hides behind a shelf. This better work A few moments later she hears a high-pitched scream which likely came from one of the little league boys. Jazmine peaks over and sees how quickly the fire is spreading among all the magazines. As if on cue, the fire alarm starts blaring Step One: Completed The pharmacist looks up from his puzzle and notices the fire growing in the back of the store. “What the hell?!” He grabs the emergency fire blanket and leaves his office. Jazmine took that as her signal to start making her way to were the pharmacist was formally and vaults over the counter. Step Two: Completed She searches the cabinets and looks over all the various drugs that are in their inventory. “Where the fuck are they?!” Jazmine crouches down and looks at the labels. Morphine…Motrin...Movipre…Moxitag Jazmine was about to leave but she noticed something hidden in the back. She moves some of the medicine aside and reveals three boxes of Moxifloxacin. Step Three: Completed She quickly grabs the boxes and shoves them in her boxes. The pharmacist turns around and sees Jazmine behind the corner. “Hey! Stop right there!” He began running towards the office. “Shit!” Jazmine vaults back over the counter and runs straight out the door. Step Four: Completed Mission Accomplished                                    ___________________________ Jazmine ran all the way back to the house without stopping. She shuts the door and leans back to catch her breath. She did it. Her one last pharmacy swipe and she pulled it off. “Ma, I’m back!” Silence “Mom?”

Still no response. Jazmine takes off her hoodie and throws it into her room. She goes to her Mom’s room and gently opens the door. “Mom?” She opens the door and the first thing she sees is her mother lying in bed, gasping for air. “Mom!” Ana weakly looks at her daughter as she felt sweat running down her body. “Ja..Jazzy..” She could barely handle to get air flowing through her lungs Jazmine runs over to the bed and grabs the phone to call an ambulance but Ana puts her hand over the buttons.“What are you doing?!” “Called..al..eady..” Ana falls into another coughing fit Jazmine grabbed the empty glass from the breakfast tray and ran to the kitchen. She turned the faucet to get some more water but nothing came out. “Please, please, not now!” She runs to the bathroom and uses the faucet but nothing comes out of that either. She tries the bathtub but still no luck. For all the days for their water to get cut off today would have to be the worst. Jazmine goes back to the kitchen and searches the refrigerator for something for her mom to drink. She internally curses herself for not swiping something to drink. She grabs a carton of orange juice that only has a few sips worth of juice left. She grabs the pills and then goes back to Ana’s room. Jazmine sits on the bed next to her Mom. “I was able to grab your medicine. Open up.” She takes a tablet out of the bottle Ana shakes her head. She had a feeling where this was going. No matter what type of medicine she took it wouldn’t change what was about to happen. Jazmine felt tears forming in her eyes “Ma please!” Ana starts shaking uncontrollably and coughs again but this time blood came out. Jazmine grabs a bandana and sits on the other side of the bed and brings her mother into her arms. She wipes the blood from Ana’s mouth and pulls the blanket over them.“It’s gonna be okay, I’m someone’s gonna be here soon. You just need to hold on a little while longer.” Ana started heaving and put her hands over Jazmine’s arm that was around her. She looks up at her daughter as her vision slowly starts to go blurry. Jazmine holds her mom closer to her chest as tears start to run down her face. “I’m here. I got you, I’m not going anywhere.” “You..ne..ed…to..go” Ana huffs out. “Do..n-not let them get you. Never..st-op running..” Jazmine shakes her head no as more tears begin to fall. “No, I’m not gonna do it, it’s you and me. You’re making it through this. You’re gonna get better and I’ll be here when you do.” The sound of an ambulance siren started to be heard from a distance.“You hear that Ma? Someone’s coming to help” All of a sudden Ana’s heavy breathing stops and her body goes limp. Jazmine looks down and sees her mother’s closed eyes “Mommy? Wake up..please” Jazmine's voice begins to crack. Ana’s hands slowly slid off of her arm. Jazmine whimpers. “Don’t leave me..” A voice came from outside as there was a knock on the front door. “Anybody home? We’re a part of First Responders, we’ve received a call from this location.” Jazmine held Ana closer and kissed her head as the tears cascaded from her eyes. “It’s gonna be okay.” There’s another knock on the door “If nobody opens the door within the next thirty seconds we’ll have no choice but to break the door down” Jazmine quickly gets out of the bed and lays her mother’s body back down and fixes the blanket on her. She kneeled next to the bed and took in her mother’s appearance for the last time before kissing her hand. “I’ll never stop missing you.”  She gets up and wipes her tears before climbing out the window Jazmine didn’t know what to do at this point. She’s practically an orphan. No money, no nearby relatives, no friends to turn to. She was all alone and the only thing left to do was run. And that’s exactly what she did. Jazmine ran and ran as far as her feet took her. After about twenty minutes, she stopped running and found herself back at the pharmacy but smoke was coming out of the building. Turns out the fire came out bigger than she wanted it to be. She didn’t know how long she was standing there until she felt someone punch her in the face.

“You little shit! Look at what you did to my store!” The pharmacist shouts. He grabs her by the arm. “I am making a citizen’s arrest!”

“Hey! Let go of me!”  Jazmine tried pulling away but his grip got tighter.

“Don’t bother trying to run! The cops are on their way!”

“I said let go!” Jazmine punches him in the face.

“Ack!” His grip loosened on her which gave Jazmine some space to free herself. Before she was able to run away the Pharmacist went to grab her. She dodges a bit too late and feels something harsh snap on her neck. Jazmine looks up and see’s her Mother’s necklace in his hands.“Huh, what do we have here?” The Pharmacist examines the necklace

5 Months, 4 Days, 11 Hours, 27 Minutes, and 38 seconds

157 Days

13,526,872.4 Seconds

That’s how long it’s been since that fateful night

The same night where one Warrior fell and another one emerged from the shadows

It was also the same night where another Warrior got arrested for assaulting a cop

                                        __________________

Swan was back at the subway station in Union Square but this time she was all alone. Not a single soul in sight, not even a small family of rats eating spilled food that was neglected by drunk patrons waiting for a train home.

“Passengers traveling on the next train to Coney I am sorry to announce that there has been a delay. I repeat those boarding on the next train to Coney there has been a delay.” came through the intercom

Swan looks up at the time which read * 2:46 A.M.*

“Great just my fuckin’ luck”

She leans back on a nearby column and takes a deep breath then shuts her eyes

“Why didn’t you save me?” A voice echos out

Swan’s eyes shot open when she hears the voice that she hasn’t heard in almost half a year.

“Fox?” She looked around but she was still the only one in the station. She groaned and massaged her temples. “Relax Swan, you’re trippin’, just get home and you can finally get some goddamn sleep” She mumbles to herself Suddenly she feels a hand touch her back. Instinctively Swan pulls out her switchblade and turns to point it at her determinant attacker. As if in slow motion, Swan freezes then the blade falls from her hand and drops to the ground.

“Fox…”

There she was, the youngest member of the Warriors standing in all her glory. The same way she looked before her demise. Two twin buns sitting on her head with the scattered scratches and dirt on her face from the fight with Furies. Her signature smile on her face.

Swan smiles “Fox!”

Fox starts giggling as Swan pulls her into a tight hug.

“I can’t believe it! What the hell happened? We saw you fall!”

Fox’s bubbly giggles slowly started turning into eerie sobs.

“Swan, why did you let me die?” She whispers

“What?”

Fox pulls back from the hug, eyeliner running down her face, blood stains on her body.

“You let me die Swan” She says starting to walk backwards, closer to the platform

Swan walks closer to her. “Fox, I really wanted to help you, please believe me.” She says with her voice quacking.

Fox doesn’t stop moving back closer to the edge, her eyes staring into Swan’s soul.

Intercom goes off again “Attention for the passengers of the next train to Coney, your shuttle is now arriving”

Swan notices a light at the end of the tunnel. “Fox stop”

Fox kept moving back until she started wobbling on the edge, not breaking eye-contact with Swan.

The subway getting louder and louder

Swan runs to Fox but suddenly starts to feel something start to slow her down. She looks down at herself and realizes she’s wearing a powder blue police uniform.

Swan looks back at Fox who was still staring at her.

“You did this to me”

“No!” Swan runs to Fox to help her but instead of grabbing her hand and pulling her to safety she puts her foot on Fox’s chest and launches her off the edge.

Fox falls onto the tracks and looks at Swan one last time before the train speeds by and hits her. Blood splattering all over Swan, the walls, the ceiling.

Swan stares at the blood on her hands and drops to her knees. Tears slowly falling out of her eyes

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.” She sobs

                                          ____________________

October 19th, 1979 7:32 A.M.

Swan awakes from her nightmare gasping for air, which didn’t go unnoticed by Mercy who has been trying to wake her up for the past five minutes.

“Hey hey hey Swan, honey everything’s okay, you’re okay. Just take a breath, look at me” Mercy says softly placing her hand on Swan’s face.

Swan couldn’t hear anything, all that was going through her mind was the image of her foot sending Fox to her demise. Her breathing got heavier, remembering how gruesome the scene was.

“Swan, look at me” Mercy says louder

Swan begins to feel nauseous and runs into the bathroom, slamming the door. She began throwing up as the images replayed through her head. This wasn’t the first time she had nightmares regarding Fox and the train. But they’ve never been as vivid or graphic as the one that just happened.

There was knocking on the other side of the door. “Swan open this door right now, don’t test me or I swear to god I will break it down” Mercy says in a concerned tone.

Swan flushes the toilet and wipes her mouth. She dries any tears that were in her eyes and opens the door. “What?” She crosses her arms acting like nothing happened.

“Are you okay? What the hell was that? You scared the shit out of me.” Mercy cups Swan’s face observing how bloodshot her eyes were.

Swan moves Mercy’s hands away and walks past her. “Nothin’, must’ve had a bad hot dog from Nathan’s or somethin’.”

Mercy trails behind her, “Please spare me the bullshit, you talk in your sleep Swan. I’ve had my suspicions but this right here confirms there’s something up, what’s really going on? You know you can talk to me right?”

Swan looks around for a clock. “Ain’t nothin’ to talk about, I said I’m fine”

“Look at me”

Swan didn't pay her any mind and started picking up her clothes.

“Jazmine, look at me”

Swan walks past Mercy again but stops her and grabs her by the chin but not using a lot of force. “Look me in the eyes and tell me what’s happening. I’m worried about you, I’m not the only one who sees it. Cleon, Cochise, Rembrandt, Cowgirl..they’re worried too. Don’t shut everyone out, we’re all here for you.”

A few moments pass before Swan moves Mercy’s hands away. “Ajax is supposed to come back today, I needa go help set up”

Swan walks out of the room but this time Mercy let’s her go

                                      ____________________

October 19th, 1979 1:49 P.M.

The front door of The Warrior’s hideout swings open as Ajax kicks it in excitement. “Ain’t no pigs able to keep me down!” She announces

“Calm down Bruce Lee, you fixin’ that door if you end up breaking it” Cleon chuckles pulling Ajax into a hug which was gratefully returned.

“Ajax!” Rembrandt ran down the stairs almost missing the last step.

Cleon laughs as she moves aside when Rembrandt almost tackled Ajax to the ground in a rib crushing hug. “I’m gotta say a quick word to Masai real quick, don’t get the party started without me” She says before walking outside

“Aww shit, look who it is!” Cochise says approaching them with Cowgirl

“Come on make some room” Cowgirl says as they both join in the hug

Swan watches them from afar while Mercy finishes setting up the table.

After the other four Warriors pulled away from the hug, Ajax looked around and immediately noticed the missing presence in the room.

“Hey where’s Fox?”

That one question silenced the whole room. It was so quiet to where you could hear a pin drop.

“What’s wrong? Where is she?” Ajax asks again

Rembrandt started messing with her fingers. “We..we wanted to wait until you got back to tell you what happened”

“Rem quit beating around the bush, tell me. What’s going on?”

“That night, we all made it to Union Square but then..” Rembrandt started

“The fuckin’ cops man..” Cochise continued

“She got locked up too? But I didn’t see-” Ajax got cut off

“Jax, some pig kicked her into an oncoming train like she was nothing.” Cowgirl finished.

The smile quickly dropped from Ajax’s face. “Bullshit, look whatever joke you guys are tryin’ to get at it ain’t fucking funny. Where is she?”

Cowgirl crosses her arms. “Wish it was a joke, we watched the whole damn thing, it killed her on impact”

Ajax pushes herself away from them. “Fuck man! And you guys are just telling me this now?!”

Rembrandt walked closer to her “We didn't want you to end up doing something stupid that would get you a longer sentence.”

Ajax looks at Swan who hadn’t said a word since she walked in. Ajax starts walking up to her ignoring the calls from the others. “And where were you number two?”

“Ajax stop” Rembrandt tried to pull her back which was no use

Swan kept looking out the window, not in the mood to get into a fight. “I’m not doing this with you.”

She moves from the window and starts walking away but Ajax yanks her arm. “Oh yes the hell you are!”

“I’m giving you five seconds to let go of my arm” Swan says almost too calmly

Mercy goes over to Cochise and Rembrandt to watch the interaction unfold. “Should we stop them before they break something?”

Cochise sighs. “Nah we normally stay out of their fights unless we see blood.”

Ajax pushes Swan. “You were supposed to get everyone back alive! Where the hell were you?!” She shouts.

Swan crosses her arms “She made her choice, there was nothing any of us could do about it”

“Goddamn liar!” Not taking that as an answer Ajax pushed her again

and again

and again

Before she could push her a fifth time, Swan grabbed her wrist slowly starting to lose her temper.

“Stand down”

Ajax just steps closer to her. “Some fucking leader you turned out to be. I knew Cleon made a mistake making you second command”

Cowgirl stepped up. “Ajax we’re just as upset about this as you are but you’re going too far. Calm the fuck down.”

“Too far? I haven’t gone far enough, I’m just getting started.” Ajax didn't take her eyes off of Swan

“You are on thin ice right now” Swan tightened her grip around Ajax’s arm.

“And you only had one goddamn job! Get everyone back home but you couldn’t even do that without getting someone killed! She is dead because of you!”

All it took was those six words to spark the bomb that was waiting to blow inside of Swan .She pushes Ajax and presses her against the wall by the collar of her vest

“Don’t you think I fucking know that?!” Swan shouting louder than anyone has ever heard from her which took the other Warriors by surprise. “It was my job to make sure everyone got home alive after what went down in Van Cortlandt.”

“She..” Swan’s voice started to crack. She looks down and takes a deep breath in frustration as she feels the tears starting to form in her eyes. Swan’s grip on Ajax loosens and she takes a few steps back

“She was only a kid..” she utters in anger as the tears began to travel to her eyelids, the lump in her throat getting bigger and bigger

After a moment of silence a sob finally came out of Swan. ‘ “It should’ve been me” Swan whimpered

The Warriors all look in disbelief, they never saw this type of reaction out of their warchief before.

“Why couldn’t it been me”

Rembrandt carefully walks her to her. “Swan…” she says, putting her arms out to hug her but Swan just puts her hand up as a signal for her to not come any closer.

“Don’t touch me” she says slowly feeling the anger rise back up inside of her

Mercy walks over to her. “Swan she was just trying to-“ she gets cut off after placing her hand on Swan's back.

Swan froze up and her mind immediately went back to her dream.

“Swan, why did you let me die?”

“I SAID GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME” She says using all her strength to push Mercy away.

Which ended up being too harsh since Mercy bumps into the rickety shelf and falls to the ground. Quickly realizing what she’s done, Swan looks down at Mercy who was clutching her arm in pain.

Cleon barged in the room after hearing all of the yelling. “What the hell is going on in here?!” She looks around the room and takes in the scene around her. Swan standing over Mercy who was on the ground , Cowgirl helping her up, and Ajax against the wall who looks like she just saw a ghost.

Swan looks at Cleon then back at Mercy in fear and nervously takes a few back. “I-I didn’t mean to.”

Before Mercy could say anything, Swan pushed past everyone and ran straight out the door.

Cowgirl looks at Mercy “You okay?”

“I’m fine, really it’s not that bad. I need to go after Swan. Do you guys know where she’d normally go when she gets like this?”

“We don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?!”

“We’ve never seen her get like this. Hell this is our first time ever seeing her cry. We’re just as shocked as you are.”

“Great now she’s missing, are you fucking happy now Ajax?!” Mercy started making her way to the older Warrior but Cleon got in the middle of them.

“Enough! Mercy in my room.” Cleon demanded

“But Swan-”

“Now.”

Mercy doesn’t argue and goes into Cleon’s room. After a few minutes Cleon walks in

“I need you to tell me everything that happened. Don’t leave out any details.”

“The others finally told Ajax about Fox at Union Square.”

“That doesn’t explain why everyone looks like they saw a ghost. Why were you on the ground?”

“It all went down so fast. Ajax tried picking a fight with Swan and started blaming her for what happened. Then something must’ve just snapped inside of Swan. She started blaming herself about everything and just broke down. When me and Rembrandt tried to calm her down she started freaking out. She’s hurting Cleon, I know you’ve noticed it too. I know she didn’t mean to hurt me. So if I’m in here to be lectured for trying to start shit with Ajax, make it quick. I need to find Swan before she could do something stupid. ”

Cleon pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath. “Look, since I know that Swan is emotionally guarded as hell and that night is still hard on everyone I’m gonna let whatever the hell all of that was slide.”

“Wait really?”

“Fox’s death already left a hole in everyone, I’ll be damned if this family breaks apart. I’ll go talk to Ajax. You go look for Swan and make sure she comes back home safe, that’s an order.”

“Yes ma’am”

                                         _____________________ October 19th, 1979 4:21 P.M.

It’s been five hours since Swan ran out. Since then nobody has had any luck finding her. That was until Mercy made her way to the beach. She noticed someone sitting underneath the boardwalk.

Mercy started running when she recognized who it was. “Swan! Oh my gosh, are you okay? Are you hurt?” She hugged Swan tightly and started to check her for any injuries.

Swan couldn’t bring herself to look up at Mercy. “Are you okay?”

Mercy stops and looks at her confused “What?”

“I hurt you”

“What are you talking about? No you didn’t”

“Yes I did” Swan pulls her knees up closer to her chest

Mercy sat next to her in the sand. “Sweetie, look at me..please. I know everything is still all new when it comes between the both of us but I want you to know that you don’t need to pretend. You’re there for everyone else all the time, let someone be there for you just this once. If you need to vent out your frustrations when you’re mad, vent them out to me. If you need to cry let me be that shoulder for you to cry on. I get that you’re used to holding up a strong wall in front of the others but you don’t have to do that with me. I..I love you Jazmine.

Swan quickly turns her head and makes eye contact with her. Undried tear stains were still running down her face. “You what?”

Mercy wipes Swan’s tears away with her thumb and lets out a soft laugh. “Did I fuckin’ stutter?”

“Look Mercy-” Swan gets cut off

“Don’t say it back, I’m not expecting you to but just tell me what you want me to do”

“This might sound stupid but can you hold me?”

Without hesitation Mercy wraps her arm around Swan and holds her close to her chest. Swan closely began to listen to Mercy’s heartbeat and slowly began to calm down.

“I failed her” Swan blurts out.

“Fox?”

Swan nodded. “Cleon too. I was the one who recruited Fox in the first place. I found her a few years back, caught her breaking into the hideout and stealing some food. She was so tiny that if the wind blew too hard she’d float away. You could tell she had been through hell and back by looking at her. Her stepdad had been beating on her at home until she finally had enough, knocked his ass out with a lamp and ran out of there with nothing but the clothes on her back. We normally wouldn’t recruit kids but I couldn’t turn her away. She reminded me too much of myself when the others found me, I didn’t want anybody to go through what I did on the streets..”

“But Swan, you did the right thing.”

“Cleon said I was responsible for her if anything happened; that I was supposed to look after her. Fox looked up to me. If I really did the right thing she would be here right now living out the rest of her childhood and not having her insides being scrubbed off from the bottom of that goddamn train. I promised Fox, I swore that I wouldn’t let anything else bad happen to her. Now she’s gone because of me, I killed her. I was supposed to-” Swan couldn’t finish her sentence before breaking down into more tears

Mercy held her lover a little bit tighter. “Let it out, everything that’s been bottled up inside of you all these months, let it out.”

Swan’s sobs got heavier and those sobs escalated to a scream

Mercy doesn’t say anything then begins to rock her back and forth, placing small kisses on her head. “You didn’t know what was gonna happen that night, you didn’t know what was gonna happen to Fox or Ajax. But if you did, I know you would’ve pried those doors open to kick that cop’s ass.”

Swan's cries start to die down “I miss her so much” she whimpers holding onto Mercy’s arm.

A few hours passed and the sun began to set over the boardwalk. Swan and Mercy still sat in the same place.

“It’s getting late, we should probably start heading back” Mercy speaks up for the first time in hours

“Don’t let me go..please” Swan replies in almost a whisper.

“Never” Mercy puts her jacket around Swan. “Hey Mercy?”

“Hmm?”