#saintsrow1

It takes at least five flicks of her phone, before she presses number one. Speed dial, specific number. Eyes still shut in the dark, but habit drew Jude to finding some comfort in hearing the other line ring out. Like there was still family on the other side, somewhere far from here. 

Thirteen rings. New record. Straight to voicemail, and Jude hears the cheery voice of her sister filter through. Her nieces and nephews, chipper and bubbly and she smiles despite herself. Makes her feel just that little heavier, like her mattress was going to swallow her whole. Did Adele even have her number anymore? It’d been nearly five years this September, she figured. Give or take a few good weeks. 

Snaps her phone shut when the line dies, no message left. Never did anyway. Better to let Adele live her life with Michael, or Steve, or Bob. Whoever that guy was. The one who bought her flowers everyday and got them that fancy house, lots of land. Dogs and shrubs and the white picket fence. Photos had long since stopped rolling in, but that didn’t mean Jude didn’t stop looking. Double checking. Look her up on social media, and watch her family age. 

One day she’d just roll up at Adele’s door. When she wasn’t skinny and bruised and her hair was brushed. Not like the last time. A few more hundred in the bank, and Jude was sure she could just leave this place behind.

There’s a knock at the door. One that echoes through the empty apartment. With an eye cracking open, almost immediately closing at seeing the sunlight that had managed to get through her curtain, Jude realised it was getting on. Creeping into the afternoon. Appointment soon, probably? Right? Had to get her face on. Had to answer the door.

Jude drags the blankets with her, as she approaches the knocker once more. Someone was impatient. She had half a mind to consider that if she opened the door, she might get blasted right in the face. Be it Ronin, or Brotherhood, or even stragglers of Los Carnales out for some payback. Jude thinks of her phone, and how the call rang out. She didn’t really give a fuck, anyway.

Pulling the door open until the chain stops it, she peers around. Nothing remotely shiny or dangerous appears in her line of sight, just a shirt pulled a little too tight over a chest. 

“I didn’t think it was my birthday today.”

The delivery wasn’t quite there. Even she could tell. Mickey at least gives her something in the way of a disapproving sigh, sidestepping any sort of emotional confrontation at two in the afternoon. Too early for her to be sobbing over a bottle of wine, surely. 

“May I come in?”

And Mickey? He’s too polite. Too careful. Even as she shrugs as best as she could under her blankets, popping the chain and letting the door just swing open, he gives her space. More than she was used to. Jude was used to the ones who sidle up, try to touch, try to speak. Weird being treated as a person, and not a service. She hadn’t quite decided if she liked it so much.

It all boiled down to money, in the end, anyway. Only reason she was still on the Saints’ payroll was because the income wasn’t awful, and it meant more in the safety deposit box, while the Ronin kept topping her off — at least until that ended, whenever that would be. More than once, Jude had begrudgingly asked the Saints to give her a timeline. Los Carnales closed up shop a little too early last time, when she was still coasting the business. Apparently they still existed in some capacity, but it wasn’t the same. 

At least the Ronin gave her business class seats when flying her out whenever she was needed.

“Who’s the guy?” Was it wrong to consider this some form of being pimped out? Jude had long since done this sort of shit, or at least, thought she had. Mickey claimed it was private contracts through him, but sometimes she still had to take her bra off. Flopping on the couch, she can barely see the clock. She might be able to fit in an assassination around dinner, if need be.

On the coffee table, covered in magazines, and magazines, varying handhelds and other things, does Mickey place a paper bag. The smell hits her first, inciting her whole body to yell food! at the face of the red haired mascot. 

Carefully, she opens the top of it. “You brought me food?” Like the smell hadn’t told her anything else, but it was still. Weird. So weird. Like the last few weeks had been a gradual chain of weird events, that just seemed to take another corner whenever it was time. 

Jude wasn’t sure if she was failing upwards. But the burger smelt good, and the fries were salty, and Mickey just flicked through tv stations while she licked sauce off her thumb.

More news, about buildings going up in flames and people dying in the streets. A regular Thursday in Stilwater. Jude spills a pickle on her blanket, flicks it away, and tucks her feet underneath herself. Like Mickey had unlocked the secret to getting her more active so early in the day: greasy food.

“So, what’s the job? Been a couple of days since I last saw you.” Which was true. Last she’d seen Mickey, it was a rush job. Some cop turned politician turned whatever the fuck he was spouting, just before his brains had ended up on the pillows. 

Mickey shifts from his position in the armchair. Crosses and uncrosses his legs, like he was uncomfortable. Jude did have to spare a quick look to check that yes, she was wearing clothes under the blankets, so it wasn’t on her. Just him, and his politeness, and his weirdness.

It’s the first time he didn’t look her in the eye when he spoke. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. And that you had eaten, ma’am.”

Almost habit to roll her eyes at the name, by this point. “How sweet.”

“You did kill a man.” And had she been any other kind of gal, Jude would’ve understood.

Except she wasn’t. “You say that like it’s never occurred to you that I’ve killed lots of men before.”

For the first time, she manages to get Mickey to look surprised. Sure, he’d always been the one to take the shot. Before things got too heavy, stepping out of the bathroom or the closet, silencer on. Jude just figured it was some professionalism on his behalf. The dots just had never connected that he had been trying to prevent her from bloodying her hands. That was adorable to consider.

“I hadn’t—”

“It’s fine. Not like I introduce myself that way… you wouldn’t have known.”

Something sits on his face. An emotion Jude couldn’t place. One that took the air out of the room, and there wasn’t enough bun left for her meat to distract her anyway. She settles for draining the remaining part of her cola, far too noisy (something to fill the quiet). 

Almost like. Almost like he cared on some retrospective level she didn’t have time for. Jude didn’t chase that sort of thing, because it didn’t mean much in the end, anyway. Like Mickey was the first guy to come along, hand her a bunch of papers, a few photos, set her out to work. How did he think she got her apartment, for starters. If that was sympathy, directed towards her, Jude wanted it gone. Leave feelings at the front door.