sicparvasmagna | (no subject)

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In retrospect, he probably should have kept his mouth shut. That seems to be the reasoning for just about everything that happens to him, in truth, but he's not about to admit that, especially not aloud. It's been a crappy month. It's been a crappy few months, actually, but who's counting? All he knows is that he's sick and tired of this city and the way it picks and chooses how and when to fuck up his life, and he's maybe a little more reactive than normal because of it.

This entire Purge nonsense, Nate has decided, is bullshit. The very fact that it's a thing people capitalise when they write it on flyers or even say it is indicative of how ridiculous it is. Nate's a goddamn thief and even he doesn't know who thought it was a good idea to let a bunch of would-be criminals run around unchecked for an entire night. Some part of him had kind of been hoping it would all fizzle out to nothing, but then he'd heard the first gunshot ring out at hardly past 6:30, the first molotov cocktail thrown through a window across the street from him shortly after.

There'd been a rush of people running and screaming, some barricading themselves inside their houses and others making for the streets with weapons, and somewhere in the midst of the confusion Nate had ended up with his gun pointed at the guy who just yesterday had made him coffee and chatted idly about the weather. He'd been trying to pull a goddamn burlap sack over some poor girl's head like they're in some kind of horror movie, and luckily Nate had enough presence of mind to have his .45 on him. One thing had led to another and Nate's not sure when exactly Jimmy the barista decided that they were enemies, but it was probably something to do with Nate telling him he made a crappy cup of coffee while flicking the safety off.

He hadn't counted on Jimmy having a friend in all this though, and the bat cracking across the back of his head had taken him by surprise. He'd gone down like a goddamn ragdoll, and now he's the guy with the fucking burlap sack over his head, tied to a chair.

"This is honestly next level, even for Darrow." Nobody answers him, which isn't really a surprise. There's a throbbing pain in his head, the sack smells like old compost and breathing is more difficult than it should be, but he's not panicking. He's been abducted before, and he's pretty sure Jimmy isn't as smart or evil as Marlowe or Rameses. He's hoping not anyway, because after everything, this would be a really crappy way to die.

"You definitely just lost yourself a loyal customer," he continues, calling out to the empty silence. His voice reverberates back to him, so he's guessing he's in some kind of basement, or warehouse maybe. He definitely doesn't have his gun anymore, which just tops off his day. He tries to think of whether he told Chloe or Coop or anybody where he was planning to be tonight, but with the entire city in chaos he has no idea where they might be, either. He shifts as best he can, testing the strength of the ties around his wrists and ankles. Plastic digs into his skin but nothing budges, and Nate rolls his eyes inside the sack. Zip-ties, just great.

There's the sound of a door opening, strange creepy music filling the room, and then the strike of a match. He can smell incense, and for a beat he thinks this has to be the weirdest kidnapping ever, but then the sack is blessedly removed from his head and he can see. The only light is from candles and it takes him a moment to blink through the darkness, but eventually he makes out the shapes of a bunch of people standing around him in a circle, heads bowed. His eyes are drawn to the man directly in front of him. He's bigger than Jimmy, probably about Nate's size, but more concerning is the knife he's holding.

"Oh hell no," Nate starts, shaking his head. "Thanks, but I'm not interested in joining your creepy-ass cult. I mean, I didn't read the fine print, but nobody told me that's what happens when you fill up your loyalty card."

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If she keeps this up, Nate's not sure they're going to care much about ruining their ritual. The only reason he's here is because he messed up their first attempt at a kidnapping, so he's reasonably sure they wouldn't hesitate to just grab somebody else if he dies. He has no intention of dying, but the longer they stand in this stalemate, the more concerned he is.

Coop's moving, Nate can see him out of the corner of his eye, and he's glad that at least they seem to have some kind of plan. Knowing Chloe, there's a good chance she's making the entire thing up on the fly, but he trusts her. He knows he always works better without a plan, though he's sure Chloe would argue the point.

What he really wants, is for someone to untie him and ungag him, but there's not a lot he can do right now except sit tight and wait for somebody to make the first move. He tilts his neck a little, still trying to avoid the blade of the knife, waiting for any opportunity to be presented to him.

"I didn't know we had to kill someone!" a shrill voice suddenly pipes up from somewhere in the group. Chloe can't see the woman, but it's a good sign, a little sowing of dissent which works well in their favour.

"Shut up, Karen!" someone else snaps.

"You shut up," a third voice chimes in. "I know that guy, he's pretty nice. I don't want to kill him."

Chloe looks to Nate first, tries to figure out what his chances of getting out from under that knife are without an injury, then decides it's not worth the risk. She shakes her head at him, just slightly, telling him she doesn't want him to move. She's moved herself enough now that she can get a decent shot at the guy holding the knife and the gun, but from out of nowhere, another guy appears on the other side of Nate, flanking him.

Which is where she needs Coop to come in. With a slight jerk of her chin, as more members of this supposed cult begin to argue about whether or not they should kill Nate, she tries to indicate what she wants him to do. He doesn't need to shoot the gun, after all, all he needs to do is use the thing as a club and the man standing on Nate's other side will go down in a heap.

"Shut up all of you!" the guy with the knife shouts, pressing it too hard into Nate's throat at the same time and Chloe knows she can't wait any longer. Her gun lifts and slides into place and she squeezes the trigger, the report very loud in the enclosed space. Her shot takes him high in the shoulder, not placed to kill him, but enough that the knife and gun both go flying and he's thrown backward several stumbling steps before he collapses on the ground.

"Hit him now!" she shouts at Coop, moving forward to try and get the gun.

Coop, thankfully, doesn't try and make a witty remark. He doesn't try and be funny even if he wanted to say something about Chloe ordering him around and telling him what to do. He could have mouthed off with something flirtatious and funny but even he knew it wasn't the right time. Nate had a knife to his throat, he was carrying a damn gun and there was some inept cult trying to sacrifice his friend to some god.

What the hell kind of people had he aligned himself with? Darrow was going to drive him into drinking more or straight into therapy. Possibly he was going to take a beer to a therapy appointment or something.

Coop took a quick breath and stepped up to the man holding Nate. He drove the butt of the gun down into the back of his neck, doing it once more for good measure to make sure the guy was going to end up a crumpled heap at his feet. The man fell back into his legs though and Coop stumbled, proceeding to drop the gun on the unconscious man's face and busting his nose open.

"Goddammit," Coop said, swiping the gun up and making a face. "I hate this city."

They're arguing, and Nate has to refrain from rolling his eyes when it first starts up. They're so unbelievably bad at this it would be laughable if there weren't still weapons trained on him. For all that some of them seem suddenly less inclined to murder him, the ones that do want to are still disappointingly adamant about it.

All of the discord is making smoothie guy antsy though, and Nate feels the blade press dangerously close before a shot rings out and he stumbles backwards. Chloe has made her move, and Nate has a second to be concerned about the other guy at his side before Coop knocks him down and splits his damn face open. He cranes his neck around, sees his own gun in Coop's hand, and a feeling of relief washes over him. He'd thought he'd lost it, but at least the two of them have found it and brought it with him. He's going to need it, because Nate is going to shoot his way out of here if he has to.

He doesn't necessarily want to. Nate's not the kind of guy who kills people for fun, and he'd prefer to avoid it wherever possible, but he can't deny that he's done it plenty of times before.

He can't do anything while he's tied here though, and Nate struggles against the zip-ties again, making a frustrated noise against the gag. The woman who had argued against killing him is screaming something, but Nate's more focused on the guy Chloe shot. There's blood running from his shoulder but he's already moving to get up again, reaching for the gun again.

Chloe gets there first, though only just, and she pulls back her foot and sends her boot hard into the face of the guy she's just shot. He howls as his nose breaks, but he seems desperate to spill Nate's blood and he doesn't stop moving toward the gun on the floor until Chloe steps on his outstretched hand and then bends to pick up the gun, holding them both trained on him.

"Nate. Coop. You boys okay?" she asks without taking her eyes off the guy on the floor. He's not the only danger here, though, and she's sure all three of them know it. Parts of this ridiculous cult might seem to think killing Nate is a bad idea, but there are plenty of others who seem to be thirsting for someone's blood. She doesn't have the slightest idea what they might be trying to do here, but she knows she doesn't want to find out.

Carefully, she tucks one gun into her belt, then ducks to scoop up the knife. Still moving slowly, still with her gun trained on the guy on the floor, she goes around behind Nate and works the knife carefully into the ties at his wrists to cut him free. Her hand is shaking just a little, the only indication she'd been at all worried that something here might go terribly wrong.

"Keep your eye on that one," she says to Coop, nodding to the man on the floor. "I'll get Nate free and then we'll tie him up. I'm sure he's got an extra zip tie or two."

"Just fine. Stressed. Pretty sure this whole thing took a few years off my life and I really need to start going to therapy but I'm alive," Coop said, shaking his head and glancing at Nate. He looked a bit bruised, battered but alive and that was the important thing.

Once the dust settled, Coop was going to give Nate so much shit for being caught up by some inept cult. It was something Coop would do and get caught in because he was an idiot but Nate thought he was smarter and this just proved that Nate was more like Coop than he thought.

Coop did as he was told, keeping a watchful eye on the man on the ground just in case he tried to play hero and go for one last ditch effort to try and save whatever he and his cult had been trying to do.

He can't really answer her and she's got her eyes on the guy on the ground, not on Nate, but he nods anyway. She picks up the knife and moves back towards him with her gun still pointed, and Nate's glad that for all that Coop might be freaking out, Chloe knows what she's doing. They've done this plenty of times before, and maybe he's not usually zip-tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth, but this is more or less familiar territory.

The knife slips between the ties and Chloe cuts him free quickly, though when Nate glances down he can see the way her hands shake a little. It's unlike her, but he doesn't have time to ask any questions, and he knows she's not going to answer them right now anyway. Instead, he pulls his hands free and tugs at the gag straight away. "That tasted like ass," he says, making a face and rubbing at the marks on his wrists where the plastic had dug in. He lets Chloe continue cutting him free with the knife, turning to give Coop a little wave. "Hey, Coop. Fancy seeing you here."

He blinks when his head swims a little, but he shakes it off. He still needs to get himself - and now them - out of here alive; he can pass out later, it's fine. "Gun," he says to Chloe once he's free, gesturing to the spare one at her hip. "I'd really like a gun."

From the floor, the guy who'd had a knife to Nate's throat, the one she'd just kicked shouts, "Do something, you idiots!" Chloe passes his gun off to Nate, settling it into his palm with a smile that borders on dark and then she turns, her foot lashing out again, kicking Nate's kidnapper in the face hard enough to knock him out.

Later, when she thinks about it, she considers that to be the tipping point. She, Nate and Coop are all armed, but they're outnumbered and even though there are a few cult members whose loyalty is wavering, there are still enough who do not like seeing their leader kicked in the face. There's a cry of rage from somewhere in the group and suddenly they're rushing forward.

"Back!" Chloe shouts, gesturing at Coop to head toward the door they'd come through. The front is open, they'll be able to get out into the street, though that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be safe. It will give them more places to hide. Without a thought, she steps in front of them both, raising her gun again, squeezing off a round into the teeming crowd.

"Goddammit, I really didn't want to have to run for my life," Coop barked, backing away towards the door. He held the gun aloft, making sure to swing it to and fro to keep those that wanted to advance back. He didn't want to shoot the thing but if it came down to him or them, he was going to aim, shoot and hope he didn't take anyone's eye out.

That would be gross.

Sure footed and quiet, he backed towards the door, trying to cover Nate and Chloe while they walked. That was his job, right? He was the cover, the guy who made sure neither of them took bullets in the back. He only wished he was better with the tough talk. So, he just put on his best scowl and kept his gun cocked and aimed, acting like he did this all the time and that he wasn't shaking in his proverbial boots.

Kicking the guy in the face seems to be the thing that spurs them on, and Nate's glad for the familiar weight of the gun in his hands when he finally stands free of the chair and raises it. It's not his gun, but it'll do in a pinch. The crowd of people starts to rush at them, and maybe Nate has a gun in his hand but they're still severely outnumbered and he doesn't know how many of them are hiding weapons. His finger settles on the trigger, steady like it has a thousand times before, only then Chloe steps in front of him.

If he had more time he might have rolled his eyes at her. She knows he can handle himself, despite the current evidence to the contrary. She's watched him shoot his way out of stickier situations than this, but she still steps in front and nudges him behind like he needs protecting. The shots she fires cuts off any protest he might have made though, so Nate focuses instead on getting Coop towards the door. He hasn't fired a shot since coming in here and Nate knows he won't want to. He's hoping for Coop's sake that he won't have to.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a hand go into the folds of the robe the person's wearing, and Nate turns and fires without waiting to see what he might be holding, the bullet hitting him in the shoulder. "I'm never buying coffee from these assholes again," he mutters, walking backwards towards the door with his gun still raised. If they manage to get out of this, maybe he'll even swear off the stuff altogether.

He risks a quick glance back at Coop, just to make sure he's still there and moving, and then he fires another quick shot at the garage door mechanism, hearing it spur to life behind them. "Chloe!" he calls, warning her quickly that they have their way out.

If not for the giant mob chasing them, she would laugh, hearing first the shot, then the rattle of a garage door sliding open. They could have just gone for the door they'd come in through, but she'd been careful to close it behind them so as not to indicate their presence and it would take a precious few seconds to get it open again. This is faster, it's better.

And it's so much more Nate.

She moves in that direction, catching up with Coop for a moment and plucking his sleeve so he knows where they're headed. Almost at the same time, she shifts the sight of her gun and squeezes the trigger again, sending a bullet into one of the robed figures that seemed to be coming straight for Coop. She meets his gaze, shrugs a little, then heads for the rolling garage door.

"Go to my place," she says, because none of the cult members will know where that is. "If we get separated, both of you meet me there."

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