DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP

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So, little more explanation here, though more will come, along with other things… No, kidding, this is totally T. 'Cept when it's not…

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"Shoot to thrill, play to kill,

Too many women with too many pills,

Shoot to thrill, play to kill

I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will,

'Cause I shoot to thrill, and I'm ready to kill,

I can't get enough, I can't get the thrill,

I shoot to thrill, play to kill-

Yeah, pull the trigger"

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Ari did what we did, he just did it against the law rather than for it. Ari was a hitman, fairly low-class and rather affordable. If anyone in erm, 'lower society' had a hit out on me, Ari would know. He lived in some slum and blew most of his cash on drugs, I assumed. I really didn't know. The only connection I had with Ari was the fact that we had grown up with the same foster father, so, technically, we weren't even related at all. I had left the house at twelve when I ran away, when Ari was only nine. But like I had grown freaky-deaky wings in my time with the Jeb, Ari had also managed to come out scarred. And not like on MTV.

My DNA had been bound with a bird's. His had been bound with a wolf's. Not as cool as the movies make it sound, trust me. Because of this weird dog-thing he had going on, his maturity rate had gone through the roof, making him, physically and mentally, about twenty-five now. This is the age he would (supposedly) remain until he died, though who knew when that would be.

I knocked on the little crap apartment where rats were spotted more than tenants. It was no secret that Ari and I were not the best of friends, we had always been fighting for Jeb's attention and I usually got it. But when I left, Ari either left or was kicked out, something that he resented me for, I think.

"Who is it?" The yell was grumbled and I got the picture of him lying facedown on his bed.

"It's Max. Open up!" I banged on the door again.

"Max..." there was a pause. "Kick it down then, I'm not opening!" He yelled with a pissier attitude.

I slammed my fists against the door a few more times. Finally, I heard a thump and shuffled steps. The door swung open as the figure in the dark room flopped back onto the cot near the shuttered window. The bed was about a foot too short for his over-six-foot form as he lay in the dark. I scowled and clicked on a light.

I hadn't seen my half-brother in over two years (thankfully) and at this date he looked even more nocturnal than when I had left him last. He covered his eyes with a cry as the lights clicked on. "Off!" He yelled at me, so I switched it off. I sighed, standing in the door. "Close the door..." he mumbled. I pushed it shut.

"You gonna murder me in here?"

"Why?" He sat up now that the room was nice and dark, the only light coming from cracks in the blinds and from the gap under the door. "Should I?"

"I don't know. You're the Lord of the Underworld, you tell me. Does anyone have a hit out on me?" I leaned back on his slimy wall.

He perked up. "Not that I know, but I'd be happy to do it for free."

Suddenly, our phones rang. Both phones, at the same time. Never a good sign.

I counted to three on my fingers before we both answered. "Hello?" We asked at the same time.

"Hello Max/Ari, this is Jeb speaking. I have a mission for you. Find and bring me Ari/Max. If you bring them to me alive, there will be a reward greater than you have received. Don't worry about Ari/Max, we simply need them to talk." And the person hung up.

I clicked off my phone to look over at Ari. "Truce!" I yelled suddenly, holding my hands up, self-defensively. "Truce until I leave the apartment!" There was just no freaking way I was going to take on an over-six-foot top-hitman in this crummy little apartment.

He nodded, sleepily.

"What do they want with us? What does Jeb want with us?" I slumped back next to Ari on his bed. As long as we were both guests on America's Most Wanted, I didn't have too much to fear.

"I didn't run away." He sat up to face me in the dark.

"Huh?" Not that his life story wasn't FASINATING, it was just now did not seem the time.

"I mean, Jeb told me to leave. To make sure you were okay. And not to come back." He turned towards the closed window.

I sighed. "I'm sorry, yada-yada-yada, your life sucks. Now what the hell are we supposed to do to get out of this?"

"I won't kill you if you don't kill me." He offered up the truce. I held out my hand.

"Deal." Wow, way to make a deal out of your life. Hell, it's what I do.

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I battled my worst enemy that afternoon- rush-hour traffic. As I waited in line in front of an exit I didn't need, my cell rung.

"Talk to me."

"Max. You have made a very unwise decision. You should have brought your brother in then and there. Turn yourself in."

I snorted out a laugh. "Right, Charlie, well this angel ain't doin' nothin' for you."

"Max. If you do not turn yourself in, your family will get hurt."

"HA. Joke's on you, Mr. Badguy, because I don't have any family." It had sounded funnier in my head…

"You have nice friends, Max... a girl named Nudge? And that sweet little Angel... It would be a shame if something were to happen to them."

I shut my phone. I merged lanes and drove like a bat outta hell- Nudge and Angel were not about to get hurt on my account.

I jumped when my phone rang again. This time I checked caller-id. It was Anne. "Hey Anne." Nice, I guess, to hear a familiar voice.

"Listen Max, I've got a job for you."

"Don't want it- I've got stuff to do." Gee, understatement of the century, much? 'Not doing much Anne, just being tracked by murders I escaped from who are now after my friends- the closest thing I have to family. Nope, not really doing anything at all- tea?'

"It's ten-thousand, Max."

I paused. That was a lot of money. That could get us out of a hell of a lot of parking tickets on our way to New York, which I had decided was where we were headed- away from the war zone here. Yeah, I'll run. I'm not ashamed. We'll all run, if that keeps us alive. Can't do shit when you're dead. "When?" I asked tentatively.

"Now. At Rosa Park." That was literally two minutes from where I was. Alright, time to reality-check. I needed that money if we really were going to run away. Okay. Let's do this puppy. Let's make it beg.

"Who's the job?"

"Oh, you'll see him." She hung up. I screeched my wheels like I was racing the hare. I hit the brakes outside the park, right in back of a blue van.

"He's everywhere..." I muttered as I tore into the park to see Iggy crouching near a tree and Fang standing ahead, gun loosely in hand on the lawn of the park. No one else was around. "What... Where's the badguy?"

Fang turned on me slowly, hands slightly up, "there is no 'badguy'. It's a setup." He glanced up as helicopters began in.

"Oh f" but the chopper sounds drown me out.

"Let's move!" He tore passed me towards his van as Iggy must have gotten the mental image of us being chopped into little tiny pieces by giant choppers and took off for the van as well. I ran at my car when Fang ripped me around by the arm.

"Leggo!" I yelled at him, tugging away and feeling my wings ready to explode from my back.

"Idiot! Want them to shoot you down in your cute little no-top Jeep?!" He yanked me after him and into the van door, which Iggy had pulled open. Aw, he cared. How sentimental.

Fang got in the driver's seat and hit the gas so that I, not seat-belted down, flew so hard against the back wall I could feel my wings crunch.

"OW!" I bellowed, standing to shakily walk to the front of the van as Fang shot down the street.

"Sorry Princess, I'll try to slow it down next time we're RUNNING FROM PSYCHOPATHS."

"I know why they're after me, why the hell are they after you?" I gripped above his seat harshly as we rounded another sharp corner.

"Yeah, well, I've been around." he muttered as Iggy, apparently unfazed by the whole near-death experience, turned up the knob of the radio station.

So, let's re-camp. We were screaming down the streets of Vegas in a blue van at about 90 miles an hour, being chased by at least one helicopter, the van driven by a maniac who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw him, and now AC/DC was screaming at me over the loud-speakers.

Now, I appreciate irony as much as the next mutant-bird-girl, but the lyrics 'I'm on the highway to Hell' were so not humorous in the least.

And, to my horror, Fang began to belt it out as he rolled both windows down. "No stop signs, speed limit, nobody's gonna slow me dow-"

"This is SO NOT FUNNY!" I had to yell over the speakers.

"What?" Fang laughed as he pulled to a halting stop in front of Nudge's building.

"How did you know to go here?" I demanded. Fang scoffed.

"I didn't drive here for you, Domino." Iggy jumped out to find his way rather expertly (for a blind dude) into the building.

"Where's he..." but I watched as he met someone in the main lobby and they followed him out.

"Nudge?" I gawked as she and Angel chased him to the van and jumped in. "Angel? What are you doing with..."

"I've been seeing someone, I told you that." Nudge sniffled as she jumped into the van, Angel at her heels. "He called and said you'd be in trouble. I took Angel, hope you don't mind." Angel smiled up at me.

I shook my head to try to free whatever was stuck in there clogging up my brain into thinking any of this was real.

I jumped into the front seat before Iggy could as Fang sped off again, headed towards the highway. "Alright." I turned off the radio and stared right at Fang as his eyes tore from me to the road. "What is going on. And Fang," I pulled out my handgun and pointed it at his big, inflated head. "Gimme it straight, or you won't ever give anyone anything again."

"Pity..." he smirked, "'cause I'm pretty damn good at it."

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