Small World - Chapter 1 -

A/N: I will do the first chapter and see how you guys like it and if it is pretty popular I'll do more :)

Nora took a long drag on her cigarette, slowly exhaling the smoke through her nose and wiping the grit from her eyes. It was hot as hell out here in the desert and she felt the unpleasant clamminess of sweat and more grit between her breasts. She longed to take a long, hot shower and wash it all away:

Problem was; she had no shower.

All she had was the clothes on her back and an empty, crumpled cigarette box in her pants pocket.

The events from two hours ago ran through her head like a long forgotten movie, vague and surreal, only parts of it coming through. The fight with her boyfriend who also happened to be her dealer who had called her a cunt and backhanded her to the street. He was some Vagos prick who she had only been with for the steady flow of whatever drug she needed in exchange for sex.

Or that was what it had felt like to her at least.

He had started spouting off at her about how he was in love with her and she needed to make something more of herself or some shit. She had laughed in his face in front of his crew and that had been when he had hit her.

The scab above her left eyebrow had started to itch already where one of his rings had caught her. He had tried to apologize afterwards and she had laughed at him even then.

"You're just a gang banger piece of shit and you're telling me what I should be doing with my fucking life?"

She had something like that before she had left him, looking uncertain of whether he should try to stop her. He hadn't.

That was why she was here standing in front of a 24/7 about to shoplift some cigarettes and decide what came next.

With a sigh she dropped her cigarette to the ground and stamped it out before tucking her cap down a little lower over her eyes and walking inside. The chill air was a welcome relief and she caught the eye of some redneck asshole staring at her nipples through the sheer material of her wife beater.

"Why don't you take a fucking picture if you've ever even heard of a camera you shit," she snarled at him, not in the mood for letting it slide off this time.

His eyes widened fractionally at her outburst and he suddenly decided he was done shopping as he scurried by her. She spotted boxes next to the counter with the name 'Redwood' across the front. Just what she was looking for.

The clerk was stocking porno mags out of a box onto the shelves behind the counter, his back to her. Perfect. She had stolen shit a hundred times without anyone noticing.

Today would be no different.

She casually sauntered over, pretending to pick up a candy bar and put it back as though she were more interested in a soda instead. When she was certain he wasn't looking she pocketed three boxes of Redwoods and slowly turned to leave not wanting to move too quickly and draw attention.

"You gonna pay for those?"

Shit.

"Pay for what?" How the hell had he even seen her?

He stood and turned to face her a look of disapproval on his face. "Don't play stupid; it insults both of our intelligence."

"Just put the cigarettes back and I won't call the cops."

Anger took over as she whirled on him. "Look, I am having a really bad day. Just let me have the fucking cigarettes. What do you care if you were short a few boxes from your last shipment?"

"Nice try. Now give them back."

She reached around behind her back and the clerk reached under the counter. She was of course bluffing but was he? Probably not. It was so isolated out here it took the cops a fair amount of time to respond and it would only make sense for store owners to arm themselves.

"Just let me have the fucking things. I don't want to hurt you," she threatened, but even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.

"M'am, please don't do anything that we'll both regret."

The two of them stood stock still glaring at one another, neither daring to move.

Several tense moments went by when suddenly the door was roughly shoved open with a loud tinkle from the bell. Both woman and clerk were momentarily agape staring at this new arrival.

A man staggered in wearing stained briefs and nothing else glancing back and forth between the two of them, narrowing his eyes, taking in the scene. Wordlessly, he walked past Nora, past the clerk and behind the counter where he began examining the porno magazines the clerk had been stocking, tossing a few carelessly on the floor before selecting one that apparently interested him.

He tossed a five dollar bill on the counter and walked back out. Nora took her chance and ran out after him before the door could close. She could heard the clerk cursing after her.

The naked guy was climbing into a pickup and a wild idea struck her as she ran after him.

This is really fucking dumb, she thought.

She climbed into the back and lay down getting out of sight before the clerk could spot her. She didn't think the guy driving the pickup had seen her either; he was clearly really drunk or really high and not paying attention. Either way she was just going to have to take her chances.

She knew this was Lost territory and she didn't want to get caught out late by the bikers while they were all meth'd up and looking for fun.

She risked a peek at the convenience store over the top of the truck bed. She didn't see anyone as the truck started forward she allowed herself a moment to relax and let her head fall back to the hot metal with a gentle clank.

It couldn't have been more than five minutes of driving before they stopped with a sudden lurch and she had to muffle a cry when her head hit the cab painfully when she slid forward unable to stop herself.

She heard the truck door opening and then slamming shut. After she heard the sound of footsteps receding into the distance she got onto her hands and knees watching cautiously, staying low.

She was outside a horribly rundown trailer and the smell of piss was overwhelmingly unbearable in this heat. The man disappeared inside mumbling unintelligibly to himself.

For once, she didn't feel so bad about her own life.

She dropped, cat-like, over the side into the dust crouching low listening hard.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the door to the trailer banged open, explosively, followed by a profanity laced shout. Crawling forward, she could see that he had gotten dressed in an equally stained ensemble of a possibly once white t-shirt and blue jeans.

He was on the phone and he was very very angry with someone.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Ron! I told you if the buyer came by to let me know immediately."

"No, that doesn't make a fucking difference! Better yet where are you right now? Alright, I'll be right there. Don't fucking move unless I expressly tell you how and when, got it?"

She rolled into the weeds out of sight until he was gone and the sound of his truck no more than a distant rumble. She lit up one of her newly 'acquired' cigarettes and decided that if she were going to live dangerously today there was no need to stop now.

Yep I'm really fucking dumb today.

Making sure that no one was watching she ran across the road and checked to see if the trailer door was unlocked.

It was.

With one last glance around to make sure that the crazy guy wasn't coming back she slipped inside. Time for that shower before hitting the road.

"Goddamn," she muttered seeing the disaster area unfolding before her as her eyes adjusted to the dim interior.

Garbage and moldy leftovers covered nearly every surface and the smell was even worse than it had been outside. It wasn't like she hadn't been in similar if not worse circumstances in the past. Nora shrugged out of her overshirt and quickly yanked off her tank top taking her clothes into the shower with her to wash them out as well.

The hot water felt so good running over her body rinsing away all of the grime from the past weeks as she turned and stretched into the flow. With the water running into her eyes she felt around for soap blindly. Her fingers closed around it and she began to lather her scalp until her short trimmed hair stood on end from the suds.

She frowned as her fingers slid over the scar under her right breast remembering how she had gotten it. She didn't actually remember being shot just the adrenaline rush that followed and how she had finally fainted from blood loss. An involuntary jolt shot through her at the unwanted memory.

"Shit," she grunted.

The soap had slid out of her fingers.

"Here you go," said a low, raspy voice.

Her eyes flew open, the soap stinging them, but she hardly noticed because at some point the man had came back and was extending the bar of soap to her not even bothering to hide that he was taking in her nakedness.

"Hey, go ahead, I don't mind. Really."

"How long have you been standing there?" she blurted, shock overwhelming her.

What the hell? How had she not heard him come back?

"You're bleeding," he commented, ignoring her question.

She reached up and touched her forehead above her eyebrow and her fingertips came away red; the warm water must have opened up the scabs.

"Looks infected. Should get that looked at."

"What.. why aren't you calling the cops or.. or something" Her tongue felt heavy and strange and she didn't know what to say. The dreadful feeling of getting caught was fogging her mind.

"Way I see it if I come home to a naked woman in my shower instead of someone who wants to kill me I'm having a reeal hard time finding a fault in that"

This was too much; she needed to leave. She hurried past him dropping her clothes on the floor in the process, her arms feeling like two lead weights. She quickly bent to pick them up and began disentangling her pants legs.

"Mmmm, fuck. Me." he growled.

She whirled around just as he began to swagger towards her with exaggerated slowness as she got her pants up. She would worry about the shirt once she had gotten the hell away from him even if it meant further embarrassment of more people seeing her half naked once she was outside.

As soon as she grabbed the handle to pull the door open he reached around her slamming it back shut, resting a hand on either side of her, caging her in between his arms.

Nora pressed her back against the door trying to put as much space between them as possible, glaring up at him.

"I'll fucking scream," she threatened.

"Oh I bet you most certainly would, wouldn't you.." he purred. "That is the real reason why you got in my truck, right? You saw this and you just had to have it all to yourself." He gestured downwards with one hand suggestively.

She nearly laughed at how absurd that looked.

"You knew I was in your.. oh my God.. you're a fucking serial killer aren't you? Or.. or a rapist? Both?"

He looked genuinely offended stepping back away from her, eyes wide. "Hey! Just because I've killed and eaten a few people who pissed me off doesn't make me a bad person! They deserved what was coming to them."

"You are fucking nuts and I'm leaving."

She did just that; running outside, the man's voice following her as he shouted;

"You don't seem altogether yourself considering you saw firsthand what you were dealing with and decided to invite yourself in!"

She was in the motions of pulling her shirt on over her head when a white hot pain lanced through her thigh followed by a sharp crack. She fell to her knees in the dirt, gasping and clutching her leg in disbelief.

At first, she thought that the crazy bastard had changed his mind and was either going to kill, eat, and/or possibly rape her.

"Stupid fucking puta! Fucking whore! Already spreading your legs for more heroin?" came an angry cry from the direction of the shot.

No fucking way. How had the Vagos found her?

"Carlos, it isn't what it looks like.." she said, weakly, her head spinning from the pain as she tried to staunch the bleeding with her hand.

"Really? Because it looks pretty fucking clear to me since your tits were out not thirty fucking seconds ago."

She raised her head enough to see that only two of his crew had came with him in a single car. Maybe she could talk him down like she had so many times before and she could go back to the way it was. It would be miserable but at least she would be alive.

She could take the occasional beating as long as she had a roof over her head and a place to call home. The streets were not a place to be in San Andreas. Carlos had a 9mm leveled at her head, a look of fury on his face twisting his handsome features into something ugly.

The kind of fury that she always saw right before he beat her. The kind that told her no matter what she said she was fucked.

"Carlos, please.."

"Don't you fucking 'Carlos, please' me you stupid fucking cunt! You don't laugh in my face in front of my boys and then just expect to leave."

He lunged forward, pressing the gun against her forehead, the barrel still hot.

"Hope he was a good fuck because this is going to be the last time you ever fuck anyone ever again."

"Fuck you, you tiny dicked bitch," she spat at him. "Anyone would be a better fuck than you."

He started to squeeze the trigger and she looked up into his eyes. Even if she couldn't save herself she would make sure that he watched her die and that this moment would hopefully come back to haunt him forever.

"What the fuck is going on out here?"

She jumped having completely forgotten about the man in the trailer who had apparently just noticed the shitstorm that had arrived at his front porch.

"This doesn't concern you, motherfucker," Carlos shouted, his eyes and the gun never leaving her face.

"Actually, this concerns me a great deal, amigo. There's three armed men outside my house about to murder a defenseless woman. Pretty good reason for concern if you ask me."

"Well nobody fucking asked you, did they, pendejo?" Carlos sounded annoyed, now.

Nora heard the man edging closer behind her but she couldn't see him and she was afraid to move with Carlos so wound up he might pull the trigger at any sudden movement.

He edged around beside her, his hands up in a placating gesture and she felt a sense of dread coiling in her stomach as her eyes flicked back and forth from her crazed ex-boyfriend and the crazy bastard.

"Are you going to become a fucking problem?" Carlos snarled, finally looking away from Nora.

"Not at all." the man said, shrugging slightly.

Then he kicked her in the side, hard. She fell onto her opposite side with a small cry of pain, barely registering the sound of the gun going off into the dirt behind where her head had just been. Her vision was blurred as she realized she was on the verge of blacking out soon.

"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" he shouted. "The only one who gets to murder people in my yard is ME. Trevor Phillips, remember it you cocksuckers!"

Even though Carlos and his men were already dead, Trevor Phillips continued to rant, waving Carlos' gun around over his head.

Nora blacked out.