[Zach] Off With Your Head

[Scarlet Rose Harris]

Scarlet lowered her clutch down to her side as she bundled up inside the warm jacket that Zach had been wearing just moments prior. It was freezing as hell in New York right now but when she craved frozen yogurt, she craved it. So here she was, dressed in an evening gown, wearing Zach’s coat and clinging to her waffle cone like it was her only key to safety. She smiled as she licked some of the frozen yogurt off of her lips and watched Zach. He’d been so good to her, ever since they met. He seemed like he really kept an eye out for her, and she could really love him. There was more than one type of love, right? What was most important, was that he had been completely honest with who he was from the beginning, which a lot of guys weren’t with her. So it meant the absolute world to know that someone could just be there for her, trust her enough to let her in, be so completely honest. It actually made her sort of want to be more and more honest with him, it was just difficult. She wanted to make sure her feelings for him were because she actually cared about him, and not because she was settling for second place. She reached over and offered him the waffle cone incase he wanted any frozen yogurt. He was handsome, that was a given. He got a lot of stares whenever they went anywhere. She could love him. She could.

Scarlet licked the corner of her lips and came to a stop as she realized that two men were standing in front of them. Only, it wasn’t like normal New York sidewalk traffic. They were staring at her and Zach deliberately. “ Excuse us,” she tried to say politely, trying to make her way past them. As she stepped forward she felt the grip of his hand against the inside of her arm and felt the panic in her chest as he started to try and push her towards the car. “ Zach!” she screamed out, trying to pull away from him, but when she looked over her shoulder she gasped in horror as she watched Zach punching the guy near her, not only that but he was pulling out a gun, quickly, like he knew what he was doing. Scarlet opened her mouth to let out a scream, but it was quickly muffled by the guy holding onto her tightly. ‘ Get in the fucking car’ he said in frustration. Scarlet lifted her hands to the one over her mouth, trying to claw it away from her before she bit down on it as hard as she could. After his hand dropped he screamed out in frustration, reaching his hand back before he smacked her across the face where she could feel the gash already tearing open.

[Zachary Adam Pierson]

Zach felt his heart drop into his stomach as soon as he saw the guys standing there. Where the hell had they come from? These weren't the usual guy Zach knew to creep around. Had someone gotten bored with this game and just sent this two in to finish up? They didn't care if she was with her boyfriend? Well that was fine, they didn't know her boyfriend knew what they were up to. Zach tried to reach for Scarlet to pull her back, but one of the guys grabbed her arm pulling her away from Zach. Out of instinct Zach pulled his gun, knowing it would do more damage if need be but he was so use to just fighting with his hands or a knife or any other hand weapon. Zach tried to push Scarlet back out of the way, and the guys were trying to get her in the car. Zach hit the first guy with the butt of the gun, knocking the guy to the ground before Scarlet bit the other guy and took off. He could hardly think straight with the adrenaline rush, just acting on instinct trying to protect. The guy that Scarlet had bitten must have realized Zach knew what was going on and came at him, pulling a gun out but Zach was too fast knocking it out of the guys hands. The first guy hadn't gotten up yet, Zach thought maybe he was feeling pretty woozy after Zach hit him. But just as he was about to double check, he felt the guy behind him, grabbing his neck. Zach elbowed the guy and then spun around while he was distracted, kicking him right behind his knees where he stumbled again and then struck his head in a good spot that would keep him down long enough to take down the other bigger guy. It was almost funny to Zach how he had a gun in his and still and had yet to use it. It was all he could do to keep at least one guy off him at a time, because guy number two was using all 200 pounds of himself to try to take Zach to the ground. Zach tossed his gun aside, deciding it wasn't helpful to the way he liked to fight, and he needed both his hands to wrestle this guy off him. A long fall to the ground and Zach was under the guy, trying to maneuver out from under him. This guy ate a lot of cheeseburgers, that was for sure.

Zach could feel the guy trying to choke him out, and it was all Zach could do to just take some of the guys weight off of him so he could reach his knife out of his pocket, so he reached his hand up and poked the guy right in the eyes for some pizazz, that always made them squirm. it got the guy off him long enough to reach his knife out of his pocket and flipped it open, reaching up and stabbing the guy wherever he could reach. The guy yelled out some profanity, Zach shoving him off and stood up quickly. He could hear the other guy coming and as he turned around to face him, preparing to stick his knife right between the eyes for good measure, the guy dropped. Zach stopped. Gunshot wound, no gunshot. Delilah was lurking around somewhere. Which was good. The guy that Zach had stabbed had gotten up, clutching his wound and was actually hobbling away from Zach down some alley nearby. He probably thought Zach had done something to drop his friend. Stupid idiot, if he had any brains he'd know Zach wasn't working alone tonight apparently. But Zach was not about to let him get away, he was too pissed and agitated and he had too much adrenaline so he threw his knife, aiming right for the back of the guys head, where it stuck, the guy collapsing in the alley motionless. Zach walked over to him calmly, trying to calm down and gather his thoughts. First check and see if they're dead yet. After a quick examination he decided they were both definitely dead, dragging them both down the alley and out of sight. Then he pulled out his phone and called Delilah, "Hey wherever you are lurking, I got two bodies and no Scarlet." he paused, looking at the two attackers. The first time he killed someone he'd been shocked at himself for doing such a thing. Now he was just numb by it, finding it more exhilarating the second time around. The guy was running away from him and he'd stuck a knife in the back of his head just for shits and giggles, and to cover his own cover as the boyfriend. It was like he didn;t feel anything about it anymore. When had he become so emotionless? "Shit, Scarlet has got to be freaking out, come help me get rid of these guys, I got people than can dump them, but we gotta cover these tracks..." he trailed off. Scarlet had to be out of her mind. He had to find her.

[Delilah Scott Kingsley]

Lilah stiffened quickly as she noticed that two men were standing in front of Scarlet and Zach. Where the hell had they come from? She kept her eyes peeled, watching every single one of Zach’s moves. He moved so quickly, sure of himself. If it came down to it, he probably could kill both of them if he had to, but why risk getting him hurt in the process? Scarlet had already hauled her ass away and Lilah made a quick mental note of the taxi number before it pulled away. But that was the only second her eyes had peeled away from Zach, now they were back on him, watching him hungrily as he fought his way through their attacks. He was just starting to turn around when Lilah narrowed her eyes quickly, lining up her shot before she pulled the trigger. Instantaneously he dropped to the ground, and with that Lilah knew that Zach would be aware that she was there, watching him. Lilah moved away from the window of the hotel room she was in quickly. As she moved through the suite and towards the door she screwed the silencer off of the end of her gun before sliding it into the side of her boot. After opening the door to the room she stepped into the hallway, sliding the now smaller gun into the back of her jeans, smiling politely at a man dressed nicely in a suit as she headed onto the elevator. But once the elevator doors shut she dropped her smile and reached down to take her phone out of her pocket, the same exact time that Zach was calling her. “ Zach,” she said out of relief, hearing the sound of his voice. She sighed and listened to him as he spoke, giving a small nod. “ I got the taxi she was in so I’m going to have someone tail it and make sure she ends up home safely. Yeah.. the bodies are fine, we’ll figure that out. What about you? Are you okay? Any injuries? What am I walking into here?” she asked quickly, caring far more about Zach and his well being than she did about dealing with the bodies. Lilah puffed out her cheeks as she listened to him and then stepped out of the elevator. “ Look, I’m probably two minutes away from you. Just go into the alley and hang tight. I’ll get there as soon as I can,” she said, hanging up just as quickly as she had answered. It was strange the direction her friendship with Zach had gone. She had been suspicious of his intentions, then she only cared about his safety because of the fact that it meant Scarlet would be more safe, and now she actually cared about him.

Lilah walked down the streets of New York quickly, glued to her phone as she soaked in the details of where Scarlet was headed. She narrowed her eyebrows as she tried to piece it all together. When she turned the corner she looked at Zach and dropped her shoulders from relief. “ Hey..” she said softly, knowing that he was going through a lot mentally right now. Hugs just weren’t something that came often in their line of work. “ Scarlet’s actually not far from here. She’s headed to some address I’m not familiar with though,” she said, looking down at her phone before she read it off to him. Lilah looked down at the two guys and tried to think quickly on what they should do. “ We’re not hiding them,” she stated decisively before she kneeled down and started going through their things, the jackets, what they were wearing. “ Whoever sent them is going to know they’re dead either way, whether we hide them or not. And maybe if we step up the violence in this area then at least for the next few days or weeks the police department will set up more camp here. It’s not exactly enough to stop them, but it’s enough to make them take a little bit longer to act.” she said standing back up after she had taken personal effects off of them. She scratched the edge of her forehead, trying to think of how she should do it. She couldn’t say they killed each other, one had a knife wound in the back of the head. Nice work, Zach. Okay so second option. There was a third party here that killed both of them, or even two people since they were both killed in such different ways. “ Cops just need to think this is a trademark kill of some kind,” she said, biting the edge of her lip. So they just needed a similar mark. “ Here , take that one” she said , jerking her head to the guy nearest Zach. She looked down through their personal effects, finding a small bag of cocaine before she opened the edge of it and spilled most of its’ contents out into the dirt and kicked it enough to mix it in, leaving just enough in the bag for the police to trace what was in it. If they wanted to think it was a drug deal gone bad, then that was perfect. But no one would leave a full bag of coke behind. After she finished up with her guy, doing her best to make it look like they had offed one another, she looked up, watching Zach as he worked on his own. Lilah placed her hands on her knees and pushed herself up before she made her way over to him. “ Pretty good team..” she said, giving him a small smile and a wink before she reached down and took his hand. If the two of them were going to leave a dark alley without raising suspicion then it should probably look like the only reason they ducked into it in the first place was because they were a couple that just couldn’t handle waiting the five minutes to get home. Lilah placed her hand on the back of his cheek and kissed him, pulling him out onto the streets of New York where she clung her arms around his tightly and looked at him adoringly. She lifted her arm up to hail a taxi and slid inside of it. The next move was his call. She’d given him the address where Scarlet would be. Either they could go, or she could make sure someone was watching her. She wasn’t sure what Zach wanted right now, there had to be a lot going on through his head. But whatever it was, she’d be there to help him through it.