It filled the spaces her screams would have clogged. If she didn’t have the restraint that she did after he’d done it. He raised a brow as he paced around her. Like he could tell, like he could hear her responsiveness to him pulsating off of her and was both bewildered and amused by her fighting off being in the throes of it, whether she’d ever act on it or not. No matter if anything else around them was cognizant of it or not.

The spectacle of it all had damn near thrown her into heat.

The wind howled.

He growled, which was bad enough. The worst thing he could do.

But when the first syllable to escape a mouth he hadn’t even realized was dry cracked, she laughed and stepped away a bit, the spell broken.

Watching her work had made him parched. Inadvertently showing that freed them both.

They looked away, shook it off and spoke over each other, trying to gain control of the situation.

“Now what?” they brusquely snapped, inadvertently in unison.

He sized it up.

“Well since you shot through him and then incorrectly pistol-whipped him, we could technically leave him here. He’ll come back to in a few as he’s bleeding out.”

A groan wheezed up from below.

“…Will mountain lions get him?” she asked expectantly, weighing the pros of the path.

The winds kicked up.

“They’d definitely smell him soon enough on a night like tonight.” he said. “Or you could aim higher with the next one and just put him out of his misery-“

She dipped down & rifled through her now wounded old harasser’s pockets, grabbed his car keys , split them and threw them in opposite directions.

“Okay, I guess you’ve made your-” he began but stopped when she shot him in the thigh of the other leg and chuckled darkly. The harasser called on God, then whimpered her name as she stared blankly down at him.

“This is why yer God didn’t let you play with guns before, isn’t it?” he snarked as he flicked some of the wounded, crying dude’s blood off his cheek in disgust.

“Yeah. No mountain lions,” she grunted and crouched down over the one who’d totally read her speaking on shit wrong and stupidly kicked shit up again when she’d been Trying to absolve them both. The bullets had gone clean through.

She scooped up both.
“I said I was sorry, I was coming to say I- I thought you forgave me!” he whispered.

“I know,” she whispered back, “but I remembered what you did with my agents to make them not send me out, trying make me starve and…pop-pop~” she shrugged.

“Why didn’t you do this shit before?Fuck!! ” he angrily cried out.

“So you could raise your son,” she said simply,” That lil dude’s grown now, and I wanted to see if you’d be dumb enough to try me sober, knowing God forgave me 2000+ years before you fucking made these two fucking bullets become necessary, or the mountain lions. But I forgive you again?” she said sweetly.

He rolled his eyes at her sudden softlness. “Scuse me,” he interrupted as he reached down, slipped the gun from her hand and knocked her old harasser back out with it.

“See that? The correct way to pistol-whip is to wing it down like so~” he demonstrated. “Try it,” he ordered.

“He’s already out.” she grunted.

He took a swig from his bottle of water and then dashed the rest of the contents into the asshole’s face. He came to with a start. She whacked him roughly and smiled up at her mentor like little baby jesus.

“Good!” he barked as the wind kicked up again alongside the faint baying of wolves. She jumped, surprised.

She nodded happily, skipped over to the steel grey behemoth and scampered in, grabbing a bottle of st. Germaine from the back as he climbed in on the other side and turned on music. Her eyes glistened with joy.

“You know, ” he started after a few beats,”maaaybeee you should’ve just told me that in everything else you fucking decided to cover in your -“

“Where? The cover letter? ” she sniffed. “Yeah, by the way the real reason my resume is sooo erratic is~ like you’d have called, ” she muttered.

“Touche…Point taken,” he muttered back.

“But you’re blunt as fuck, I figged you’d say what the fuck is up with that? In the in-person one and I’d have awkwardly explained it.” she mumbled. “Besides, he wasn’t the reason why I came to you. He was the reason I didn’t chart a course that would’ve made me a no-brainer to you to take on.”she clarified. “He stole a…lot,” she said softly then guzzled half the ornate bottle.

“I can’t believe he started up again,” he muttered, motioned for the bottle, took a swig and made a face .”Ugh-how are you drinking this straight?”

The baying got closer.

“Medicinally,” she grinned lopsidedly in the dark cab, “It’s made by monks and tonight? This was holy-” she got quiet.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

He waved it off gruffly. “I don’t have sisters, but if I did and cops told her she’d go to jail for protecting herself from a dude sending her pics of burn victims modeling bikinis when he’d tracked her across state lines after he’d paid her home agent to block her going for gigs-” he stopped, hearing him shuffle awake on the ground outside.

He turned off the high beams that flooded the place and they sat in the dark and waited in silence.

Eight pairs of eyes popped open in the bushes nearby.

“My pleasure,” he grunted as the wolves circled the panic stricken guy.

The first wolf lunged and he blew the horn, scattering them a bit, almost giving the guy a heart attack.

He laughed darkly. “Ready?”

She blush-grinned and nodded yes.
“Tell anybody I helped you-” he started.
“I know, I know- the swords” she grumbled.

They drove off in silence as tv on the radio’s wolf like me blared out into the night sky.