Angels & Demons

Quinn and J sat in the den quietly for a long time, listening to the men that had broken in as they surveyed the house. They could hear them moving around upstairs, and then there were heavy footsteps coming right at them. J gave Quinn one more look before the door bust open and there were three big men standing there, smiling at them.

"Tommy! We found the Clown and his girl!" the one in the middle yelled to somewhere else in the house.

"Ah, Frankie. I figured we'd see you at some point," J said smoothly, moving toward the man. As he moved, he held his gun at the ready in front of him, and other other man laughed toward him.

"C'mon, J. It's not our fault you went and killed one of our men," the other man, Frankie, said.

"He was going to take advantage of Quinn, here. Now, she doesn't deserve that, does she?" J asked, motioning to where Quinn was standing and trying her best not to look as scared as she felt.

"She deserves whatever she gets," Frankie said, obviously getting quickly tired of the banter.

Out of nowhere, J started cackling loudly, moving toward the men much more quickly. He shot Frankie in the head in a single motion and then shot the other two before they even had a chance to pull out their guns. They all fell to the ground with heavy thuds just as a handful more men came into view. Shots started ringing out rapidly as they shot at J and he shot at them. Without totally realizing what she was doing, Quinn moved to J's side and started shooting as well. Within a few minutes, all of the other men were dead. J looked at Quinn with a triumphant smile on his face that faded the second he saw her expression.

"Q?" he asked, reaching for her. Shaking him off, she rushed out of the room and up the stairs of the house. She searched until she found a room with a bed and flopped down on it, the heaviness of what had just happened hitting her like a train. She wasn't sure how many she'd actually killed, but she knew it was at least a few.

She'd always known that J killed people. She'd always known that he'd killed a lot of people. She'd always known that being associated with him meant she might have to kill people too. But for some reason, it had never been totally real to her. Even when she'd watched him kill the man who'd been attacking her, her mind had just written it off as self-defense. Somehow, being in a gunfight with angry mobsters was different. She wasn't sure what her logic was; she just knew that she felt like she might vomit.

It was a long time before J found her. Whether he was giving her time or just didn't want to deal with whatever she had going on, she couldn't be sure. When he did finally walk into the room, he perched on the edge of the bed and didn't say anything for a long time.

"This is the way this life is, Quinn," he said finally, catching her a little bit off-guard.

"I know," she said simply, not making eye contact with him.

"If you want this, if you want me, you're going to deal with this a lot," he mumbled, sounding unsure.

"I know," she repeated, still refusing to look at him.

"You need to make a decision," he told her, his voice suddenly sounding annoyed.

"A... decision?"

"About this. About me. If you're up for it, then things can carry on from where they are. If you're not, then we shouldn't waste our time," he said, and his tone made her angry. He sounded so... nonchalant about the prospect of her maybe leaving altogether.

"You just don't actually fucking care about anything, do you?" she blurted a moment later, realizing that she was almost full-on screaming.

"Excuse me?" he asked her, sounding surprised.

"You heard me. I'm so fucking tired of you being so casual and not caring about anything at all. You know I've been falling in love with you, and up until very recently you've done everything you could to ignore it. Maybe your plan was to make me fall in love the whole time. Maybe that's what you wanted all along. Maybe that's why you've put me through so much training. Maybe all you wanted was a soldier," she yelled, her voice getting louder and louder as she went. She wasn't sure why she had so much rage on the subject, but it felt good to be getting out all of the thoughts she'd been having for quite a while; the thoughts that kept her up at night.

"You know what, girl? You're wrong. I do care about things. I care about money. I care about guns. I care about cars. I care about nice clothes. You know what I don't care about? Your childish bullshit. You knew from the second you met me just who I was and what I did. I offered you a job, Quinn. Not a love affair. I'm sorry that you've developed feelings for me, but I didn't do anything to make that happen other than exist. You can stand there and throw your fit for as long as you'd like, but I think that until you're done I'm going to get as far away as I can," J said in the lethally quiet voice that she knew meant he was furious.

"You told me not an hour ago that you loved me," she whispered, watching him as he turned his back and moved for the door.

"Don't tell me you've never been lied to," he said, throwing her a look over his shoulder. She watched as he walked out of the room, and before she'd even fully thought about it she grabbed the gun that she'd put on the nightstand beside the bed when she'd first come in.