Not That Lucky

#34: 11:38 PM

"Yes...Yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it...This Land. I think we should call it...your grave!Ah! Curse your sudden, but inevitable betrayal!" -Wash (Firefly)

__________

[5:00 PM]

One of the many perks of being friends with Alex was that they somehow knew everyone. There was no logical explanation as to how they had the number of contacts they did, or why they all owed them some inexplicable favor, but Alex did. A part of me was a little terrified of the connections they had, but that was overshadowed by the relief that for some reason they just liked me and helped me out of the goodness of their heart.

"I got bad news for you." Alex said over the phone.

I was leaning against the hood of their car in the boondocks of Washington DC waiting for this information. It hadn't taken me long to get to DC yesterday. An hour to pack up some necessities, another hour to convince Alex that this wasn't a suicide run, and four hours on the road. At that point I could've found the ring and run in blind, but despite popular belief I was not an idiot. So, I had found a place to park Alex's car and lay low.

"We knew it was gonna be bad news, Alex."

"Yeah, no, this is bad, bad news though, Aj." Alex replied. "DC is having a fire sale."

I stiffened in surprise, "What? I thought they stopped that shit."

"Apparently not." Alex mumbled. A fire sale was the nickname for a competition where the last man standing won a prize. The prize was usually some poor, young woman held against her will though. Typically, one that was hooked on enough drugs that they didn't understand what was going on or a fighter who had made too many mistakes.

"That explains why Angela called her sister saying good-bye." I sighed and didn't bother to hide my disgust at the situation. Fire sales brought out the sleaziest, worst of the worst kind of men, and that's usually what the competitors consisted of. Men. No woman who had any understanding of a fire sale participated. For the most part, at least. We were criminals and assholes, but that shit was a new level of evil. It was solidarity amongst the female fighters. We all knew that our asses could've ended up as some 'prize' just as easily. "You know, I hate Boss with every atom of who I am, but I'll commend him for never dealing in fire sales."

Alex scoffed, "The only reason he didn't was because the dick didn't like to share."

I tilted my head with a small shrug. They weren't wrong. I quickly cleared my throat, "There's good news to this though. It makes my job real easy. All I have to do is walk in and pick up Angela."

"No, you have to walk in, fight a crowd of assholes, most who play dirty, and then hope they let you walk out with her instead of just killing you."

"Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to." I responded. Alex mumbled under their breath on the other end of the line. "When is it going down?"

"Tonight. 9 PM. You know where the main ring entrance is?"

"Yeah, this isn't my first rodeo with DC. Has been a while though." I said. It's been three years since I visited the DC ring. Boss had dragged me along on what he called a business trip, but I think it had been more an excuse to show me off to all his slimy, criminal friends. "Any other tips?"

Alex hummed, "Yeah, call your Avenger friends to deal with this instead of throwing yourself headfirst into danger."

I rolled my eyes, "Bye, Alex."