The Losers

Finding Her

It all happened so fast. 

Who would have thought that Aisha would be the one to save the day?

She had showed up out of nowhere, guns blazing, rocket launcher in one hand, then the next thing he knew Jake was hauling legless pooch off to safety. 

"You ever call me that again-" Pooch grunted as he was set into cover. "I'll kill you." 

With as much of a chuckle as he could muster, Jen was grabbing the nearest weapon and sending back fire any which way that he could. 

Somewhere off to the side, Coug. had grabbed a hold of his hat and mercilessly killed the man who had taken it. "Never. Touch. The. Hat." 

Before much more could happen, Aisha had taken their side behind the crate. 

The tension was thick, herself staring against the rest of the losers. Then, in the blink of an eye, she had risen her gun aiming it straight into the forehead of their leader Clay. Nobody moved, nobody lifted a finger, they knew what this was. 

Under all this gunfire, Aisha had to make a choice. 

Clay had killed her father on the mission that it all went south. 

So, with tears in her eyes, she licked her lips and asked for one thing. "Did he beg?" She let the water run down her cheek. "did he beg you for his life?!" 

Jen wanted to fire back, he wanted to go looking for Calvin, he wanted to make sure that she was okay, Jen wanted to protect her. In this moment though, there was no way that he could. He needed to stay here, with the boys, with Pooch, with Clay in his possible final minutes. 

Taking a long breath, their leader took the position he always had. He stood before his team, protecting them, willing to take the bullet so they didn't have to. 

"No." He shook his head. "He didn't." 

She fought it, her hands shaking and lip trembling. 

Finally though, Jake had enough. 

"Aisha." He stepped forward calling her name. This caught her attention, and slowly, she looked to him. "Aisha I know it's hard, and we're sorry. We were just doing what we were ordered to, you know what that's like. We thought we were just taking down a trafficking system, we were tricked, clay was tricked, I'm sorry." Her eyes never left his, inside he could see that she was hurting. So, in return, he let her see his. "Look, Rogue took Calvin." This made her look soften. "I don't know where she is, but I know that she's hurt. Did you see where they took her?" Silence was all he got in response. 

"Please Chiquita." Cougar now stepped in line with Jen while supporting Pooch. "She could be dying." 

This time, Clay continued. "Calvin didn't have anything to do with what happened to your father. That was all us. Her job was to get the kids out, she had no intention of our missions objective."

"Please Aisha." Jake stepped forward again. "I can't let her die."

She debated, eyes flying back and forth between each loser as if waiting for them to make some sort of move. 

Then she did it. 

In one short breath, she squeezed the trigger and the bullet sounded. 

Jakes heart sunk, so did the losers, and they prepared to face the world for what it was without their leader Clay. 

Instead of Clay though, two oncoming soldiers fell to the ground behind them lifelessly. 

Aisha had made her choice, she was a loser now.