Fighting For My Soul

See The Real World

They got back to the office and Raylan took the wife to the conference room and Tim escorted the attacker to lock up. Liz sat down at her desk hoping she had her hair pulled just right to cover her wound to avoid attention. Raylan went up to her desk and sat down on the edge of her desk.

"Want me to take you to get that looked at or you just going to leave it alone?" he asked.

"Do we have anything else to do today at the office?" Liz eyes Raylan, still keeping her head in a certain position.

"Just question the wife some more," Raylan said, "but I think Art wants the lead on that one."

"Then let's get it looked at. I've developed a killer headache from it." Liz grabs her phone.

"Sounds good," Raylan said, "I need to get out of here anyways."

Liz stood up, and led the way out of the office.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Bartender!" Raven sat down at the bar in Audreys, "Whiskey please!"

"What are you doing here Raven?" Johnny asked.

"Where's Boyd?" she asked.

"He's out," Johnny replied.

"When will he be back?"

It was almost on que Boyd walked in the door. Raven picked up the glass of whiskey at the counter and turned to face him. He was followed by a group of men carrying another who was crying out in pain. On closer look, he had a rattlesnake head attached to his face.

"Raven," Boyd's eyes land on her, "what are you doing here?"

"Where were you?" she asked, "redneck roulette gone wrong?"

"Whatever business you feel you need to discuss with me," Boyd looked at her, "can we please deal with it at another time. As you can see Im in a bit of a predicament,"

"Ya I can tell," she took another sip of her whiskey, "but you see, you put me in a predicament."

"And what might that be?"

She slammed the glass down on the counter. She stood up and got right in Boyd's face. Her eyes narrowed as Boyd put his hands up defensively.

"You lied to me," she hissed.

"Now I do pride myself on being an honest man," Boyd said, "please inform me of this predicament."

"Why don't I," she shot him a smirk. Then she stepped back and looked around the room, "why don't you tell them how you saw US Marshal Lz Hardstead go up to Noble's Holler and then tell Raylan Givens. Then how you assisted the Marshals in going against Limehouse who you made a business deal with! Then you come crawling to me in a time of confusion and spin the tale that Raylan lies with Liz at night! Why don't you tell them how you manipulated me into turning against him for your own personal gain!"

"What gain is that?" Boyd's eyes narrowed.

"With you, there's a million things I can think of," she snarled, "we were friends Boyd. Now consider yourself my enemy."

With that, she turned on her heels and strided toward the door. Before she exited, she looked back to the man on the pool table.

"I'd call a doctor if I were you," she said, "Or he's going to be missing half his face by morn."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liz's phone went off in the early hours of the morning. She groaned as it woke her up and rolled over picking up the device. She saw Raylan's ID on the screen and answered it.

"Raylan, this better be important," she said half awake.

"I need you in Harlan," He said.

"Why? Is everything okay?" Liz asked, sitting up in bed.

"Ive had an interesting day and It just got better so can you please come back me up here?" he asked

"That can be dangerous with you Raylan. Text me the address, I'll be there soon as I can." Liz got up, getting dressed.

"I promise no one is shooting at me," he said, "at least not yet."

"Don't piss anybody off till I arrive," Liz grabs her jacket that she wore in Baghdad, putting on her combat boots and grabbing her badge and pistol. "I'm on my way."

Raylan was sitting in the cab of an old truck when Liz arrived. He got out to greet her looking over at the Sheriff's officials with annoyance.

"So, what do you need back up for?" Liz looked at him with her dusty and abused jacket on.

"Lets start off with these guys are useless," he gestured to the sheriff deputies, "second, I came here to see a man named Josiah Cairn and he sent me on a wild goose chase. When I came back, all I found was his foot."

"A foot???? So why are we standing around if the sheriff's deputies are useless?" Liz crossed her arms.

"Watch this," Raylan said then walked over to the deputies, "Hey guys, you already put a BOLO on him and get KSP and Locals on it?"

"Waste of time if you ask me," one of them answered.

"See," Raylan glanced at Liz.

"So, you got a plan????" Liz was convinced.

"For all we know," another answered, "the asshole might have done it to himself."

"Only person who'd be crazy enough is in Baghdad. Where is the foot now?" Liz asked, her curiosity striking.

"In the ambulance," the first one said.

"What do the Marshal's want with a piece of shit like that?" the second one asked.

"We believe he has intel on a federal fugitive," Raylan answered.

"Who?" another asked.

"Jimmy Hoffa," Raylan replied sarcastically.

"There a reason youre treating us like bleached assholes?" the second one stood up facing Raylan.

"Not really," he said then turned to answer his phone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'

Liz went to the ambulance, "Can I see the foot please?" Liz asked while stealing a pair of latex gloves and putting them on.

Liz was handed the foot, she looked at it closely. "There's no way this guy did it to himself. At the area it was cut off, leads to major veins and can lead to blood loss and death if not treated quickly. Besides it looked like it was sawed off, so I'd hate to see the damage done to his leg. It's also been at least 5-6 hours since it was cut off."

"Hey Liz!" Raylan called," Come here for a second!"

Liz returned the foot and discarded her gloves properly before going to Raylan. "Did you find something?"

"Ya," he said looking up at her from where he was knelt down on the ground, "A way of finding out one-footed runaway."

He pointed to a track on the ground that had a blood stain on it. It was clearly the bottom of a medical boot brace.

"Remember that girl Bob stabbed in the foot?" he asked.

"Ya, the one who was a late bloomer." Liz answered.

Raylan rolled his eyes at the recall of the hardware store incident.

"Well last I saw her she was wearing a boot just like this," he said, "which means she was here last night."

"Then let's go find her, help us track down the owner of the missing foot." Liz chuckled at the end.

"Were taking your car"