He comes, of course.

He's him.

I walk into the warehouse and yell the signal.

"I have money!" Immediately I hear feet thundering down the staircase, until about a dozen men stand before me.

"Jamie!" Greg booms, shaking my hand vigorously. "Good to see you, mate."

Joe pushes to the front of the throng. "Did you really dump him?" He asks quietly. Joe and Greg are my favorites. They're perverts, like the rest, but at least only for adult women. I nod.

"I always said she had more balls than half the guys here." Greg nudged Joe lightly, and the other man nodded.

"And you came back to finish a job. If Johnny wasn't set on making so many defamatory statements everyone thinks you're Satan, I'd say you might be in the position to be a legend."

"No thanks," I said with a laugh. "I don't like that much attention."

Pete

I don't know how she does that. Flips her whole personality on its head like it's nothing. Goes from the vaguely awkward, funny kid I met to this... Fun-sized femme fatale. It's not natural. She was screaming at me on the street just five minutes ago, and now that she's in here she's reverted into the shell, the graceful, lethal, detached shell she carries around everywhere, that she shows to the rest of the world.

Speaking of what happened on the street, it wasn't her fault, but it wasn't mine, either. It was just an argument, albeit a rather heated one, and she got me so infuriated, and it just slipped out.

I knew right away that I would take that to my grave, the way she shrank back, the way all of the walls just fell away.

For the first time since I met her, she looked her age.

It was like that for a fraction of a second before the walls were back up, higher than last time. The walls she put up for Johnny and Luke.

And I knew I never wanted those walls put up against me again.

"And who's this?" One of the guys she'd been talking to gestured to me.

Jamie didn't even bother to look. "An employer. Can we just do what we need to do? I already took my cut out, so just take the bag."

The other man took the backpack she handed him and stared into it a fair bit longer than necessary before looking up at her, biting his lip. "Jamie-"

"I know, Greg," she said softly. "It'll be okay. Are you ready? Who's doing it?"

"I am," the man she had called Joe said quietly.

"Alright," she said, clapping her hands, and they all began to head upstairs. She stopped and turned back to me. "Pete. Stay downstairs."

"But-"

"Pete." Her eyes pleaded. "Please. Just stay down here." I nodded. I owed it to her.

After the last of an echo on the metal stairs died, I became uneasy. It was too quiet. I scuffed the ground with my toe. I really needed to get new boots before the expedition. These were nearly worn through. God, it was quiet. My phone vibrated and I pulled it out. Oliver was sending me a series of extremely shouty texts about some (American) football game he was watching. God, American football was stupid. Load of goons tripping over themselves, if you asked me.

JESUS, PETE, ARE YOU WATCHING THIS?!?!?

I smile, and am trying to decipher his obviously excited, typo-encrusted texts when I hear a scream followed by, "Shhhh, shut up, almost done."

I swear under my breath and take the stairs three at a time, bursting through the door at the top of the stairwell, thanking God that I now know better than to run in with guns blazing.

The scene is, at first, distressing. A few guys are in the room, and Jamie is hunched over a table in her sports bra. Greg is next to her, gripping her right shoulder, while Joe pierces her left with a knife. "Get off her," I growl from the door, and all three turn to look at me. Jamie, much to my surprise, rolls her eyes and turns back to face the wall.

"Pete, it's fine. Go back downstairs. I'll explain later." All at once, she seems to realize something and swipes her shirt off the table jerkily, using it to wrap around herself.

"You're done, anyway. Let me patch it up for you." Greg pries the shirt out of her grasp, reaching for a first aid kit, and she swears.

She's covered in scars. I only catch a glimpse before she turns. "Get out, Pete. Alright? Sorry, man."

I nod and step out. She follows a few minutes later, rotating her left shoulder gingerly. 

AYYY welcome to not sucking! 201 reads and 880 in adventure! YAYYYY LOVE YOU!