Fifth Avenue

Bullet never wanted to come back here, she knew that, but it was the only place she knew The Association wouldn’t find them, at least not immediately. Bullet got up from her old bed and smiled as she looked down to her husband as he slept peacefully, his mouth slightly open as quiet snores escape.

She walks outside and sits on the cold and wet grass looking up to the sky, seeing the sun slowly rise from the horizon. The sliding doors open and she turns to see her little brother walk through the door.

‘Why did she have to hurt Candice, ugh arrogant girl she’s lucky she’s so pretty’

“Hey” Justin says and she looks to him crossly.

“You, arrogant prick” she spits pushing him back “You do know what this girl has been through don’t you?” Justin scoffs and rolls his eyes “She was angry cause you ditched her yesterday Justin!”

Justin turns to go back inside “Look if I wanted to be tormented I would’ve just stayed inside” he stops “you know what she did was wrong, no excuses”

“She didn’t do anything wrong Justin, she just got” Bullet pauses “jealous” she says and Justin tenses slightly but huffs and looks way pretending not to care “What you did was cruel, leading a poor girl on then going on and immediately moving on to the next, I mean I expect that from a lot of people but not you” she says angrily “either grow up and apologise to her like a man or leave her alone” Bullet groans pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look you can say whatever you want about how much you have no feelings towards her but you need to remember that I can hear your thoughts and feel what you feel” Bullet gives him a warning look before storming past Justin, leaving her confused brother outside alone.

Hartley awoke not long after and saw Bullet enter with an angered expression and retreat into the kitchen. Hartley sits up and rubs her sore back, which hurt from sleeping on the old broken love-seat, not that she could complain, it was still more comfortable than her old bed at the orphanage.

Slowly she got up and walked down the hall, she stops outside the room Doc was in and she peaks inside finding Doc asleep on the bed, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him as she sees his burns over his chest and face. She remembers how Bullet told her that a person must suffer tremendous amounts of pain to unlock their abilities.

Hartley felt as if somebody was behind her and turns to see nobody which confuses her. “Hey, you want to help me with breakfast?” Bullet asks and Hartley nods following her into the kitchen. Hartley jumps up onto the kitchen bench as Bullet moves to the already cooking pot as she stirs the baked beans which seemed to be steaming a little more than they should.

Justin appears sitting beside Hartley on the bench and she screams hitting him in the face with the nearest object she could fins which just happened to be a heavy pot. “Oi!” Justin screams as his hand goes to cover his now bloody nose.

Hartley squeaks and drops the pan onto Bullets foot making her howl and hold her now red toes. Shooter runs into the room after hearing the commotion and laughs as he sees Justin holding a bloody nose, his wife hopping around the room saying words which are a little to rude to repeat and Hartley who has wide eyes and is covering her mouth in shock.

“I just came in to ask if I could talk privately with you” Justin says trying to sound as if he wasn’t in pain, but failing horribly. Hartley gulps and grabs his hand leading him out onto the grass not forgetting to grab a dish cloth on the way out.

“I’m sorry” she whispers as she moves his hand as dabs his nose giving him a stern look when he flinches away from her. “What did you want to talk about?” she says smiling as sweetly as she could. Justin reaches up and grabs her hand stopping her from touching his nose.

“Hartley I’m sorry, I didn’t know what got over me yesterday but I really am sorry and I know girls don’t take apologies overly well, I mean” he laughs slightly “I’ve been forced to watch a lot of that cheesy girly stuff with Bullet so I tried to get you something but I just don’t have much money you know and I mean it don’t want it-” Hartley, cut him off as she began to laugh at his ramblings. “Anyway, I got you this” he says pulling a cheap slightly chipped away ring.

Hartley grabbed the ring from his hand and smiles happily hugging him “Thank you, nobody has ever given me an apology before” she says genuinely happy before pulling away and slipping the fake gold ring onto her right ring finger. “It’s so pretty” she says but as she turns to talk to him Justin is no longer there. She sighs and goes back into the kitchen where she saw Bullet and Shooter basically making out on the kitchen bench.

“EW!” she squeals running out of the room where she could hear Bullet quietly yelling at Shooter and Shooter simply laughing.

Three hours later the entire team minus Doc found themselves in the living room sitting on the floor and eating burnt baked beans. Doc stumbles into the room and weakly holds himself up, “Doc what are you doing out of bed?” Kit yells running to Doc worriedly leaving his mechanical looking thing on the ground and attempting to hold him up with his small body.

Doc coughs and smiles slightly to Kit “I have a mission in Lawrence Ville” he says quietly “It’s in the city, something simple to get us up and running again” everyone in the room nods not daring to say anything “It’s a person, he’s been going around injecting people with something and he has caused the death of over 60 people so far” everyone stands up and heads towards the door but Hartley stops.

“Do you think he has abilities?” she asks quietly and Doc nods, “Kit are you coming?” Hartley called and Kit looks to Doc for permission and skips happily to the her when he says yes.

Kit wraps his hand in Hartley’s and pulls her outside and into a yellow run-down car she had no clue they owned. “You can’t teleport everywhere” Justin chuckles as he shoves himself into the rather small looking back seat, Hartley and Kit both do the same thing but due to the lack of room Kit had to sit on her lap “I don’t know why we can’t” Justin mutters to himself and Hartley chuckles as she hears him.

“Okay Hartley, a few rules for your first mission, one do not dis Mertle she is, apart from my dearest wife of course” he says glancing to Bullet “the love of my life” he says patting the car’s interior “second no judging what people may do while on a mission, follow what we tell you to do and stay out of danger” Shooter looks back to her smiling “Now are you ready for your first mission?” Shooter asks as he begins to speed down the empty street.

Only then did Hartley notice that this in fact would be her first mission, she had already beaten Reaper in a fight, but she had never had a proper mission, this thought rather than scaring her gave her a sense of eagerness.

Bullet laughs and everyone in the car sings any song that comes onto the radio while Hartley just hums along, this continues until they reach the town of their destination.

Immediately the music cuts out, the streets seemed empty and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop from the other side of the town. “What happened here?” Hartley asks stepping out of the care.

“Nothing good” Kit replies taking her hand in his and squeezing it. “Come on, we have to find a killer” he says with a smirk on his adorable little grease covered face.

Everybody walked down the rocky street but nobody said a thing not wanting to call any more attention to themselves, Bullet and Shooter excuse themselves and go to the top of the tallest building they could find and keep a look out.

But Justin made them stop as he heard loud footsteps echoing and they sounded as if they were heading straight towards them, soon enough a skinny man with little meat on his bone was charging straight towards the group, in his hand he held a syringe filled with a black looking substance.

Justin pushed both Hartley and Kit to the side and teleported behind the man slapping him from the back of the head, he continued this until a loud shot was heard and the man dropped the ground clutching his now bleeding shoulder. “Oh, my god that was awesome” Kit cheered throwing his fist into the air.

Bullet and Shooter high five before Justin the sound of Justin screeching made them look away from each other

“What if I had teleported into that spot just as you shot?” Justin says as he looks down to the man who now lay groaning on the floor,

“Then you shouldn’t have gotten in the way” Bullet shrugs.

“Then I shouldn’t have gotten in the way!” he yells and Hartley covers her mouth to stop herself from laughing “You are a terrible sister” he pouts childishly.

Shooter walks to the man and picks him up easily before throwing him over his shoulder “I need more of an open space” he mutters before walking down the street only stopping as he reached a fountain which sat cracked and fading in the middle of the town.

He dumps the lanky man against the fountain, Bullet steps forward and leans down to the man’s eye height and asses the small bullet wound in his shoulder before her slender fingers shove themselves inside of it, she continued to dig around until the man began to cry.

She gives him a cold smile and pulls her now blood-soaked fingers back, in her hand was now the bent bullet which had entered the poor guys shoulder not five minutes earlier. “Now Mr” she pauses and waits for him to say something but instead he spits in her face, his shaking arm moving up to cover his bleeding shoulder “Now that was rude, don’t you think that was rude honey boo?” Bullet asks looking back to Shooter.

“Completely rude” Shooter nods agreeing “I mean she was simply asking a name and you spit in her face, not very good manners” he sighs over dramatically and Hartley takes a step back from them pushing Kit behind her as she did, the small feeling of fear rising within her, as she had never seen her friends act in such a way.

“Now” he says leaning down with his wife “Who are you working for and who dare I ask gave you this sweet little concoction?” Shooter begins to pull invisible lint from the man’s shirt but the man’s expression remained cold and showed no hint of emotion apart from slight pain.

Shooter and Bullet stand, both of them sighing in dismay, Shooter’s foot then connected with the man’s ribs and a sickening crushing sound rang in Hartley’s ears “Tell me!” he yells loudly, Bullet sighs and steps forward tapping his shoulder.

Shooter cracks his neck and pulls out another cigarette lighting it “Sorry for my husband” she says nicely fixing the man’s collar as she sat him back into a sitting position “That looked like it hurt, did it hurt?” she asks nicely, her blood covered hand pushing down on the area Shooter had just kicked.

The man winces and Hartley could see the tears that began to form in the man’s eyes “You know it would be so much nicer if you could just give us the name of who supplied you with this lovely drug, because we all know who made you go around giving it” she pauses and chuckles slightly “well we all now, you don’t have the brains to do something like this on your own, from the marks on your arms it means you’re most likely addicted to some form or narcotic, maybe you got into debt with some bad people and you managed to squeeze out of the death sentence and instead have to go around killing innocent people?” the man pales and licks at his dry and cracked lips “Innocent people like those little girls in the orphanage or those entire towns?”

Bullet sighs and draws her gun from her shirt and points it to the centre of the man’s head “Spill the information or I’ll spill the remainder of your brain cells all over this fountain so help me god” the man opens his eyes widely.

“I swear I got no idea who gave the original order” he pleads as Bullet cocks back the gun “I swear, all I know is some kid in black came up to me and said he could give me the money to pay off my debt, all I had to do was give some people this stuff” the man was now wailing like a child, Bullet rolls her eyes and slams the gun into the guy’s head making him fall to the cold marble ground unconscious.

Bullet stands back up and stretches out her arms “Load him into the car honey boo” she tells Shooter and he complies without any arguments, she then turns back to Justin, Hartley and Kit “the fear of death will make any man tell you the truth” she gives them a stern look before smiling and walking back into the car.

The team returned to the hideout in silence, the man’s wailing and banging against the car’s boot. Today was not what Hartley had hoped for during her first mission, of that she was certain.