Meg Prescott

Less is more when it comes to knowing the life of Meg Prescott. She's a hitter, and if you're on the same side, you both should be fine. But if not....

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake stared incredulously at the door Meg had just walked through. Had she really not noticed him standing in the kitchen or his things on the coffee table? Looking at her jacket flung haphazardly onto the couch, it certainly seemed that was the case. A small part of him reasoned that he should feel relieved that she was okay and she had come back, The rest of him was furious and outraged that she hadn’t seemed to spare him any mind. Didn’t she care that he had been up all night worrying that she might have been hurt or captured by his father? Had she even bothered to spare a thought that he might be panicking a little over not hearing from her for hours now? Or had she been so wrapped up in whatever his father had ordered her to do that she didn’t care to think about anything else?

Setting his mug down on the counter, Blake padded through the living room to the hall Meg had walked through moments before. He didn’t try to mask the sound of his approach, not that he even really knew how to move silently, as he moved towards the bathroom. 

Peering inside, he was momentarily taken aback when he caught sight of Meg’s hands but the sight of the injury only fueled his annoyance over her radio silence. Had she deemed it unnecessary to let him know she had been injured? Or maybe she had thought he couldn’t handle knowing what his father had ordered her to do?

“Need help?” He asked blandly, leaning aginast the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

[megprescott-hitter]

“Holy sh-” Meg lept out of her skin and her heart jumped up to her throat. She gripped the sink and tried to bring her heart rate back down. She glanced at Blake and noticed that his arms were crossed and he seemed upset about something. Probably over something she did. 

“Morning…” she muttered. 

He would have to get in line with everyone else. 

“I think I’m good, thanks though. I’m going to have to do a quick change before going back to Pinnacle.” she went back to her bandages and filled the small trash can with bloodied gauze. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake was momentarily buffeted by the rage and hurt coursing through him before they faded away and replaced by a feeling of utter exhaustion. He was tired of everything surrounding this damnable job and everything going on between him and Meg. More and more it felt like there was a chasm between them that continued to widen despite their, admittedly infrequent, attempts to bridge the gap. 

He loved Meg with every fiber of his being but he occasionally wondered if she felt the same. He’d thought that when she’d given him a copy of the key to her apartment it had meant she returned his feelings with the same intensity.  His arms slackened as he suddenly wondered if this job might have caused Meg’s feelings for him to lessen. He mentally shook himself because the job was more important than what was going on in their personal lives. They could deal with the more personal stuff when this was all over.

He rubbed his eyes as he pushed off the door frame with his shoulder. If he crawled into bed now he could maybe get a couple hours of sleep before he had to turn up at the office. He was really tempted to call in sick but, knew he couldn’t because of the job. 

“So, is radio silence going to be the norm now? Or is it standard for hitters to only contact their team if they’re in trouble?” He wasn’t trying to pick a fight he honestly wanted to know so he could avoid staying up all night worrying again.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg froze. Radio silence. Did he know that she had his com turned off? Did he figure it out? Did Aidan tell him? She tried to focus on her remaining bandages, but she couldn’t help herself; she glanced up to gauge Blake’s expression. He was upset, of course, but not the level she had predicted if he had found out about his com. 

“I fell asleep at the 21st before I had a chance to contact you, Blake, sorry. If you were that worried, though, why didn’t you contact me? Or the bar to see if I was there? Or George?” She threw the last of her bandages in the trash before looking back up to Blake, not missing how tired he looked. This fucking job had to end. And soon. “I have to hop in the shower before my shift starts.” 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I thought that maybe you were in danger or were with Atticus and calling you would result in something bad happening. I also  didn’t want to make   Maq and Danny worry about it if they didn’t know where you were or were unaware that anything might be wrong..” He cracked a faint smile. “And I was worried that if I woke George from his sleep he would kill me and then go out to find you if even he didn’t know where you were.”

Blake shrugged faintly. When he’d been worried Meg was dead or in trouble he’d given himself some pretty convincing arguments to not call anyone, though now that Meg was safe most seemed a tad dumb.

“My reasoning sounded better in my head ten minutes ago.”

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg smirked at the thought of Blake and George being face-to-face without her there playing referee. The thought included Blake running for cover while George tried to lob things at his head. 

“I’m sure the thought was very reasonable and not at all connected to the fact that you look like you didn’t get any sleep last night.” Meg mused as she pecked Blake on the cheek, hoping he couldn’t smell the vodka on her. Meg stripped down and got in the shower. She continued as the water sprayed over her exhausted and sore body. “Why don’t you sleep a little? Call in sick and work the job from here? Surely those numbers will get us enough info to send Mr. Mansfield behind bars for the rest of his life.” 

~

Bethany approached Pinnacle, Inc with a furrowed brow. Meg Prescott had been on her mind all morning, and it wasn’t the sexy flirty kind she preferred. Getting her call in the middle of the night was concerning enough, but after seeing her harrowed figure, bloodied knuckles especially, it was hard not to be worried about the woman’s safety. Her brows furrowed further when she noticed that there were guards all around the first floor. She recognized a few of them, so she decided to take a deep breath and act as naturally as she could. 

“What’s up, Müller?” she asked the guard she knew the best. Müller had probably been there the longest and was infamously known as the gossip amongst the guards that Bethany had gotten to know. 

“No idea. Big ol’ boss brought us all in here late last night.” 

“What for?” Bethany tried to act like she was only interested in it for gossip purposes, but she couldn’t help but think about how it had to do with Meg and this Officer Morrison. 

“Whatever it is, it’s big,” Müller shrugged. “He’s been up in his office ranting and raving about it all fucking night.”

“Really? What else do you know?” 

“Nothing. Not a fucking clue as to what all this is about. As soon as he realized we were within earshot, he ordered us to take a hike. Been down here for two fucking hours doing diddly shit.” Müller then curled up his lip in annoyance before adding. “You know, I wasn’t even supposed to work tonight? Prescott called me in, sounding all frazzled and demanded I work tonight and keep close to the big boss.” 

“She did?” Bethany thought for a moment and realized that Prescott was smarter than she gave her credit. Müller was a gossip, everyone knew that, but he also always had his phone on him, in case his husband needed him for something. One that someone could add a wiretap to. 

“Yeah. Said something about Smith having an allergy emergency and that I was next in rotation.” Müller shrugged. 

“That’s too bad…” Bethany nodded sympathetically, but her mind was working double time trying to keep up with Prescott’s planning. If she was going to help, she had to figure out Prescott’s angle and overall plan. “I should probably get to work.” 

~ 

Atticus Mansfield had had one hell of a night. After Morrison’s unfortunate falling out, the only thing he could think about was Prescott. She had kept a brave face, but something about Morrison had spooked her. He had known that Prescott’s father had been a cop, but nothing beyond that. Something wasn’t right with her, and after several hours of obsessing about it, he couldn’t take it anymore and he came into the office.

He didn’t like calling for aid, but this was something that required more information. Atticus was forced to call the two employees he trusted when it came to recon and clean up. In the hours that they had spent in his office, the only thing that they had collected on Prescott was a cop’s death, an engagement, and a company called Leverage, Inc. 

“So I pay you how much a year and we still don’t have any information on who the fuck this Leverage, Inc is?” he snarled to the skyping monitors. There wasn’t a time that the three of them had ever been in the same room for obvious reasons. Pinnacle, like any diamond worth anything, was built on blood and market manipulation. No need to incriminate himself if anything went south. 

“Whoever runs the company apparently pays more money than you do on their online security.” his hacker-for-hire replied, unaffected by Atticus’ waning patience. After years of looking through people’s digital dirty laundry for him, the hacker had gotten used to Atticus’ prickly demeanor. 

“Well, whatever the fuck Leverage, Inc is, it’s not Pinnacle. That means Prescott needs to be eliminated.” 

“Sir, whoever she is, she’s smart, talented, and clearly knows what she’s doing.” interjected the other monitor calmly. 

“Is there a point?” Atticus growled at the monitor. 

“She’s been putting teams together for you for almost two months now. Do you really think she came in without one herself?”

Atticus paused for a moment, digesting his words. 

“Sir, I just got something.” 

“Go on.” Atticus nodded. 

“Leverage is a ghost company, really. Not really import/export as much as a service company. It’s…” the hacker squinted at his screen and Atticus could hear more clicking from his keyboard, “It’s a company that literally takes down other companies. It goes in, finds incriminating evidence, and then disappears without a trace, usually leaving the heads of the companies with the feds. There are news articles all listing the companies they’ve taken down. Some sort of Good Samaritan bullshit.” 

“Do you want us to take her out?” the other monitor asked. 

“No, like you said, she’s most likely got a team with her.” Atticus shook his head. “No, for now, we act like nothing’s changed. But get me a site and we’ll take her there for questioning once you’re done.”

“The usual arrangements?” 

“Yeah, the usual.” Atticus paused. “Wait, how did you say the cop died?”

“Her father? Car drove off a bridge up in Boston.” the hacker answered.  

“Make sure the site has access to water, then.” 

“That’s kinda fucked up, you know?” the hacker admitted, but he shrunk under Atticus’ glare, “Then again, you don’t pay me to give a shit about that kind of thing, so I’ll shut up now.” 

Atticus turned off the monitors and took in the moment of silence after hours of mitigating the Prescott problem. There was so much work to be done. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I certainly hope they will,” Blake muttered doing his best to ignore how his heart fluttered in fear and the small voice in his head that whispered that his father would somehow get away.

No, they would put his father behind bars and they could put this whole thing behind them and things could get back to normal for Meg and him. He had to put all of his faith in this team and in the belief that they would succeed.

“You sure you can’t lie down for even a few minutes? I know you said you slept at the 21st but I have sat on that couch and that could not have been very restful.” 

[megprescott-hitter]

“No, Blake, I can’t.” Meg snapped before taking a mental step back. Why was she so angry? She opened the shower curtain and gave Blake an apologetic look. “Sorry, Blake… That was… I don’t even know what that was… But I gotta go in and review the schedules and training logs at Pinnacle. If I don’t go in it’ll look suspicious, and I think I have a lead to finally close this up.” 

Meg turned the water off and paused. She could still feel the heat of anger bubbling in her chest, but where was it coming from? 

“Would you mind brewing some coffee? I think I need to take some with me…” 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake prided himself on not being thrown by much in this line of work. But, when Meg snapped at him with nothing except anger and steel in her voice, he flinched. Sure, she’d been annyoed at him before but, he’d never been on the recieving end of the tone that was typically reserved for their marks up until now. Even when she apologized, he still couldn’t forget the brief moment of alarm he had felt. He wanted to ask her about what exactly it was his father had her doing. He wanted to ask if there was anything he could do on his end to help her. He wanted… well he wanted to do a lot of thing. However, he was pretty sure he still knew Meg well enough to know that any further prying would cause her to blow up at him again.

So, all he said was on single word as he pushed off of the door frame and d turned to leave. “Sure.”

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg sighed and leaned her forehead on the cool bathroom tile. The water spraying on her back matched the rhythm to the pounding in her head as her mind dozed to her mantra for the job. Just a little bit longer and then things will go back to normal… Just a little bit longer… Just a little bit… longer…

Meg then hurried around the apartment drying her hair, slapping concealer and foundation on her face, before trying to put together her bag of notes and information. Lastly, she made her way over to the kitchen and without a word to Blake grabbed her coffee. She was still feeling ashamed from snapping at him earlier, so she didn’t look at him. She made her way to the door before stopping herself. Leaving without saying anything wasn’t fair to Blake. 

“Blake, we’re gonna get him,” she told him before leaving the apartment to go back into the lion’s den. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake moved a bit mechanically as he put the filter in the coffee maker, then the grounds, then the water and finally turned the coffee maker on. As the machine burbled and the smell of coffee filled the air, Blake took the tea he’d made earlier and placed it in a large contained her placed in the refrigerator. Turning to the nearby cabinet, he pulled out a travel mug Meg could put her coffee in and placed it on the counter next to the coffeepot. With all the minor distractions done, Blake was left with nothing to keep him from acknowledging the worries and thoughts churning in his mind as he waited for Meg to emerge.

He kept trying to pass Meg’s anger towards him off as her merely being tired from the job. Granted, all of them were tired and stressed, though neither he nor Aiden nor George had done quite as much for the job as Meg had. So, he could logically pass it off as her being tired from taking on most of the responsibilities of the job herself. But, he couldn’t help but feel like this was caused by her being around his father so much.

‘Atticus is poison,’ he thought as he heard the shower turn off and Meg exit the bathroom. Blake didn’t regret taking this job, his father needed to be taken down before he became an even bigger problem but, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should have kept Meg from participating. 

His thoughts stuttered to a halt when Meg came into the kitchen and breezed past him like he wasn’t there. For the third time in 24 hours, Meg succeeded in making him feel like he barely even registered as a blip on her radar. The feeling did not ease at all when she paused at the door to let him know they would get his father.

“Sure,” he said to the closed door. 

Shoving off the counter, he made his way to the bedroom and after a quick call, saying he was sick, crawled into bed.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg walked into Pinnacle attempting to make it straight to her office without grabbing anyone’s attention, her poor behavior towards Blake still stinging in her head. But as soon as her foot walked in the front door, Bethany was frantically waving her over. Worried that there was another fire for her to put out, she beelined over.

“Subtle. They teach you that at Quantico?” Meg quipped impatiently.

“Screw subtlety, I think you’ve been made,” Bethany muttered back. Meg looked Bethany over before letting out another tired sigh. “Mansfield’s been here all night doing God-knows-what.”

“Did you look into Morrison?”

“Yes, and I agree he looks suspicious,” Bethany confirmed with a nod. “That history between him and Pinnacle is too close for comfort. I’ve sent it up the chain. I’m worried about you, though.”

“That’s sweet. I’ve got a job to finish.”

“But-”

“Bethany, as soon as Prescott comes in, I want her sent straight to my office.” Mansfield interrupted over the office phone. Prescott and Bethany both looked at each other.

“Of course, sir, I’ll send her right up!” Bethany called back cheerily.

“I’ll drop my stuff off and then head up,” Meg assured Bethany. Bethany, however, did not look convinced.

“Listen, be careful, would you?”

~

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Meg knocked on the grandiose office door.

“Ah, yes, Prescott, please take a seat.” Mansfield gestured tiredly to the chair in front of his obscenely large desk. Meg saw the prim and the posh, but Mansfield’s exhausted look made her think twice about what Bethany had said. “I wanted to talk to you about last night. I put you in a position, and I could feel your discomfort. I don’t want whatever you were feeling to get in the way of your work here at Pinnacle. Especially since this isn’t your first rodeo and you should know to expect those kinds of assignments while working here. Do not make me regret hiring you, Prescott.”

“Understood, sir.”

“I want you in-house today, just to make sure you’ve moved past last night. Do some observations in the training gym, catch up on performance reports, things like that.”

“Of course, sir. I can absolutely do that.”

“Alright, that will be all. Dismissed.”

Mansfield waved Meg out. Meg made her way out of Mansfield’s office and into her own, sighing a mild relief that she didn’t just get murdered. She closed the door behind her before pacing back and forth across the carpeted floor. The office, however, was not lavish or extended as Mansfield’s, so the amount of pacing space was limited. Knowing she needed to talk this out, she went to her bag and grabbed her bug scrambler. She turned it on to deter anyone from overhearing her conversation before dialing the one person she knew would have the next step.

“George, something’s not right about this, can you double check Mansfield’s activity from last night?”

“Meggie... I haven’t been able to get any eyes or ears on last night.”

“What?” Meg’s pacing stopped immediately. “What happened to the bugs we planted? Blake’s virus from accounting? Aren’t you supposed to have eyes and ears on everything?”

“Someone completely shut me out last night. I have everything back up and running, but from the Morrison fiasco-”

“Okay, it was not a fiasco-”

“Meggie, you froze before almost beating a cop to death. Would you prefer me to use the term ‘trainwreck’? ‘Meltdown’? ‘Disaster’? Just let me finish, dammit.” George paused to make sure Meg wasn’t going to continue. Her fuming silence seemed to be good enough so he continued. “From the Morrison... incident on to this morning, I’ve got nothing.”

“Fuuuuuuck. Fuck... Shiiiiit. Fuck. Shit.”

“Really, Meggie?”

“We might have to pull the plug on this. FBI confirmed Mansfield’s been here all night working on something and we don’t have jack on what the fuck it was. I’m pretty much burnt out and Mansfield is already pulling me from active duty for last night.”

“Maybe Adrian can push his agenda more so Masnfield shares what it was he was working on.”

“Maybe.” Meg mused.

“Just call Blake and have him plan it out with Adrian.”

“Right. Yeah... I can totally do that.” Meg trailed off awkwardly thinking about how the morning went with Blake.

“I swear to God, Meggie, if you and Blake can’t fucking work this shit out I’m going to shoot you both.”

“Understood. Yep. I’ll call him during my lunch break. Got it.” Meg quickly assured George before hanging up. It was going to be a long day indeed.

[bwgirlsgallery-deactivated20200]

Evan Rachel Wood by Michael Schwartz

[algemesi11]

Evan Rachel Wood by Andrew Eccles

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake stared incredulously at the door Meg had just walked through. Had she really not noticed him standing in the kitchen or his things on the coffee table? Looking at her jacket flung haphazardly onto the couch, it certainly seemed that was the case. A small part of him reasoned that he should feel relieved that she was okay and she had come back, The rest of him was furious and outraged that she hadn’t seemed to spare him any mind. Didn’t she care that he had been up all night worrying that she might have been hurt or captured by his father? Had she even bothered to spare a thought that he might be panicking a little over not hearing from her for hours now? Or had she been so wrapped up in whatever his father had ordered her to do that she didn’t care to think about anything else?

Setting his mug down on the counter, Blake padded through the living room to the hall Meg had walked through moments before. He didn’t try to mask the sound of his approach, not that he even really knew how to move silently, as he moved towards the bathroom. 

Peering inside, he was momentarily taken aback when he caught sight of Meg’s hands but the sight of the injury only fueled his annoyance over her radio silence. Had she deemed it unnecessary to let him know she had been injured? Or maybe she had thought he couldn’t handle knowing what his father had ordered her to do?

“Need help?” He asked blandly, leaning aginast the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

[megprescott-hitter]

“Holy sh-” Meg lept out of her skin and her heart jumped up to her throat. She gripped the sink and tried to bring her heart rate back down. She glanced at Blake and noticed that his arms were crossed and he seemed upset about something. Probably over something she did. 

“Morning…” she muttered. 

He would have to get in line with everyone else. 

“I think I’m good, thanks though. I’m going to have to do a quick change before going back to Pinnacle.” she went back to her bandages and filled the small trash can with bloodied gauze. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake was momentarily buffeted by the rage and hurt coursing through him before they faded away and replaced by a feeling of utter exhaustion. He was tired of everything surrounding this damnable job and everything going on between him and Meg. More and more it felt like there was a chasm between them that continued to widen despite their, admittedly infrequent, attempts to bridge the gap. 

He loved Meg with every fiber of his being but he occasionally wondered if she felt the same. He’d thought that when she’d given him a copy of the key to her apartment it had meant she returned his feelings with the same intensity.  His arms slackened as he suddenly wondered if this job might have caused Meg’s feelings for him to lessen. He mentally shook himself because the job was more important than what was going on in their personal lives. They could deal with the more personal stuff when this was all over.

He rubbed his eyes as he pushed off the door frame with his shoulder. If he crawled into bed now he could maybe get a couple hours of sleep before he had to turn up at the office. He was really tempted to call in sick but, knew he couldn’t because of the job. 

“So, is radio silence going to be the norm now? Or is it standard for hitters to only contact their team if they’re in trouble?” He wasn’t trying to pick a fight he honestly wanted to know so he could avoid staying up all night worrying again.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg froze. Radio silence. Did he know that she had his com turned off? Did he figure it out? Did Aidan tell him? She tried to focus on her remaining bandages, but she couldn’t help herself; she glanced up to gauge Blake’s expression. He was upset, of course, but not the level she had predicted if he had found out about his com. 

“I fell asleep at the 21st before I had a chance to contact you, Blake, sorry. If you were that worried, though, why didn’t you contact me? Or the bar to see if I was there? Or George?” She threw the last of her bandages in the trash before looking back up to Blake, not missing how tired he looked. This fucking job had to end. And soon. “I have to hop in the shower before my shift starts.” 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I thought that maybe you were in danger or were with Atticus and calling you would result in something bad happening. I also  didn’t want to make   Maq and Danny worry about it if they didn’t know where you were or were unaware that anything might be wrong..” He cracked a faint smile. “And I was worried that if I woke George from his sleep he would kill me and then go out to find you if even he didn’t know where you were.”

Blake shrugged faintly. When he’d been worried Meg was dead or in trouble he’d given himself some pretty convincing arguments to not call anyone, though now that Meg was safe most seemed a tad dumb.

“My reasoning sounded better in my head ten minutes ago.”

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg smirked at the thought of Blake and George being face-to-face without her there playing referee. The thought included Blake running for cover while George tried to lob things at his head. 

“I’m sure the thought was very reasonable and not at all connected to the fact that you look like you didn’t get any sleep last night.” Meg mused as she pecked Blake on the cheek, hoping he couldn’t smell the vodka on her. Meg stripped down and got in the shower. She continued as the water sprayed over her exhausted and sore body. “Why don’t you sleep a little? Call in sick and work the job from here? Surely those numbers will get us enough info to send Mr. Mansfield behind bars for the rest of his life.” 

~

Bethany approached Pinnacle, Inc with a furrowed brow. Meg Prescott had been on her mind all morning, and it wasn’t the sexy flirty kind she preferred. Getting her call in the middle of the night was concerning enough, but after seeing her harrowed figure, bloodied knuckles especially, it was hard not to be worried about the woman’s safety. Her brows furrowed further when she noticed that there were guards all around the first floor. She recognized a few of them, so she decided to take a deep breath and act as naturally as she could. 

“What’s up, Müller?” she asked the guard she knew the best. Müller had probably been there the longest and was infamously known as the gossip amongst the guards that Bethany had gotten to know. 

“No idea. Big ol’ boss brought us all in here late last night.” 

“What for?” Bethany tried to act like she was only interested in it for gossip purposes, but she couldn’t help but think about how it had to do with Meg and this Officer Morrison. 

“Whatever it is, it’s big,” Müller shrugged. “He’s been up in his office ranting and raving about it all fucking night.”

“Really? What else do you know?” 

“Nothing. Not a fucking clue as to what all this is about. As soon as he realized we were within earshot, he ordered us to take a hike. Been down here for two fucking hours doing diddly shit.” Müller then curled up his lip in annoyance before adding. “You know, I wasn’t even supposed to work tonight? Prescott called me in, sounding all frazzled and demanded I work tonight and keep close to the big boss.” 

“She did?” Bethany thought for a moment and realized that Prescott was smarter than she gave her credit. Müller was a gossip, everyone knew that, but he also always had his phone on him, in case his husband needed him for something. One that someone could add a wiretap to. 

“Yeah. Said something about Smith having an allergy emergency and that I was next in rotation.” Müller shrugged. 

“That’s too bad…” Bethany nodded sympathetically, but her mind was working double time trying to keep up with Prescott’s planning. If she was going to help, she had to figure out Prescott’s angle and overall plan. “I should probably get to work.” 

~ 

Atticus Mansfield had had one hell of a night. After Morrison’s unfortunate falling out, the only thing he could think about was Prescott. She had kept a brave face, but something about Morrison had spooked her. He had known that Prescott’s father had been a cop, but nothing beyond that. Something wasn’t right with her, and after several hours of obsessing about it, he couldn’t take it anymore and he came into the office.

He didn’t like calling for aid, but this was something that required more information. Atticus was forced to call the two employees he trusted when it came to recon and clean up. In the hours that they had spent in his office, the only thing that they had collected on Prescott was a cop’s death, an engagement, and a company called Leverage, Inc. 

“So I pay you how much a year and we still don’t have any information on who the fuck this Leverage, Inc is?” he snarled to the skyping monitors. There wasn’t a time that the three of them had ever been in the same room for obvious reasons. Pinnacle, like any diamond worth anything, was built on blood and market manipulation. No need to incriminate himself if anything went south. 

“Whoever runs the company apparently pays more money than you do on their online security.” his hacker-for-hire replied, unaffected by Atticus’ waning patience. After years of looking through people’s digital dirty laundry for him, the hacker had gotten used to Atticus’ prickly demeanor. 

“Well, whatever the fuck Leverage, Inc is, it’s not Pinnacle. That means Prescott needs to be eliminated.” 

“Sir, whoever she is, she’s smart, talented, and clearly knows what she’s doing.” interjected the other monitor calmly. 

“Is there a point?” Atticus growled at the monitor. 

“She’s been putting teams together for you for almost two months now. Do you really think she came in without one herself?”

Atticus paused for a moment, digesting his words. 

“Sir, I just got something.” 

“Go on.” Atticus nodded. 

“Leverage is a ghost company, really. Not really import/export as much as a service company. It’s…” the hacker squinted at his screen and Atticus could hear more clicking from his keyboard, “It’s a company that literally takes down other companies. It goes in, finds incriminating evidence, and then disappears without a trace, usually leaving the heads of the companies with the feds. There are news articles all listing the companies they’ve taken down. Some sort of Good Samaritan bullshit.” 

“Do you want us to take her out?” the other monitor asked. 

“No, like you said, she’s most likely got a team with her.” Atticus shook his head. “No, for now, we act like nothing’s changed. But get me a site and we’ll take her there for questioning once you’re done.”

“The usual arrangements?” 

“Yeah, the usual.” Atticus paused. “Wait, how did you say the cop died?”

“Her father? Car drove off a bridge up in Boston.” the hacker answered.  

“Make sure the site has access to water, then.” 

“That’s kinda fucked up, you know?” the hacker admitted, but he shrunk under Atticus’ glare, “Then again, you don’t pay me to give a shit about that kind of thing, so I’ll shut up now.” 

Atticus turned off the monitors and took in the moment of silence after hours of mitigating the Prescott problem. There was so much work to be done. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I certainly hope they will,” Blake muttered doing his best to ignore how his heart fluttered in fear and the small voice in his head that whispered that his father would somehow get away.

No, they would put his father behind bars and they could put this whole thing behind them and things could get back to normal for Meg and him. He had to put all of his faith in this team and in the belief that they would succeed.

“You sure you can’t lie down for even a few minutes? I know you said you slept at the 21st but I have sat on that couch and that could not have been very restful.” 

[megprescott-hitter]

“No, Blake, I can’t.” Meg snapped before taking a mental step back. Why was she so angry? She opened the shower curtain and gave Blake an apologetic look. “Sorry, Blake… That was… I don’t even know what that was… But I gotta go in and review the schedules and training logs at Pinnacle. If I don’t go in it’ll look suspicious, and I think I have a lead to finally close this up.” 

Meg turned the water off and paused. She could still feel the heat of anger bubbling in her chest, but where was it coming from? 

“Would you mind brewing some coffee? I think I need to take some with me…” 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake prided himself on not being thrown by much in this line of work. But, when Meg snapped at him with nothing except anger and steel in her voice, he flinched. Sure, she’d been annyoed at him before but, he’d never been on the recieving end of the tone that was typically reserved for their marks up until now. Even when she apologized, he still couldn’t forget the brief moment of alarm he had felt. He wanted to ask her about what exactly it was his father had her doing. He wanted to ask if there was anything he could do on his end to help her. He wanted… well he wanted to do a lot of thing. However, he was pretty sure he still knew Meg well enough to know that any further prying would cause her to blow up at him again.

So, all he said was on single word as he pushed off of the door frame and d turned to leave. “Sure.”

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg sighed and leaned her forehead on the cool bathroom tile. The water spraying on her back matched the rhythm to the pounding in her head as her mind dozed to her mantra for the job. Just a little bit longer and then things will go back to normal... Just a little bit longer... Just a little bit... longer...

Meg then hurried around the apartment drying her hair, slapping concealer and foundation on her face, before trying to put together her bag of notes and information. Lastly, she made her way over to the kitchen and without a word to Blake grabbed her coffee. She was still feeling ashamed from snapping at him earlier, so she didn’t look at him. She made her way to the door before stopping herself. Leaving without saying anything wasn’t fair to Blake. 

“Blake, we’re gonna get him,” she told him before leaving the apartment to go back into the lion’s den. 

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake stared incredulously at the door Meg had just walked through. Had she really not noticed him standing in the kitchen or his things on the coffee table? Looking at her jacket flung haphazardly onto the couch, it certainly seemed that was the case. A small part of him reasoned that he should feel relieved that she was okay and she had come back, The rest of him was furious and outraged that she hadn’t seemed to spare him any mind. Didn’t she care that he had been up all night worrying that she might have been hurt or captured by his father? Had she even bothered to spare a thought that he might be panicking a little over not hearing from her for hours now? Or had she been so wrapped up in whatever his father had ordered her to do that she didn’t care to think about anything else?

Setting his mug down on the counter, Blake padded through the living room to the hall Meg had walked through moments before. He didn’t try to mask the sound of his approach, not that he even really knew how to move silently, as he moved towards the bathroom. 

Peering inside, he was momentarily taken aback when he caught sight of Meg’s hands but the sight of the injury only fueled his annoyance over her radio silence. Had she deemed it unnecessary to let him know she had been injured? Or maybe she had thought he couldn’t handle knowing what his father had ordered her to do?

“Need help?” He asked blandly, leaning aginast the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

[megprescott-hitter]

“Holy sh-” Meg lept out of her skin and her heart jumped up to her throat. She gripped the sink and tried to bring her heart rate back down. She glanced at Blake and noticed that his arms were crossed and he seemed upset about something. Probably over something she did. 

“Morning…” she muttered. 

He would have to get in line with everyone else. 

“I think I’m good, thanks though. I’m going to have to do a quick change before going back to Pinnacle.” she went back to her bandages and filled the small trash can with bloodied gauze. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake was momentarily buffeted by the rage and hurt coursing through him before they faded away and replaced by a feeling of utter exhaustion. He was tired of everything surrounding this damnable job and everything going on between him and Meg. More and more it felt like there was a chasm between them that continued to widen despite their, admittedly infrequent, attempts to bridge the gap. 

He loved Meg with every fiber of his being but he occasionally wondered if she felt the same. He’d thought that when she’d given him a copy of the key to her apartment it had meant she returned his feelings with the same intensity.  His arms slackened as he suddenly wondered if this job might have caused Meg’s feelings for him to lessen. He mentally shook himself because the job was more important than what was going on in their personal lives. They could deal with the more personal stuff when this was all over.

He rubbed his eyes as he pushed off the door frame with his shoulder. If he crawled into bed now he could maybe get a couple hours of sleep before he had to turn up at the office. He was really tempted to call in sick but, knew he couldn’t because of the job. 

“So, is radio silence going to be the norm now? Or is it standard for hitters to only contact their team if they’re in trouble?” He wasn’t trying to pick a fight he honestly wanted to know so he could avoid staying up all night worrying again.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg froze. Radio silence. Did he know that she had his com turned off? Did he figure it out? Did Aidan tell him? She tried to focus on her remaining bandages, but she couldn’t help herself; she glanced up to gauge Blake’s expression. He was upset, of course, but not the level she had predicted if he had found out about his com. 

“I fell asleep at the 21st before I had a chance to contact you, Blake, sorry. If you were that worried, though, why didn’t you contact me? Or the bar to see if I was there? Or George?” She threw the last of her bandages in the trash before looking back up to Blake, not missing how tired he looked. This fucking job had to end. And soon. “I have to hop in the shower before my shift starts.” 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I thought that maybe you were in danger or were with Atticus and calling you would result in something bad happening. I also  didn’t want to make   Maq and Danny worry about it if they didn’t know where you were or were unaware that anything might be wrong..” He cracked a faint smile. “And I was worried that if I woke George from his sleep he would kill me and then go out to find you if even he didn’t know where you were.”

Blake shrugged faintly. When he’d been worried Meg was dead or in trouble he’d given himself some pretty convincing arguments to not call anyone, though now that Meg was safe most seemed a tad dumb.

“My reasoning sounded better in my head ten minutes ago.”

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg smirked at the thought of Blake and George being face-to-face without her there playing referee. The thought included Blake running for cover while George tried to lob things at his head. 

“I’m sure the thought was very reasonable and not at all connected to the fact that you look like you didn’t get any sleep last night.” Meg mused as she pecked Blake on the cheek, hoping he couldn’t smell the vodka on her. Meg stripped down and got in the shower. She continued as the water sprayed over her exhausted and sore body. “Why don’t you sleep a little? Call in sick and work the job from here? Surely those numbers will get us enough info to send Mr. Mansfield behind bars for the rest of his life.” 

~

Bethany approached Pinnacle, Inc with a furrowed brow. Meg Prescott had been on her mind all morning, and it wasn’t the sexy flirty kind she preferred. Getting her call in the middle of the night was concerning enough, but after seeing her harrowed figure, bloodied knuckles especially, it was hard not to be worried about the woman’s safety. Her brows furrowed further when she noticed that there were guards all around the first floor. She recognized a few of them, so she decided to take a deep breath and act as naturally as she could. 

“What’s up, Müller?” she asked the guard she knew the best. Müller had probably been there the longest and was infamously known as the gossip amongst the guards that Bethany had gotten to know. 

“No idea. Big ol’ boss brought us all in here late last night.” 

“What for?” Bethany tried to act like she was only interested in it for gossip purposes, but she couldn’t help but think about how it had to do with Meg and this Officer Morrison. 

“Whatever it is, it’s big,” Müller shrugged. “He’s been up in his office ranting and raving about it all fucking night.”

“Really? What else do you know?” 

“Nothing. Not a fucking clue as to what all this is about. As soon as he realized we were within earshot, he ordered us to take a hike. Been down here for two fucking hours doing diddly shit.” Müller then curled up his lip in annoyance before adding. “You know, I wasn’t even supposed to work tonight? Prescott called me in, sounding all frazzled and demanded I work tonight and keep close to the big boss.” 

“She did?” Bethany thought for a moment and realized that Prescott was smarter than she gave her credit. Müller was a gossip, everyone knew that, but he also always had his phone on him, in case his husband needed him for something. One that someone could add a wiretap to. 

“Yeah. Said something about Smith having an allergy emergency and that I was next in rotation.” Müller shrugged. 

“That’s too bad…” Bethany nodded sympathetically, but her mind was working double time trying to keep up with Prescott’s planning. If she was going to help, she had to figure out Prescott’s angle and overall plan. “I should probably get to work.” 

~ 

Atticus Mansfield had had one hell of a night. After Morrison’s unfortunate falling out, the only thing he could think about was Prescott. She had kept a brave face, but something about Morrison had spooked her. He had known that Prescott’s father had been a cop, but nothing beyond that. Something wasn’t right with her, and after several hours of obsessing about it, he couldn’t take it anymore and he came into the office.

He didn’t like calling for aid, but this was something that required more information. Atticus was forced to call the two employees he trusted when it came to recon and clean up. In the hours that they had spent in his office, the only thing that they had collected on Prescott was a cop’s death, an engagement, and a company called Leverage, Inc. 

“So I pay you how much a year and we still don’t have any information on who the fuck this Leverage, Inc is?” he snarled to the skyping monitors. There wasn’t a time that the three of them had ever been in the same room for obvious reasons. Pinnacle, like any diamond worth anything, was built on blood and market manipulation. No need to incriminate himself if anything went south. 

“Whoever runs the company apparently pays more money than you do on their online security.” his hacker-for-hire replied, unaffected by Atticus’ waning patience. After years of looking through people’s digital dirty laundry for him, the hacker had gotten used to Atticus’ prickly demeanor. 

“Well, whatever the fuck Leverage, Inc is, it’s not Pinnacle. That means Prescott needs to be eliminated.” 

“Sir, whoever she is, she’s smart, talented, and clearly knows what she’s doing.” interjected the other monitor calmly. 

“Is there a point?” Atticus growled at the monitor. 

“She’s been putting teams together for you for almost two months now. Do you really think she came in without one herself?”

Atticus paused for a moment, digesting his words. 

“Sir, I just got something.” 

“Go on.” Atticus nodded. 

“Leverage is a ghost company, really. Not really import/export as much as a service company. It’s…” the hacker squinted at his screen and Atticus could hear more clicking from his keyboard, “It’s a company that literally takes down other companies. It goes in, finds incriminating evidence, and then disappears without a trace, usually leaving the heads of the companies with the feds. There are news articles all listing the companies they’ve taken down. Some sort of Good Samaritan bullshit.” 

“Do you want us to take her out?” the other monitor asked. 

“No, like you said, she’s most likely got a team with her.” Atticus shook his head. “No, for now, we act like nothing’s changed. But get me a site and we’ll take her there for questioning once you’re done.”

“The usual arrangements?” 

“Yeah, the usual.” Atticus paused. “Wait, how did you say the cop died?”

“Her father? Car drove off a bridge up in Boston.” the hacker answered.  

“Make sure the site has access to water, then.” 

“That’s kinda fucked up, you know?” the hacker admitted, but he shrunk under Atticus’ glare, “Then again, you don’t pay me to give a shit about that kind of thing, so I’ll shut up now.” 

Atticus turned off the monitors and took in the moment of silence after hours of mitigating the Prescott problem. There was so much work to be done. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I certainly hope they will,” Blake muttered doing his best to ignore how his heart fluttered in fear and the small voice in his head that whispered that his father would somehow get away.

No, they would put his father behind bars and they could put this whole thing behind them and things could get back to normal for Meg and him. He had to put all of his faith in this team and in the belief that they would succeed.

“You sure you can’t lie down for even a few minutes? I know you said you slept at the 21st but I have sat on that couch and that could not have been very restful.” 

[megprescott-hitter]

"No, Blake, I can’t.” Meg snapped before taking a mental step back. Why was she so angry? She opened the shower curtain and gave Blake an apologetic look. “Sorry, Blake... That was... I don’t even know what that was... But I gotta go in and review the schedules and training logs at Pinnacle. If I don’t go in it’ll look suspicious, and I think I have a lead to finally close this up.” 

Meg turned the water off and paused. She could still feel the heat of anger bubbling in her chest, but where was it coming from? 

“Would you mind brewing some coffee? I think I need to take some with me...” 

[beyondthespace]

[pedroam-bang]

Evan Rachel Wood (1987)

[say-hello-to-fashion-realness]

Evan Rachel Wood  - Altuzarra.

[say-hello-to-fashion-realness]

Evan Rachel Wood - Moschino.

[smallscreengifs]

[theblogcold]

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake stared incredulously at the door Meg had just walked through. Had she really not noticed him standing in the kitchen or his things on the coffee table? Looking at her jacket flung haphazardly onto the couch, it certainly seemed that was the case. A small part of him reasoned that he should feel relieved that she was okay and she had come back, The rest of him was furious and outraged that she hadn’t seemed to spare him any mind. Didn’t she care that he had been up all night worrying that she might have been hurt or captured by his father? Had she even bothered to spare a thought that he might be panicking a little over not hearing from her for hours now? Or had she been so wrapped up in whatever his father had ordered her to do that she didn’t care to think about anything else?

Setting his mug down on the counter, Blake padded through the living room to the hall Meg had walked through moments before. He didn’t try to mask the sound of his approach, not that he even really knew how to move silently, as he moved towards the bathroom. 

Peering inside, he was momentarily taken aback when he caught sight of Meg’s hands but the sight of the injury only fueled his annoyance over her radio silence. Had she deemed it unnecessary to let him know she had been injured? Or maybe she had thought he couldn’t handle knowing what his father had ordered her to do?

“Need help?” He asked blandly, leaning aginast the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

[megprescott-hitter]

“Holy sh-” Meg lept out of her skin and her heart jumped up to her throat. She gripped the sink and tried to bring her heart rate back down. She glanced at Blake and noticed that his arms were crossed and he seemed upset about something. Probably over something she did. 

“Morning…” she muttered. 

He would have to get in line with everyone else. 

“I think I’m good, thanks though. I’m going to have to do a quick change before going back to Pinnacle.” she went back to her bandages and filled the small trash can with bloodied gauze. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake was momentarily buffeted by the rage and hurt coursing through him before they faded away and replaced by a feeling of utter exhaustion. He was tired of everything surrounding this damnable job and everything going on between him and Meg. More and more it felt like there was a chasm between them that continued to widen despite their, admittedly infrequent, attempts to bridge the gap. 

He loved Meg with every fiber of his being but he occasionally wondered if she felt the same. He’d thought that when she’d given him a copy of the key to her apartment it had meant she returned his feelings with the same intensity.  His arms slackened as he suddenly wondered if this job might have caused Meg’s feelings for him to lessen. He mentally shook himself because the job was more important than what was going on in their personal lives. They could deal with the more personal stuff when this was all over.

He rubbed his eyes as he pushed off the door frame with his shoulder. If he crawled into bed now he could maybe get a couple hours of sleep before he had to turn up at the office. He was really tempted to call in sick but, knew he couldn’t because of the job. 

“So, is radio silence going to be the norm now? Or is it standard for hitters to only contact their team if they’re in trouble?” He wasn’t trying to pick a fight he honestly wanted to know so he could avoid staying up all night worrying again.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg froze. Radio silence. Did he know that she had his com turned off? Did he figure it out? Did Aidan tell him? She tried to focus on her remaining bandages, but she couldn’t help herself; she glanced up to gauge Blake’s expression. He was upset, of course, but not the level she had predicted if he had found out about his com. 

“I fell asleep at the 21st before I had a chance to contact you, Blake, sorry. If you were that worried, though, why didn’t you contact me? Or the bar to see if I was there? Or George?” She threw the last of her bandages in the trash before looking back up to Blake, not missing how tired he looked. This fucking job had to end. And soon. “I have to hop in the shower before my shift starts.” 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

“I thought that maybe you were in danger or were with Atticus and calling you would result in something bad happening. I also  didn’t want to make   Maq and Danny worry about it if they didn’t know where you were or were unaware that anything might be wrong..” He cracked a faint smile. “And I was worried that if I woke George from his sleep he would kill me and then go out to find you if even he didn’t know where you were.”

Blake shrugged faintly. When he’d been worried Meg was dead or in trouble he’d given himself some pretty convincing arguments to not call anyone, though now that Meg was safe most seemed a tad dumb.

“My reasoning sounded better in my head ten minutes ago.”

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg smirked at the thought of Blake and George being face-to-face without her there playing referee. The thought included Blake running for cover while George tried to lob things at his head. 

“I’m sure the thought was very reasonable and not at all connected to the fact that you look like you didn’t get any sleep last night.” Meg mused as she pecked Blake on the cheek, hoping he couldn’t smell the vodka on her. Meg stripped down and got in the shower. She continued as the water sprayed over her exhausted and sore body. “Why don’t you sleep a little? Call in sick and work the job from here? Surely those numbers will get us enough info to send Mr. Mansfield behind bars for the rest of his life.” 

~

Bethany approached Pinnacle, Inc with a furrowed brow. Meg Prescott had been on her mind all morning, and it wasn’t the sexy flirty kind she preferred. Getting her call in the middle of the night was concerning enough, but after seeing her harrowed figure, bloodied knuckles especially, it was hard not to be worried about the woman’s safety. Her brows furrowed further when she noticed that there were guards all around the first floor. She recognized a few of them, so she decided to take a deep breath and act as naturally as she could. 

“What’s up, Müller?” she asked the guard she knew the best. Müller had probably been there the longest and was infamously known as the gossip amongst the guards that Bethany had gotten to know. 

“No idea. Big ol’ boss brought us all in here late last night.” 

“What for?” Bethany tried to act like she was only interested in it for gossip purposes, but she couldn’t help but think about how it had to do with Meg and this Officer Morrison. 

“Whatever it is, it’s big,” Müller shrugged. “He’s been up in his office ranting and raving about it all fucking night.”

“Really? What else do you know?” 

“Nothing. Not a fucking clue as to what all this is about. As soon as he realized we were within earshot, he ordered us to take a hike. Been down here for two fucking hours doing diddly shit.” Müller then curled up his lip in annoyance before adding. “You know, I wasn’t even supposed to work tonight? Prescott called me in, sounding all frazzled and demanded I work tonight and keep close to the big boss.” 

“She did?” Bethany thought for a moment and realized that Prescott was smarter than she gave her credit. Müller was a gossip, everyone knew that, but he also always had his phone on him, in case his husband needed him for something. One that someone could add a wiretap to. 

“Yeah. Said something about Smith having an allergy emergency and that I was next in rotation.” Müller shrugged. 

“That’s too bad...” Bethany nodded sympathetically, but her mind was working double time trying to keep up with Prescott’s planning. If she was going to help, she had to figure out Prescott’s angle and overall plan. “I should probably get to work.” 

~ 

Atticus Mansfield had had one hell of a night. After Morrison’s unfortunate falling out, the only thing he could think about was Prescott. She had kept a brave face, but something about Morrison had spooked her. He had known that Prescott’s father had been a cop, but nothing beyond that. Something wasn’t right with her, and after several hours of obsessing about it, he couldn’t take it anymore and he came into the office.

He didn’t like calling for aid, but this was something that required more information. Atticus was forced to call the two employees he trusted when it came to recon and clean up. In the hours that they had spent in his office, the only thing that they had collected on Prescott was a cop’s death, an engagement, and a company called Leverage, Inc. 

“So I pay you how much a year and we still don’t have any information on who the fuck this Leverage, Inc is?” he snarled to the skyping monitors. There wasn’t a time that the three of them had ever been in the same room for obvious reasons. Pinnacle, like any diamond worth anything, was built on blood and market manipulation. No need to incriminate himself if anything went south. 

“Whoever runs the company apparently pays more money than you do on their online security.” his hacker-for-hire replied, unaffected by Atticus’ waning patience. After years of looking through people’s digital dirty laundry for him, the hacker had gotten used to Atticus’ prickly demeanor. 

“Well, whatever the fuck Leverage, Inc is, it’s not Pinnacle. That means Prescott needs to be eliminated.” 

“Sir, whoever she is, she’s smart, talented, and clearly knows what she’s doing.” interjected the other monitor calmly. 

“Is there a point?” Atticus growled at the monitor. 

“She’s been putting teams together for you for almost two months now. Do you really think she came in without one herself?”

Atticus paused for a moment, digesting his words. 

“Sir, I just got something.” 

“Go on.” Atticus nodded. 

“Leverage is a ghost company, really. Not really import/export as much as a service company. It’s...” the hacker squinted at his screen and Atticus could hear more clicking from his keyboard, “It’s a company that literally takes down other companies. It goes in, finds incriminating evidence, and then disappears without a trace, usually leaving the heads of the companies with the feds. There are news articles all listing the companies they’ve taken down. Some sort of Good Samaritan bullshit.” 

“Do you want us to take her out?” the other monitor asked. 

“No, like you said, she’s most likely got a team with her.” Atticus shook his head. “No, for now, we act like nothing’s changed. But get me a site and we’ll take her there for questioning once you’re done.”

“The usual arrangements?” 

“Yeah, the usual.” Atticus paused. “Wait, how did you say the cop died?”

“Her father? Car drove off a bridge up in Boston.” the hacker answered.  

“Make sure the site has access to water, then.” 

“That’s kinda fucked up, you know?” the hacker admitted, but he shrunk under Atticus’ glare, “Then again, you don’t pay me to give a shit about that kind of thing, so I’ll shut up now.” 

Atticus turned off the monitors and took in the moment of silence after hours of mitigating the Prescott problem. There was so much work to be done. 

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake stared incredulously at the door Meg had just walked through. Had she really not noticed him standing in the kitchen or his things on the coffee table? Looking at her jacket flung haphazardly onto the couch, it certainly seemed that was the case. A small part of him reasoned that he should feel relieved that she was okay and she had come back, The rest of him was furious and outraged that she hadn’t seemed to spare him any mind. Didn’t she care that he had been up all night worrying that she might have been hurt or captured by his father? Had she even bothered to spare a thought that he might be panicking a little over not hearing from her for hours now? Or had she been so wrapped up in whatever his father had ordered her to do that she didn’t care to think about anything else?

Setting his mug down on the counter, Blake padded through the living room to the hall Meg had walked through moments before. He didn’t try to mask the sound of his approach, not that he even really knew how to move silently, as he moved towards the bathroom. 

Peering inside, he was momentarily taken aback when he caught sight of Meg’s hands but the sight of the injury only fueled his annoyance over her radio silence. Had she deemed it unnecessary to let him know she had been injured? Or maybe she had thought he couldn’t handle knowing what his father had ordered her to do?

“Need help?” He asked blandly, leaning aginast the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

[megprescott-hitter]

“Holy sh-” Meg lept out of her skin and her heart jumped up to her throat. She gripped the sink and tried to bring her heart rate back down. She glanced at Blake and noticed that his arms were crossed and he seemed upset about something. Probably over something she did. 

“Morning…” she muttered. 

He would have to get in line with everyone else. 

“I think I’m good, thanks though. I’m going to have to do a quick change before going back to Pinnacle.” she went back to her bandages and filled the small trash can with bloodied gauze. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake was momentarily buffeted by the rage and hurt coursing through him before they faded away and replaced by a feeling of utter exhaustion. He was tired of everything surrounding this damnable job and everything going on between him and Meg. More and more it felt like there was a chasm between them that continued to widen despite their, admittedly infrequent, attempts to bridge the gap. 

He loved Meg with every fiber of his being but he occasionally wondered if she felt the same. He’d thought that when she’d given him a copy of the key to her apartment it had meant she returned his feelings with the same intensity.  His arms slackened as he suddenly wondered if this job might have caused Meg’s feelings for him to lessen. He mentally shook himself because the job was more important than what was going on in their personal lives. They could deal with the more personal stuff when this was all over.

He rubbed his eyes as he pushed off the door frame with his shoulder. If he crawled into bed now he could maybe get a couple hours of sleep before he had to turn up at the office. He was really tempted to call in sick but, knew he couldn’t because of the job. 

“So, is radio silence going to be the norm now? Or is it standard for hitters to only contact their team if they’re in trouble?” He wasn’t trying to pick a fight he honestly wanted to know so he could avoid staying up all night worrying again.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg froze. Radio silence. Did he know that she had his com turned off? Did he figure it out? Did Aidan tell him? She tried to focus on her remaining bandages, but she couldn’t help herself; she glanced up to gauge Blake’s expression. He was upset, of course, but not the level she had predicted if he had found out about his com. 

“I fell asleep at the 21st before I had a chance to contact you, Blake, sorry. If you were that worried, though, why didn’t you contact me? Or the bar to see if I was there? Or George?” She threw the last of her bandages in the trash before looking back up to Blake, not missing how tired he looked. This fucking job had to end. And soon. “I have to hop in the shower before my shift starts.” 

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake stared incredulously at the door Meg had just walked through. Had she really not noticed him standing in the kitchen or his things on the coffee table? Looking at her jacket flung haphazardly onto the couch, it certainly seemed that was the case. A small part of him reasoned that he should feel relieved that she was okay and she had come back, The rest of him was furious and outraged that she hadn’t seemed to spare him any mind. Didn’t she care that he had been up all night worrying that she might have been hurt or captured by his father? Had she even bothered to spare a thought that he might be panicking a little over not hearing from her for hours now? Or had she been so wrapped up in whatever his father had ordered her to do that she didn’t care to think about anything else?

Setting his mug down on the counter, Blake padded through the living room to the hall Meg had walked through moments before. He didn’t try to mask the sound of his approach, not that he even really knew how to move silently, as he moved towards the bathroom. 

Peering inside, he was momentarily taken aback when he caught sight of Meg’s hands but the sight of the injury only fueled his annoyance over her radio silence. Had she deemed it unnecessary to let him know she had been injured? Or maybe she had thought he couldn’t handle knowing what his father had ordered her to do?

“Need help?” He asked blandly, leaning aginast the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

[megprescott-hitter]

“Holy sh-” Meg lept out of her skin and her heart jumped up to her throat. She gripped the sink and tried to bring her heart rate back down. She glanced at Blake and noticed that his arms were crossed and he seemed upset about something. Probably over something she did. 

“Morning...” she muttered. 

He would have to get in line with everyone else. 

“I think I’m good, thanks though. I’m going to have to do a quick change before going back to Pinnacle.” she went back to her bandages and filled the small trash can with bloodied gauze. 

[lousolversons]

tv meme  → 2/10 protagonists  → dolores abernathy, westworld (hbo) “I imagined a story where I didn’t have to be the damsel.”

[dezaia]

Rachel Evans Wood x9

Coloring by Balaclava

[megprescott-hitter]

The Big One™

The dizzy pounding inside her skull brought Meg out of her blackened stupor. She didn’t remember much after coming to the 21st, but Danny, in true friend form, was sitting across from her, overflowing out of Meg’s office chair with her pregnant belly. She was holding a water bottle and her pill bottle. 

“What the actual fuck happened last night?” Meg groaned before seeing the dried blood crusted over her hands. “Shit, I didn’t hit Aidan, did I?!” 

“No, he left with all his teeth,” Danny assured her before handing her the water bottle and her pain meds. Silence fell as Meg sat up and took her meds while the memories of the night crept back into her brain. 

“Danny, I don’t think I can close this job,” Meg admitted quietly. 

“Hm.” Danny mused, “That sucks.” 

“Not helping Danny,” Meg muttered as she held her pounding head in her hands. 

“Well, I tried helping, and you just ignored me.” Danny shot back angrily. Meg didn’t have a retort, so Danny continued. “You have three other people on your team and you actively decided to push all of them away.” 

“Okay, well, I can’t exactly go to Blake because he’s already overwhelmed with the fact that it’s his parents and Aidan-” Meg started to argue, but Danny cut her off. 

“No! You just didn’t want to be out of control! Not going to Blake, I can sympathize, but you could have easily gone to George or Aidan. You were assigned the job and you didn’t want to hand over the reins to someone else. Especially someone Blake brought in.”

“That’s not…” Meg trailed off, but her hungover brain couldn’t work for a comeback. 

“Oh, tell yourself whatever you want, Meg, but you’ve been fucking up this job because you wanted to make sure Blake knew you could take care of it. Being the considerate girlfriend has blinded you to all the other resources you have at your disposal.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you ever agree with George, Danny…” Meg murmured barely above a whisper. 

“That’s how much you fucked up, Meg. I’m agreeing with George, of all fucking people.” 

“So if I fucked up so much, how do I un-fuck it up?” 

“Oh, so now you want my advice?” 

“Well, I’m listening, aren’t I?” Meg snapped. The friends looked at each other for a moment before Danny sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. If you can’t close the job, find someone who can. Don’t you have an FBI contact also looking into Mansfield?”

“Yeah, but I trust her as far as I can throw her.” 

“As opposed to your other options?” Danny spat back. “You clearly don’t trust anyone, which is why you’re hungover on your office couch at 4am.”

Meg looked at Danny, blinked, then snatched her phone to confirm that it was, indeed, 4am. 

“Why the hell are you here if it’s 4am?!” she practically shouted at Danny. 

“Couldn’t sleep because of this awful parasite,” Danny told her, rubbing her enlarged stomach, and Meg almost believed her. She felt a pang of guilt as she thought about how much this job was slowly suffocating everyone around her. 

“Everyone’s getting vacation time after this job is over,” Meg told her as she stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Danny demanded. 

“To see how far I can throw this FBI agent….” 

~

“What the fuck happened to you? You look awful.” Bethany told Meg as she walked up to the agent. It took less than an hour to get together a half-assed file on the cop and to set up a meetup with Bethany at an abandoned coffee shop. 

“Look into John Morrison. Cop who’ll be reported missing soon. He’s dirty and has been turning a blind eye on embezzling charges for Mr. Mansfield.” Meg told Bethany, ignoring her accurate observations. She dropped the file off on the table and turned to leave. Bethany stood up and grabbed Meg’s hand, causing her to flinch in pain. 

“Hold up. Are you safe?” she demanded while Meg tried to take her hand back. 

“If you find my body, I can confirm it was not suicide,” Meg replied. 

Meg was only partially kidding. 

[blakeraymond-grifter]

Blake did his best to focus on the numbers and figures on the page before him instead of checking his phone for what was likely the hundredth time that night. He let out a sigh of frustration a moment later when he realized he kept reading the same line over and over again. Giving in to his urge, Blake picks his phone up and thumbs it on, checking for any new messages. Just like all the other times, he had checked his phone there weren’t any.

Fear clawed its way through his stomach like a burrowing beast. Had something happened to Meg? Usually, she was home by now or would have at least contacted him somehow to let him know she was alright but would be late. Had his father done something to her? Or had Atticus called her in for a last minute job? Blake wanted to call her or try to contact her over the comms but, what if his father had confiscated her phone as a security measure? If he called or texted her and his father saw it how long would it be before his father’s goons showed up here to use him as leverage against Meg? Even the most loyal goon had to know having anyone in their lives they were close to would give Atticus leverage over them. Even a coded message might be too risky to send.

‘And comms can easily be intercepted,’ Blake thought rubbing his fingers over the “souvenirs” Taylor had left him.

Either way, any attempts he made to reach out to her could very well put Meg and this whole job in danger. So, he would wait, worry and keep himself busy. Shoving his phone into his pocket, Blake rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

[megprescott-hitter]

Meg shuffled down her apartment hallway repeating her mental checklist:

1. Take a shower 2. Put clean bandages on 3. Make coffee 4. Do a full face of makeup to hide dark circles 5. Go to work

If she could do those four things without passing out on her bed, she would be able to make it through the day. She opened her door and immediately dropped her bag on the floor and threw her jacket on the couch before making her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink and began to carefully unwrap her soiled bandages. Meg mentally kicked herself because the crimson bandages should have been changed hours ago, so now her hands were starting to become infected. The gooey pus and blood were making the removal of the bandages painful.