Already there should have been a bullet in her.
He hesitated out of politeness, though the rapid decline of his temper was starting to overrule a simple kindness. They don’t RECRUIT people, Deadlocks showed no mercy in the beatings he received before measuring his worth by his aim. And then without explanation, the first outsider he had seen in four months. It didn’t sit well with him, Rucks surely would have said something about someone, and Nico had mentioned some outside communication; which all the more made her arrival more suspicious and less likely.
Jesse didn’t let up his gun, eyes focused and gun trained square on her middle as she stepped forward, leaning back to retrieve his glass from the bar.
“Miss, I don’t mean to be crass but that ain’t how things work here. You ain’t nobody here, much less my boss. So I don’t where the hell you came from thinkin’ you belong, but you don’t. Consider this a kindness you’re still breathin’, not just by my hand but by Mancer’s.” Which was more of the truth than he should have permitted. There were rules to be followed, and speaking with an outsider was enough of a broken one he wouldn’t receive mercy from. But Jesse didn’t want to kill her. It would have been a cruelty he hadn’t been ready to stomach.
“If you’re lost you better talk to Nico, otherwise, leave. It ain’t safe around here an’ frankly, you won’t last the longer you stick around.” His eyes spoke a warning, black and purple bruises that where painted in watercolours across the sides of his face; hoping she would take the hint and cut her losses trying to play agent. The Gorge was just so, swallowing all that stumbled in it. There wasn’t anything that left living.
Another rule he was lucky not to be made the example of.
Go, he wished silently. Don’t stay here.
