The Nine Trials

by InspectorSharpWit

Chapter the Twelfth

Chapter the Twelfth, or “In Which We Get Stuck In The Middle”

WARNING: I tried to write these next few chapters so that it would be as close to a Tarantino flick as I could manage. If you don’t already know, Quinton Tarantino is known for not telling his stories chronologically, so it might get a little confusing…

“So there I was, sitting in my office chair, waiting for these two bozos to call, when the phone rings and I pick up. I say to them, ‘What the hell took you two so long?’ and Silver answers ‘Hey Joe, don’t get mad, but we accidently killed the snitch!’ I ask him ‘What the fuck happened,’ and this moron replies ‘The gun slipped and shot him in the face!’”

Joe begins to chortle as he tells the story, and the rest of the table leans in closer to hear him. “So anyways, I says ‘Alright Silver, don’t lie: How many inches deep were you in this chick I sent you with?’ “And you know what this clown replies?” Joe asks, barely able to hold in his laughter. “He says ‘Ten inches!!!’”

The whole table howls with laughter as Twilight and I blush in embarrassment. “Did we really have to go with that story?” She asks me viciously under her breath.

“It’s the only excuse I could think of on the spur of the moment,” I hiss back. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who shot Marvin!”

Before Twi can respond, I feel someone clap me on the back. “Man, I’ve had some crazy nights, but I’ve never killed anyone before!” The girl in the rainbow wig grins.

“Same here, though Ah once broke a guy’s arm!” declared the woman in a blonde wig.

"Goodness, what happened?!” The lady in the violet wig asked.

“Let’s just say this guy got a little too close to an area he wasn’t invited to,” the blonde smirks, lowering the brim of her Stetson below her eyes.

“Oh, how uncouth!” The violet-haired lady shudders. “I could never tolerate a man doing… THAT to me!”

“Ooh, I don’t mind what a guy does to me!” a girl in a fluffy neon pink wig butts in, giggling manically. “I mean, this one time, there was these three guys I knew, and I got them all together at a library and they tied me up and-“

“Alright, enough about your sexual experiences,” Joe laughs as he gets up. “I’ll pay for the meal, you guys pay the tip.” He walks off to the bathroom, leaving us at the table.

“Alrighty, ladies and gent, put ‘em up,” the blonde commands, and we all take out two or three bucks to leave for the tip; that is, except for the girl in the rainbow wig, who just sat there and put her hands behind her head. “Well?” The blonde asked expectantly.

The rainbow-haired girl looks over to the woman in the blonde wig. “Well what?” she asks a little too casually.

Blonde-wig is not amused. “We both know you didn’t put anythin’ in the tip pile, so hurry up and put in a buck."

“Oh, I don’t believe in tips,” the girl says airily, moving a lock of her fake rainbow hair out of her eye. “I only tip when I really think I’ve gotten really good service.”

“Come now, Miss Rainbow, that poor waitress came her at least once every three minutes!” the lady in the purple wig says reprovingly. “You can’t say that it wasn’t good service!”

“I didn’t say that it wasn’t GOOD service, I’m just saying it wasn’t REALLY good!” Miss Rainbow explains. “I mean, when I go to a diner, I want my mug filled at least seven or eight times once I’m there. I counted, and this chick only came by and filled my cup four times!”

“What do you want her to do fer a tip, take you to the back alley and eat ya out?!” The woman in the blonde wig laughs.

“I think you should add something to the tip, Miss Rainbow,” the girl in the light pink wig says quietly, speaking out loud for the first time. “I mean, she works very hard and barely gets paid…”

Miss Rainbow rolls her eyes and begins to rub her fingers together. “You see what this is, Miss Shy? This is the world’s smallest violin playing the world’s saddest song, just for those waitresses,” she smirks, rubbing her fingers in front of Miss Shy’s face. “There are plenty of jobs that get worse pay than this, and they don’t get tips! Garbage men don’t get tips! Janitors don’t get tips! Hell, even the guys at McDonald’s don’t get tips! Why should waitresses get tips?”

“Just put in a fuckin’ tip, Miss Rainbow,” the blonde sighs.

“Fuck you, Miss Applejack!” Miss Rainbow huffs, flipping the blonde off. “I already told you why I’m not gonna tip!”

“You know what, she’s convinced me!” The girl in the puffy pink hair grins as she reaches her hand across the table. “Gimme back my two bucks!”

“Ain’t nobody gettin’ their money back from the tips!” Miss Applejack growls. “Miss Pinkie, sit back down, and Miss Rainbow, put in a fuckin’ tip!”

“Whoa whoa whoa, what’s goin’ on over here?” Joe asks as he comes back from the facilities. “I could hear you guys all the way from the john!”

“Miss Rainbow won’t put in a tip fer the waitresses,” Miss Applejack huffs.

Joe looks at the girl incredulously. “What the hell do she mean you won’t tip?!” he asks, almost as if he had just been told that up was down.

Miss Rainbow, who had been very cool and confident up to this point, suddenly began to show some signs of nervousness. “What I’m saying is that I don’t think the waitress deserved a tip!” she explains defensively.

“I don’t give a damn what you think!” Joe snorts in derision. “I paid the tab, now you pay the tip!”

Miss Rainbow puts up her hands in defeat. “Alright, fine, just because YOU’RE the one paying the tab.” With the air of noble defeat, she pulls out her wallet and lets a single dollar bill drop onto the table.

“Can I still get my tip back?” Miss Pinkie asks innocently.

“No one’s getting their tip back,” Joe says sternly. “Now come one, you morons, let’s get to work.

Twi and I take this opportunity to stand up from our tables to join the group, Miss Shy trailing close behind us. “These ladies are really intense, aren’t they?” Miss Twilight whispers in my ear.

“Joe picked the best of the best,” I assure her as we walk out of the diner. “Besides, all we have to do is work with ‘em, not be best friends.”
As we walk out of the shadow of the diner, I take a moment to appreciate the strangeness of our situation: Here we are, some punks walking out of a diner, getting ready to rob a jewelry store, and we’re walking out in the open like it was nothing. The girls and I were all wearing matching suits and some ridiculous wigs, looking like something out of a comic book. I have a feeling that I know how this is going to end…

-------

I moan as I clutch my stomach while Twilight drives like a maniac down the highway. I look down gingerly to see that my worst fears have been confirmed: That pain in my gut, the pain that reaches every fiber of my being, is a bullet wound. Dark red blood soaks through my suit and dress shirt, staining my hands a filthy brownish color as I try desperately try to hold it in. “I’M GONNA DIE, TWI!” I wail. “I’M GONNA DIE!!”

“NO YOU AREN’T, NO YOU AREN’T, NO YOU AREN’T!!” Twi snarls, grabbing my free hand and squeezing tightly. “YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE IT, GODDAMN IT, YOU’RE GOING TO BE OK, SILVER!”

“I’m gonna die…” I moan pathetically, resting my head on the car’s backseat.

Twilight looks at me with a steely glare in her eye and squeezes my hand even tighter. “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DIE!” she declares, just barely swerving out of the way of a fire hydrant. “YOU’RE GOING TO BE OK! SAY IT WITH ME, WILL YOU?! YOU’RE GONNA BE O-KAAAY, YOU’RE GONNA BE O-KAAAY, YOU’RE GONNA BE O-KAAY!” She keeps with this insane chant throughout the drive, squeezing my hand tighter and tighter as she dodges the obstacles in the road.

Finally, we arrive at our destination: the same weather-beaten warehouse from earlier. Twi parks in the lot, gets out of the car, and manages to pick me up and carry me all the way inside. “C’mon, Silver, you’re gonna be ok,” she mutters, more to herself than to me. She sets me down gently on the floor and gets up, revealing that my blood had also stained her suit. “Now tell me, are you ok Silver?” She asks a little more gently.

I swallow the pain and put on a weary smile. “I’m ok, Twi,” I manage to gasp.

She smiles in relief and strokes down my face. “You’re gonna be ok, Silver,” she assures me for the umpteenth time.

Something about the way she kept assuring me didn’t sound right. “Twi?” I ask slowly, held back slightly by the pain. “Why didn’t you drop me off at a hospital?”

The smile on her face dropped suddenly. “You know I can’t do that, Silver,” she said softly.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” I plead, my agony dripping off every syllable. “I don’t know your name or even how you look, Twi! All you have to do is drop me off…”

I can see in her eyes that she wants to believe me, but something holds her back. “Look, Silver, time is on your side. It takes at least a week to die of a stomach wound. By the time we figure out what’s going on, we’ll be able to take you to get treated. Maybe Joe can send a doctor or something…”

As she says this, I get a sudden burst of memory of the events that had occurred: As we had robbed the jewelry store, I had my men patrol the street so that when we struck, they’d be ready. They did their job a little too well; I had been shot in the crossfire between the crooks and the cops. Next thing I knew, Twi had whisked me off to the safe house. I just hope they didn’t figure out that I was the snitch yet, I think nervously to myself.

The door slams open, revealing an absolutely livid Miss Rainbow. “We’ve been set up!” She raved, her rainbow wig bobbing dangerously loose from her head. “We need to get out of here now!”

“Are you kidding me?!” Twi said incredulously. “We can’t move, we’ve got to wait till Joe straightens this out!”

“Look, for all we know, JOE was the one who set us up!” Rainbow said hysterically. “It could be anyone of us! It could be you, it could be me, it could be that Mr. Silver guy, who I never liked anyways-“

Twilight’s face hardened. “Mr. Silver’s been shot,” she said coolly.

Rainbow, apparently looking down for the first time, nearly jumped out her skin when she saw me laid out on the floor. “OH SHIT!” she yelled loudly. “What are you doing carrying around dead weight?!”

“Not dead yet,” I groan, feeling a trickle of blood drip from my lips.

Miss Rainbow ignores me completely as she turns to Twi. “We’ve gotta get rid of him!” She demands. “He can’t do anything right now!”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?!” Twilight asks desperately. “I’m not going to leave him here to suffer!”

Miss Rainbow sighs and looks at me the same way someone would look at a half-roadkilled dog. “Well, I guess we wait here for Joe to show up…”

Suddenly, a loud thump rings through the air, causing both Twilight and Miss Rainbow to pull out their weapons. The door opens to reveal a strangely calm Miss Pinkie, who was nonchalantly sipping on some soda. Her wig, once puffy and curly, now seems to have been deflated to straight locks. “Everything ok?” She asks in a chillingly calm voice.

Comments

[Sirjadan13]

...okay

I don't know what that was...BUT IT WAS AWSOME!!

[InspectorSharpWit]

3105286>>3105808 If you haven't figured out by now, I'm trying to mix two Tarantino movies into one; Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. They actually mixed a little easier than I thought they would!

[SpikeDark]

This is the greatest idea for a trial discord has set up

[InspectorSharpWit]

3129674 I realize this is kind of a big plot hole, but I plan to have Discord explain this all in due time

[Happy_McDull]

I didn't really like the 2 chapters that have the weird cop stuff. Hate me if you want, but I'm not into cop stuff. I'm more of a CSI person.

[InspectorSharpWit]

3152332 They're more of criminal stuff, but I suppose it's understandable...