Silence.
The only sound Babs could hear was the beating of her heart. Her throat was burning – she felt like she’d thrown up her whole stomach. She was barely aware of Nightcap’s presence. The unicorn was sitting next to her bed, holding her hoof.
She remembered the doctors. They had examined her, cleaned her and put her in the bed, but she felt like it happened to someone else – she was just standing next to them, watching them work and letting them do anything to her. She didn’t even say anything when they asked her about her parents. From what she knew, they were still looking for them – Lightning Dust only told Nightcap what happened.
Babs slowly opened one eye and looked at the complicated pattern formed by the cracks on the ceiling. Her whole body was numb – she wasn’t sure if it was an effect of some medication she’d been given or her brain just gave up, unable to cope with pain, but she didn’t care about that. There were many places where she wanted to be and the hospital bed wasn’t one of them.
She started to think about Manehattan. She could almost see the streets on the ceiling. A hospital. The nearest subway station. The number of the train. The station where she had to change the train. Nightcap’s place. She slowly turned her head and saw Nightcap next to her; her saddlebags were lying, forgotten, in the corner of the room.
The old closet next to Nightcap’s bed. Babs could imagine every stain and scratch on it. She remembered the dresses that were inside. They weren’t important at the moment. Babs’ mind started to work faster; she didn’t feel pain anymore, too absorbed by her thoughts.
The street. Five blocks, left turn. A labyrinth of narrow streets. The restaurant where Raz worked. Raz’s locker. Rusty piece of junk, with a lock that, last time she checked, she could open in two minutes with nothing but a hairpin. She thought about the hairpins – if she recalled correctly, Nightcap had lots of them, scattered on the shelf below the mirror.
Bridleway. A few more streets and she was there. She shuddered at the very thought of that house. But this time it would be different. She would be prepared.
Her mind wandered to the other side of the town. The abandoned warehouse where they’d fought the griffons. Then she remembered the way from there to the funeral parlour. She could recreate every detail of Sunshine Rainbows’ cosy room in her mind. Even those she hadn’t noticed when she was there, like an autographed photo of Vinyl Scratch pinned to the wall.
This time everything would be different. She’d walk straight to his house. The bodyguards, then him. Then she’d throw away the gun and walk away, smirking and humming a song.
You walk down the street,
smile on your face.
You’ve built a bomb –
A concentrated death.
You know the time and date
When world will start to fear;
Ponies of all the countries
will cry when you’re near!
“Babs?” Nightcap’s face appeared above her.
Babs blinked and muttered something incomprehensible. Everything was spinning slowly; she wasn’t even sure if it was really Nightcap.
“The guards are lookin’ for your parents. It’d be easier if you woke up and tell me where they are…”
Babs felt something warm falling down on her face. She saw Nightcap wiping her eyes.
“Babs… Please, wake up…” Nightcap wrapped her forearms around her. “Not even for me… Just… wake up…”
“Nightcap?”
Babs immediately recognised that voice. It was the same voice that had kept her alive on the way to the hospital.
“How’s she?” Lightning Dust asked, looking at Babs unsurely.
“She sometimes moves…” Nightcap replied. “But when I talk to her, she doesn’t react.”
Lightning Dust sighed. Through half-opened eyelids, Babs could see her approaching Nightcap and wrapping her wing around her. “I was looking for that friend of hers, Hedgehog. He knows where she lives… Though I guess the guards will find them quicker.”
“H-how about the guy who…” Nightcap shivered. “Did they arrest him?”
“Not yet,” Lightning Dust replied. She looked at the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Only a few guards are not corrupted by the mafia… I talked to one of them. He said that they will take care of that, but they don’t want to scare him away…”
Babs gritted her teeth, causing Nightcap and Lightning Dust to look at her. She had never believed the guards would help her. She knew well that if she wanted justice, she had to take the matter in her own hooves.
She imagined herself as the judge, the jury, and the executioner at once. She knew the house. She knew exactly where the bodyguards usually stood. They’d be first – then there’d be time for the boss. And then, a final bullet for herself.
Babs knew that she had no chances. The mafia families of Manehattan were at a delicate balance; removing one element would cause everything to fall apart. Even if some boss was glad that his opponent was shot, they’d kill her anyway – just to show to the others that no one could get away with attacking the mafia.
Not that she cared about it much. All she wanted was to kill him. What’d happen later wasn’t important.
“Excuse me, but the patient needs calm.” Nurse’s voice seemed tired. Babs heard the sound of air moved by Lightning Dust’s wings and a quick, silent conversation followed by hoofsteps.
Suddenly, Babs noticed that she was in the room alone. At first it overwhelmed her – without Nightcap or Lightning Dust the room seemed big – way too big for her liking. She felt like she was in the middle of some wide plain, where everyone could see her, lying on the ground, weak and helpless.
Babs didn’t want to be seen as weak and helpless. She threw the blanket aside and stood up from her bed. A wave of pain caused her vision to blur. Her hind legs could barely support her weight. She remembered the bodyguards almost snapping them while trying to spread them and gritted her teeth. She had to be strong. Just this one time. Just to go there and kill them all.
She took a few steps towards Nightcap’s saddlebags. She sat next to them, almost collapsing and began searching through them.
“How?!” Lightning Dust shouted, grabbing the nurse and nearly lifting her from the ground. “She was fuckin’ high on meds, how did she run away?”
“Lightning!” Nightcap exclaimed. “Leave her!”
Lightning Dust let the nurse go and began pacing nervously around the room. “Her whole ass was stitched together like one of Prim Hemline’s dresses… She couldn’t go far…”
“She said that she was going to the toilet,” the nurse said, rubbing her neck. “I checked, but she wasn’t there…”
“She stole my keys…” Nightcap muttered, looking through her saddlebags. “And left this…” She levitated a small piece of paper with five words written in Babs’ messy hoofwriting.
He said you’ll be next.
“Do you know what she wants?” Lightning Dust asked.
Nightcap nodded her head and looked at the nurse.
Lightning Dust understood her immediately. “Shit…” she whispered. “We need to talk in private,” she said to the nurse, placing stress on the last two words and placing a hoof on her back. The nurse shuddered and left the room quickly.
“I have her gun…” Nightcap muttered. “It has no ammo, but I guess she has it somewhere…”
Lightning Dust cursed loudly and hung her head low. “It’s my fault… I should’ve taken it from her… I’ll fly to your place and catch her before she does something stupid...”
“She knows the town well…” Nightcap muttered. “We don’t know when she’d left. She might’ve already taken it…”
“I need to try,” Lightning Dust said. “Do you know that I almost became a Wonderbolt? I’m fast.”
“I’ll call the guards, just in case,” Nightcap said. “She can’t go there…”
“What if they catch her with a gun?” Lightning Dust asked. “If she ends up in prison, she’ll have less chances than a teenage groupie in the Wonderbolts’ locker room…” She noticed Nightcap’s expression. “I know, that wasn’t funny… But the guards are a good idea, actually. She’s wise enough to keep her mouth shut, huh?”
“I don’t know anymore…” Nightcap muttered. “In such a state…”
“Fuck!” Lightning Dust banged her hoof against the floor. “I think I have a plan. It’s crazy and it’ll send us all up a shit creek without a paddle, but it’s the best thing I could come up with… Listen to me carefully… When she gets arrested, they’ll take her back to the hospital. You must write her a message… To shut up. Tell her to tell ‘em that I killed the griffons. And probably some explanations…”
Nightcap shuddered. She knew exactly what Babs thought about the guards and what she’d think when she learned that it was her who got her arrested. But still, it was better than losing her forever. “And what will ya do?” she asked.
“Something reckless,” Lightning Dust deadpanned. “That’s why I didn’t become a Wonderbolt.” She opened the window and stood on the sill. “And don’t leave that place. Remember that they want to get you too.”
She flew away, leaving Nightcap alone.
Nightcap sat on the bed. She levitated a message from Babs to herself and shuddered. He said you’ll be next. She thought of Babs lying in the hospital bed – how small, weak, and vulnerable she seemed to be.
Then she thought about Babs just after she’d killed the griffons who raped White Dove. How she came to her house, drunk, and how she did almost nothing for three days to console her, except of lending her a bed and delivering vodka.
Three days… And then that happened. Nightcap wasn’t sure what to think of it. On one hoof, she still had a black eye. Not to mention that Babs was a minor. But on the other hoof, Nightcap had to admit that it felt… great? She wasn’t sure. Maybe after some time…
She knew well that it wouldn’t be “some time”. The mafia boss destroyed Babs’ life almost completely… And now, she was going to finish the job for him.
She slowly trotted out of the room and saw a pay phone hanging from the wall. For a moment, she wanted to levitate a coin, but then she remembered that she didn’t need to.
She lifted the receiver. “Royal Guard?” she asked. “I’m afraid that my friend is gonna do somethin’ stupid…”
The quill slipped off Nightcap’s magic field and fell on the floor. She looked at the letter and winced. No matter what she’d write, it still sounded bad in her opinion. The letters were blurred in some places, where her tears landed on the paper.
Dear Babs,
I hope that you’re okay. I’m not sure if they’ll let me give that letter to you, but I’ll write it anyway. At least I try. Try, like I didn’t try when… you know what happened.
Sorry, I got carried away. Anyway, the thing is, no matter what you did and no matter what will happen to you, I’ll always love you. I know you probably hate me now, but remember that. Maybe one day you’ll understand.
Lightning Dust told me that you have to stay quiet. In case someone asked, she killed the griffons. She has a plan – if everything goes right, maybe she’ll be able to get you out of jail.
Destroy this letter. They can’t find it with you.
Forever yours,
Nightcap
She’d just finished the letter, when she heard some noise coming from the corridor. She perked up her ears and recognised the voice of the nurse Lightning Dust had tried to strangle. She was apparently arguing with two other ponies.
“Where’s my daughter?” An angry stallion’s voice with noticeable trace of rural accent. Nightcap shuddered. She slowly got up from her chair and trotted to the door.
The stallion had a short, green mane and dark red coat. One of his legs had been replaced with a prosthetics – he was limping slowly towards the nurse, who was explaining to him that Babs had escaped.
When Nightcap looked at Babs’ mother, her jaw dropped. She was only a bit taller than Babs and had longer mane, but her colours were exactly the same. She was slightly chubby, just like Babs, and had identical freckles. She approached Nightcap and glared at her angrily, exactly in the same way as Babs would do.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, looking at Nightcap’s black eye.
Nightcap quietly thanked Celestia that she hadn’t had time to put on any make-up which would clearly indicate her job. “My name’s Nightcap,” she said. “I’m Babs’ friend…”
“I know her ‘friends’...” Babs’ mother muttered, shaking her head. “What happened to her? Where’s she now?”
“From what I know, they… they caught her on the street…” Nightcap said. “It was… someone she knows. I’m afraid she may try to… to kill ‘em herself…”
“Kill?” Babs’ mother raised her eyebrows, staggering slightly. Her husband trotted to her and she leaned against him, her face pale. “Babs would never…”
Nightcap’s head drooped. She’d heard way too many stories like that, both from the news and from her colleagues. Whether it was a prostitute who murdered a client, or a handsome colt from the neighbourhood who one day went to the school with a gun in his saddlebags, the reaction was always the same.
“Mrs. Seed…” Nightcap muttered, not looking into the mare’s eyes, so similar to the eyes of her daughter. “How well do ya know Babs?”