//------------------------------// // Widow's Web // Story: Crime Pays // by chillbook1 //------------------------------// “And that makes fifty.” “Before or after your cut?” “Oh, yes, my apologies. How could I possibly have forgotten to pay myself?” “You know, sarcasm is considered the lowest form of wit.” I helped Rift to sling our money bags into the pit, silently keeping track of how much money we had. This was a massive pull compared to what Rift brought to the desert with him, but downright tiny relative to our jobs up north. $3,000 from my Canterlot dead drops, plus $10,000 from Rift and Dash’s adventure alone, and now another $50,000 from today. $63,000 was a decent chunk of change, but wasn’t nearly enough for what we needed done. “Ah, but the highest form of intelligence,” said Rift, bowing his head sagely. I rolled my eyes before attempting to dust the red sand from my pants. Rfit glanced over to his truck, in which Rainbow lay tiredly. “Dash! Get your ass in gear, come on!” “Bite me, Rift!” came Rainbow’s curt reply, though she did roll out eventually. She yawned into her hand, then grabbed a shovel and helped us bury the money. We did this silently for a bit before I realized that Dash was basically falling asleep, leaning on her shovel for support. “You okay?” I asked. “Sorry. Tired. Haven’t slept since… Well, since the other day,” yawned Rainbow. “Honestly, I don’t know how you’ve been sleeping, after hearing that shit.” “Truth be told, I haven’t been. I just work well under pressure.” “Wait, what’s this shit that’s being heard?” asked Rift. “Who’s keeping you up?” I glanced at Rainbow, trying to decide if she was up to tell the story. The look on her face screamed “no”, so I told Rift all about my chess game with Rarity. His jaw had dropped for about the entire performance “She basically threatened me,” I said. I shook my head. “No, no, she literally threatened me. And she meant it. You could see it in her eyes, she meant every word.” “So… We’re gonna kill her,” said Rift. “Right?” “Wrong. She’s my best friend’s wife. Spike will hate me forever.” “Hey, my best friend fucked my wife, and I don’t hate him.” Rift pressed his lips together in thought. “Well, I don’t hate him because he fucked my wife. Well, not just because he fucked my wife.” He shook his head. “Look, the point I’m trying to get at is that Spike’s your best friend, and if you have a good reason for doing what you gotta do, he’ll forgive you.” “I’m not killing Rarity,” I said. I was firm on that stance. “We have a plan, and that plan changes for nothing.” “Hey, you’re the boss,” said Rift. “I know.” “But, if you would let me finish, being the boss doesn’t mean you’re invincible.” For probably the first time since I met him, Rift wasn’t grinning or joking. He was serious. “Twilight, if you don’t make the first move, she’s going to kill you.” “I thought I made myself perfectly clear,” I said. “This is the first move. And it will be the last move. I appreciate your advice, but I didn’t ask for it. So, if you really want to help, which I assume is why you’re out here, get to digging.” My phone rang, which immediately ended my debate with Rift. It was from my personal phone, which meant it could only be one person calling me. I answered the phone and put it to my ears. “Hey, Twi,” said Spike, his voice barely higher than a whisper. “How’s it going, bud?” I tried to seem as if everything was fine, but anyone who spoke to me should’ve been able to tell that it wasn’t. Spike ignored it, thankfully, which made everything much simpler. “I’ve been thinking. About what you said at the bar,” he said. “Mm-hm…” “And, you know… If you’re serious… I wanna take you up on it.” I had known it was coming. I had hoped it was coming. Even still, I felt my heart drop into my stomach when Spike told me the news. This was probably the best thing for everyone, and yet, I selfishly hoped that my little brother would stay by my side. “That’s… That’s really good. I wish you the best.” That was by no means a lie. Though his woman was a murdering psychopath, she was still his woman. “I’m going to miss you, though.” “I’ll miss you, too. A lot. We’ve been through so much together.” “You’re telling me. I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I did if it weren’t for you.” I waved Rift and Dash away, their silent stares starting to unnerve me. “Have you told Rarity yet?” “No. I only just now decided. We’re out to lunch, and she had to freshen up,” said Spike. He laughed nervously. “Whatever the hell that means.” “You better tell her. She’s going to freak out.” “I know, right? Oh, here she comes now. Gotta go.” He paused for a moment. “I love you, Twi.” I chuckled lightly. “I love you, too, buddy.” I closed my phone and slipped it into my pocket, trembling slightly. He really was gone. Which meant we needed to move quickly. “What happened?” asked Rift. I sighed. “He picked her over me.” “Wasn’t that the plan?” asked Dash. I nodded. “Still sucks though, right?” Again, I nodded. “Damn. Sorry, Boss.” “Don’t be. Like you said, that was the plan. I knew it’d be unpleasant either way,” I said. “Let’s deal with this money, then—” My phone rang again, my burner. Angrily, I flipped it open and put it to my ear. “Whoever this is better make it damn quick,” I snarled. “What do you want?!” “Howdy, Ms. Twilight.” The sheriff sounded a bit concerned. “Uh… Is this a bad time?” “Oh, no, no, I’m sorry. I forgot you would be contacting me,” I said, honestly. “I’m… Sorry, don’t worry about it. What can I do for you?” “That truck Ah was talking to you about. The one that got delayed,” she said. “It’ll be here in forty minutes. Can y’all handle it?” “Er… Yes, of course. I’ll be there as soon as possible.” I swore under my breath, trying to get all the parts to this plan in order. Spike was out, Dash and Rift would be casing another bank, so it was all up to me. I could push over an armored truck by myself, of course, but it wouldn’t be easy. “I hate to be rude, but what can I expect to be paid for this? I wouldn’t normally ask, but these are some extraneous circumstances.” “Nah, Ah understand. Ah was thinking 40/60 in yer favor. Ah don’t mind taking a smaller cut to help y’all get on yer feet.” “That’s very generous of you. Thank you. We won’t forget your kindness,” I said. “Ah ain’t being nice. Just caring for those who’ll care for me,” said Applejack. “Call me when y’all got the goods, alright?” “Yes, of course. I’ll be in touch.” I hung up my phone and slipped it back into my pocket, then groaned tiredly. “I need to hire more employees.” “Don’t you need an office for that?” asked Rift. “Shut up and get ready for the next job. I gotta go.” I headed for my van, waving as I left. “You two will be able to handle things, right?” “Duh. I’ve been doing this a while, Boss,” said Dash. “Hey, Rift, stop off at the gas station, I need an energy drink.” I unlocked my van and hopped in, closing the door behind me. In the passenger seat was my duffle bag, hardly used since our relocation. I unzipped it, then carefully lifted my mask. It seemed so unused. I could almost hear it whispering to me, begging me to slip it on and do what I do best. I grinned to myself, then sat my precious Gorgon onto the seat. Spike has his woman. I have mine. Hitting the truck wasn’t hard at all, but I still wished I had some help. All I really did was wait for the truck to hit a red, then slipped into the back. Then, I used my gun to coax the driver into maneuvering to an alley where my van was parked. I bound and gagged the driver and his co-driver, then moved the product. The cocaine was easy enough to pack away, but the gold was heavy. I got it in alright, then drove back to the music shop. There, I called the sheriff and waited. Within an hour, she arrived in her big, black pickup truck. She helped me load the loot, then, when I was secure in the passenger seat, she took off. “My, you work fast, don’t ya?” chuckled Applejack. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” I answered. “I’ve gotten quite good at it, if I do say so myself.” “Amen to that, sister. Ah imagine the two of us are gonna make a lot of money together.” “Well… I don’t know how much longer I’ll be staying.” I pulled out a cigarette, sticking it in my mouth before I realized that this wasn’t my car. “Can I smoke in here?” She nodded, so I lit up. “My stay in Appleloosa will likely be coming to an end soon. My situation has changed.” “That’s a darn shame. Ah could use your talents,” said Applejack. “But Ah get’cha. Moving on in your life and whatnot.” For the third time that day, my phone rang. It was my personal phone, so I wasn’t so irritated. I grabbed it out of my pocket, holding onto it for a moment. “Do I have time to take this?” I asked. “Oh, yeah, these guys live in the middle of fucking nowhere.” I nodded my appreciation, then answered the phone and put it to my ear. “Hello?” I was met with a long, loud, high-pitched shriek. “Um… Rarity?” I asked, checking my ears for blood. “Is everything okay?” “I just had to tell someone, darling! I’m so excited, I can hardly contain myself!” she squealed. “Spike and I have gotten back together! We’ll be getting remarried any day now!” “That’s wonderful,” I said, trying to withhold any disgust and irritation that may have leaked through into my voice. “Spike was telling me what he planned to do, and I couldn’t wait to hear from you. I wish you—” “W-what? He… He told you?” asked Rarity. “Well, Spike tells me everything. He’s my best friend, and I’m technically his boss, so he wanted to ask if I was okay with him leaving the team. But, like I said, I’m happy for you two.” “Ask if it was okay? But you would never forbid our relationship, would you?” Rarity laughed nervously. “You couldn’t.” “Of course I wouldn’t. I can’t stand in the way of true love,” I promised her. I swear, I heard her mutter something about “last time”, but I can’t be absolutely certain. “Oh. Of course not. My dear, we absolutely must celebrate!” Although she was clearly excited, there was a faint air of anger and resentment in her voice. She just couldn’t stop hating me if she tried. “Perhaps some wine?” “Er… I’m sort of busy right now,” I said. “Working.” “Hm? What sort of work?” “The sheriff has set me up with something.” Applejack gestured for me to let her speak, so I put the phone on speaker. “Howdy, Rarity,” said the sheriff. “Haven’t seen you in a bit. Ah reckon the family would love to see you ‘round the house for supper.” “Oh, Applejack, it has been truly too long. Where have you been keeping yourself all this time?” Her tone shifted, but not to become more pleasant. She sounded almost mocking, in a way. “Same ol’, same ol’,” said Applejack. “Servin’ and protectin’. What about you? Still making those dresses?” “Honestly, I haven’t sewn in ages. The inspiration just hasn’t been there, I’m afraid. But…” Rarity’s voice slipped into that tone again. The way she sounded when she was talking about her kills. “I was thinking about Applebloom the other day, bless her soul, and I wanted to do a little line inspired by the little beauty.” “Hm.” Applejack tried not to react, but I could see the hurt flash across her face. “That’s mighty nice. Ah reckon she woulda liked that.” “I just keep flashing back to the first time I saw her. She had this nice, sort of rustic green button-down, with those dusty blue jeans.” If I had my doubts before, this was any confirmation I need to know for sure that this woman was a monster. “And that bow, just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen… It really is a shame, what happened to her.” “Rarity, if y’all don’t mind, we really have to go,” said Applejack darkly. “Good-bye, sugarcube.” “Uh… Bye, Rarity. See you later,” I said. I hung up the phone before she had a chance to respond. “Damn, that girl just don’t know when to shut the hell up,” grumbled the sheriff. I wish I could tell her that Rarity knew, she just didn’t care. “Just cause the wounds are healed don’t mean they need to be reopened.” “I really hate to ask you, Ms. Applejack—” “AJ, if’n ya don’t mind.” “Sorry. I hate to ask, AJ, but I’d like to know about your sister.” Applejack stiffened slightly, but didn’t protest. “I’ve been looking for this Widow character, like you asked, and I’m narrowing it down. Trouble is, ‘Widow’ is a common name among the criminal underworld. It would help if I knew about your sister so I can find people who have motive.” AJ sighed, then pulled out a cigarette of her own to smoke. “If you really think it’ll help,” she murmured. “Applebloom was a sweet little girl. Nineteen years old when she was… y’know. Never got into any trouble. Shit in school, except for chemistry. She wanted to get into medicine, but we couldn’t afford college for her. It’s why Ah started dealings with the cartel.” She got quiet, lowering her voice to just barely a whisper. “She died before she got to see her acceptance letter.” Thirty-plus years of criminal activity hardened my heart quite severely. Not that I was a softee before I started robbing banks, or that I was an emotionless machine now. I just wasn’t easily affected by other people's’ blight. Even still, I felt my heart break for the sheriff. I just imagined if I was in her place, and Spike in Applebloom’s. I’d have long since lost my mind pursuing Widow in order to exact my revenge. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Did she have any enemies?” AJ snapped, slamming her hand on the dash. “Hell no, she didn’t have enemies! She was nothing but a nice, kind, caring girl.” When she realized that she was yelling, she paused to take a long drag on her cigarette, likely to calm down. “Sorry. Ah know you’re just trying to help.” “It’s okay. How about friends? Did she hang out with any of… Er… My kind of people?” I asked. “Just Spike. They were real good friends. Used to invite him over every Friday for supper. Applebloom never stepped foot in a kitchen, but when Spike started coming round, she used to make dessert. The two of them would swap recipes. He made brownies, she made sweet potato pie.” I had to fight really hard to decide whether or not I should tell Applejack who Widow was. Would that be a smart move? Would she apprehend her immediately or kill her with her bare hands? Would she think I was an accomplice or an associate? Would she believe me at all? From what I’ve gathered, she’s known Rarity for years. I only just met her a week or so ago. That could be dangerous for me. I decided I’d hold my tongue. For now. “Thank you. I think this will help me a lot,” I said. “We can stop talking about it now.” Applejack was silent, but nodded her appreciation. I wondered how she’d react if she knew the truth. She’d probably turn right around, forgetting our meeting entirely. Beat Rarity to a pulp, in a well-deserved, cathartic act of revenge. I wished I could give that to her, but I couldn’t. Not now. I tried to stop thinking about it. I needed to focus on getting out. We drove for thirty more minutes, eventually coming to a little storagehouse at the bottom of a hill. It truly was the middle of nowhere. I started to get nervous. Nobody knew where I was. I was in the middle of absolutely nowhere. All I had on me was my mask and revolver. For all I knew, this was a set-up. I gripped my revolver tightly as Applejack parked the truck and stepped out. “C’mon, sugarcube,” she said. “We gotta talk to the boys.” I sighed, then rolled out of the truck, joining the sheriff on her side of the vehicle. I took a moment to take in my surroundings. There were several small hills stretching out for what seemed like miles. The storagehouse was smaller than my laundromat, but it probably did just fine for what it was used. There were two pickup trucks parked on the other side of Applejack’s, both of which seemed to have just gotten there. One of them still had the engine running. “What exactly is going down here?” I asked. “Trade-off. Thunder and Lightning are gonna take the gold and coke off our hands,”said AJ. “Then, they’ll give us the cash.” I nodded, then crossed my arms over my chest in a desperate attempt to calm my nerves and seem in control. I think I managed fairly well, given how off the rails everything had gone. We waited for about a minute before the storagehouse opened. Two twins stepped out, both bald and cloudy grey. They each had a duffel bag slung over their shoulder, which they silently dropped to the sand before us. “That’ll be six hundred, right?” asked Applejack. They nodded. “Ms. Medusa, count that up, if’n ya don’t mind.” I bent down and zipped open the bag, counting out the stacks. I didn’t exactly care for being ordered around, but I understood what she was doing. These were her people. Just like I needed to be in control of my Crew, she needed to run the cartel. That meant giving orders and taking charge. “So, what have y’all been up to?” asked AJ. I immediately got lost in the flow of conversation, mostly due to the topics directly involving events I had no knowledge of. After hearing Thunder and Lightning respond, I smirked. They were silent before, but AJ managed to get a conversation out of them. They actually had a lot to say when talking to the sheriff. She had a talent for getting people to trust her, and therefore getting them to talk. I enjoyed it a little. After listening to them go back and forth for a bit, I managed to differentiate between the two brothers. Thunder’s voice was slightly deeper, and his accent slightly thicker, while Lightning could have reasonably passed for a city boy. “And that’s six hundred,” I said, after triple checking. I scooped up the bag, keeping my eyes on the twins. “That’ll be all, right?” “Mh-hm,” said Applejack. “Now we just gotta get these boys what they’re paying for, and we’ll be on our merry—” A bone-rattling crack rang through the air, followed by a heavy thud, like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground. I turned, drawing my gun only to see the sheriff’s body flat on the ground with a bloody, gory crater in the back of her head. I gaped at her body, my brain shutting down for a moment. Two more shots cut through the air, snapping me out of my stupor. I didn’t have to look, because I was able to hear the twins’ corpses hit the sand. The shooter was nowhere to be seen. I panicked, then ran behind AJ’s truck, dragging the money with me. I tried to calm my breathing, which was near-impossible when the adrenaline finally kicked in. My head was swimming, it refused to keep my thoughts in order. I was only certain of two things: There was a sniper, and I needed to get the hell out of there. I threw the bags into the back of the truck, trying my hardest to stay behind the meager protection that the truck bed offered. When I was certain the bags were secured, I prepared to make a break for the driver seat. Another shot rended reality, shredding through the sky. I felt a searing, burning, explosive pain in my shoulder, so agonizing that I stumbled and hit the ground. I swore loudly, clutching my arm to slow the bleeding, though I wasn’t sure how successful I was. I pushed myself up, urging my body to move despite its refusal. If I stood there, I would die. It was that simple. I pulled myself into the driver seat, then slammed my foot onto the gas. I pulled off as carefully as I could given my state, then gunned it in the direction of home. All the while, my mind was racing. What just happened? What would happen from here on out? I’d need to start thinking about the cartel. They’d probably take this as an act of aggression. Unless, of course, it was another family or crime organization trying to take power. But why then? Why us? “Son of a bitch…” I muttered, the pain nearly growing to be too much. At some point, almost half-way through the trip home, it occurred to me that I should call for help. I couldn’t risk an ambulance. They’d ask why I was shot, and I couldn’t count on another crooked cop to bail me out. So, I had to settle for Dash. help ive been shot get here quickly south of town backroad I took a moment to mourn my awful spelling and punctuation before Dash texted back. On the way try not 2 die I decided to sit tight on the back road I was on, trying not to bleed out. I checked the sheriff’s glovebox, relieved to find a first aid kit. I popped it open, surprised by the sophistication of the box. A tourniquet, gauze, painkillers, a paste that help blood coagulate, and a pair of forceps. I swallowed a handful of painkillers, then went to patch myself up. I tied up the tourniquet, then went to wrap my wound when I remembered the bullet still sitting in my arm. I clumsily dug through the mess that was my shoulder, trying to remember everything I’d ever read about self-surgery. I managed to lock onto the bullet without tearing any arteries, which was good. I dropped the bullet into my palm, turning it over in my hand curiously. Who’d have thought that this little, dented thing could end three lives? As I looked at it, something about the way it crumpled from impact looked off to me. I wiped the blood off as best as I could on my pants, trying to find any inconsistencies or oddities. I turned the bullet over one last time, my stomach knotting up on itself at the sight of the bloody, chipping, but perfectly-discernible white diamond that was inset in the bottom.