While this does stand on its own well enough, it’s best if you read “The Harpy” first. Special thanks to Sbrooks, Bebop03 and Chasten for the beta reads and edits The story is much more readable – and much better – for their input. And I have to thank The Missus for being ... well, everything.

This is a story we hadn’t planned on writing. Hopefully you’ll find this a distraction from all the lunacy around us these days.

Relentless “ ... if you’re not the careful sort, don’t play with sharp blades.” - jocko_smith

Fluorescent lights flickered, somehow making the stained off-white walls and institutional gray tile floor even duller as the officer led me down the hall from the main jail.

She was saying something, but I really wasn’t listening. I knew the gist of it anyway.

The processing clerk handed me my personal packet and I checked it. Purse, keys, pen, cellphone. He gave me a suppressed smirk, then looked at the officer. “I should probably just keep all of it; it’d make processing her back in faster.”

I signed for everything wordlessly and waited for the officer to escort me out. She nodded and the clerk buzzed open the bulletproof glass doors.

Sunlight from the setting sun warmed my face, but it didn’t really have the same feel anymore.

I didn’t even have to look around. The bike messenger was standing right at the bottom of the stairs, laconically unstrapping a long cardboard box from the back of the bike. I headed down to him.

The officer shook her head. “Fuck.”

The bike messenger gave me a raised eyebrow and a wry grin then opened the box. I looked in and pulled out the envelope first and looked in it. No note, like always. Just a thousand dollars in cash. That wasn’t a surprise. Not anymore.

The other item was a work of art.

I pulled it out and hefted it.

A C271 Cherry Bomb.

It practically glowed with an absolutely beautiful high-gloss black-and-cherry finish, touched off by gold decals.

Somebody had taken the time to put a very professionally done black Lizard Skin tape grip on it.

The tape grip went up the near-perfect maple a bit farther than I would have if I had done it myself, and I’d always used P72s when I played as a teenager, but...

I hefted the Louisville Slugger and let it spin around my hand. It was fucking perfect.

And here I’d always thought the phrase “my heart sang” was too melodramatic.

My heart was definitely singing.

The officer looked at the baseball bat in disbelief, then shook her head again. “Goddammit.”

The bike messenger gave me a broad grin. “I’ll take the box. We wouldn’t want you to get picked up for littering before the fun starts.”

The officer watched him ride off, then turned to me and looked at the bat again. “Who the fuck would do this?”

I stared straight at him. “Someone who understands.”

My phone buzzed and I looked at it. A single text message from a blocked number.

It just gave the name of a nightclub and a time. 9 p.m. Just enough time to do my makeup and hair.

I grinned and hefted my beautiful, beautiful bat.

Run, Motherfucker. Run.

Seven Days Earlier I shifted on my aching feet, just dodging the “accidental arm brush” from the creepy old guy. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen that coming a mile away.

The flicker of disappointment at missing the boob-graze flickered on his face and I gave him my fixed plastic smile. “Thank you flying Air Expanse.”

My legs, feet, and back were really looking forward to a hot shower, a long night in bed and maybe I could prevail on Justin to give me a real, no-hidden-agendas backrub.

Except that Justin wasn’t there to meet me like he was supposed to. A frustrated call to his phone got me his voice mail.

I waited at least twenty minutes for him to call back before I headed to the cab stand.

Okay, fifteen minutes. But my back and feet were killing me. As a personal fitness instructor, Justin sometimes had appointment changes at the last minute, so waiting could be a bad choice.

My house was only about fifteen minutes away anyway, so there was no point in making Justin drive all the way out when I could be at the before he reached the airport.

By the time I reached the front door, I was fuming again. Justin’s bright red Charger was parked in the driveway, and I could hear the Bose speakers blasting before I even got near the house. He’d just forgotten again.

That was becoming an issue. Working was one thing, but Justin seemed to be doing less and less of that all the time. He was spending lot more time with video games and playing the damn vintage acoustic guitar that he’d spent three months of his pay on. That was another issue that was becoming normal. Lately, my pay seemed to go for everything we needed, but what money he did bring in seemed to go for things he “needed.” I’d even had to sign the loan on his ridiculously expensive Charger because his credit sucked and “self-employed personal fitness instructor and part-time bartender” didn’t seem to excite loan officers.

I wasn’t near as pissed off as I should have been, but that changed moments later.

Even after seeing the path of strewn clothing, including a pair of Barbie pink “spank me” panties I’d never owned lying on top of a pair of Justin’s boxers, I still held out ... well, “hope” is too strong of a word, but it’s in the right vein.

But I found them anyway. On my bed, in my house.

They didn’t hear me come in, which wasn’t surprising. Eminem was chanting about puke on his shoelaces at about jet-engine levels and the place reeked of beer and weed.

A tiny portion of my mind was pissed about the weed. I would lose my job if I tested hot for weed, and after a close call with a “special brownie” Justin had brought home, I’d flat out told him he couldn’t have it in the house again because if I lost my job, we wouldn’t have a house.

The bigger part of my mind told that tiny part to quit being a whiny bitch, since we had a lot bigger problems, what with Justin porking a barely-legal, chunky, banana-blonde slut on top of the hand-stitched double wedding ring quilt that my great grandmother had made for me before she passed away.

It took every bit of my self-control to pick up the stereo remote and kill the sound.

The sudden silence rang in my ears for a long moment while I waited for them to catch up to current events.

The woman’s bovine face slowly came up over Justin’s shoulder and peered blearily at me for a long moment. She giggled dully. “Dude. I think it’s your old lady.”

He half-turned without even “pulling out of the saddle” and looked at me. “Oh ... um, hey Ashley.” He stopped, trying to decide what to say next.

I’m not sure what he possibly could have said that would have helped, but it sure as fuck wasn’t the next sentence out of his mouth.

“We’re out of lube.”

I think there was more. Something about the kitchen and vegetable oil. Something about “joining in.” Maybe. But I really had used up all my self-control picking up that stereo remote. Ending a twenty-hour day on throbbing feet with an aching back, abandoned at the airport, and then finding my man-child husband boffing a Spice Girl wannabe and more or less expecting me to join them in a threesome was really just a tiny bit too much.

“You. FUCKING. ASSHOLE!” I grabbed the first thing I could reach and got ready to swing for the fences.

Justin finally seemed to realize how bad things had just gone, diving over the bed and leaving the girl lying there in shock staring up at me.

In that red fury, I might have actually killed him, so it was probably lucky for me that the guitar strings tangled in the dangling light fixture on the windup. It certainly didn’t feel like good luck though.

I howled something that I didn’t even understand, tried to rip the guitar loose and ended up pulling the whole damn light fixture down. I screamed in frustration and slammed the guitar into the floor a few times trying to get it loose.

The piglet crawled past me at a speed I’d never have thought a human could reach on all fours. Her pasty white butt jiggled disturbingly like an extra-large, extra-pale serving of jello. It’s fucking Florida, who the hell is pasty white in Florida?

“No!” Justin lunged at me just as the whole thing came loose and I swung as hard as I could.

A very disappointing “thunk” accompanied by Justin shouting, “Dammit,” was the only result. All that was left was the fractured neck of the damn thing; the body of it was in pieces on the floor.

Justin stepped toward me, cradling his forearm, looking down at the remains. “My guitar!”

He was still looking down in tragic despair when I punched him with every bit of strength my hundred and fifteen pounds could muster.

He went down, clutching his eye, and I kicked him twice in the ribs before a very loud, but weirdly calm voice caught my attention.

“Don’t make me Taser you.”

I turned and looked at the officer in the bedroom doorway, Taser leveled at me. I froze, wondering if I could land just one more kick on Justin before he nailed me.

“Don’t. Tasers hurt like hell and then I’d have to do all that paperwork and add resisting an officer to the charges.”

Through the doorway behind him, I could see chunky-butt Banana-Head Bitch in the living room frantically talking and crying to a female officer who looked rather disinterested in her tale of woe. It dawned on me that I’d never seen a My Little Pony “Friendship is Magic” full thigh tattoo before this.

I scowled down at Justin. “Fucker.” And stepped away.

The officer sighed. “Good choice. Face the wall. Hands behind your back, pressed together like you’re praying.”

I felt the cuffs click into place. “How the hell did you get here so damn fast?”

“We were literally driving down the street when Miss Chubby Naked Girl ran out in front of us. I’m going to assume you are the wife or the girlfriend?”

“I was.”

“Came home early?”

“Actually, I came home right on time for a change.”

“Word of advice from someone who deals with this all the time. He ain’t worth it. This isn’t exactly the first time I’ve run across this kind of thing. Trust me. When you get out, get what you need and just walk away. It’ll be easier on you, easier on us.”

Justin had rolled to sit up and was looking sorrowfully at the pieces of his fucking guitar. He looked up at the officer. “She needs to buy me a new guitar.”

“Not my problem. That’s a civil issue. Take it to small claims court.” The officer obviously had no sympathy for Justin.

I fumed as they processed me into the jail. I wanted to listen to the officer. He made sense. Walk away. Just leave it.

But as they snapped the mugshots, all I could feel was boiling fury.

I sat with my back against the cell wall staring straight at the cell door all night. Sleepless. The other women in the pod gave me odd looks and stayed away from me.

I focused everything I could into the officer’s words: “Just walk away.”

I could do that. He could keep the damn car, keep whatever damn furniture he wanted, the stupid video games, and the collection of beer-making equipment that he had to have, but never even used.

I’d just move out of the house and stay at the local flight attendant crashpad for a few days until I could get a place of my own. The other crew members could be cool about stuff like that. I was hardly going to be the first divorce-bound flight attendant in history.

I’d make this easy.

My 3 a.m. decision lasted exactly four hours and twenty-two minutes.

In the morning I was informed I was going to be charged with Domestic Assault, that a trial date would be scheduled, then handed a blurred copy of a page of instructions, and finally “released on my own recognizance.”

I turned on my cell phone as I walked out of the building, but I got the same “only available for emergency calls” message I normally got when I was in a low-service area.

I was halfway down the steps when it dawned on me that the jail was damn near in the center of town. My phone had five bars of signal but I couldn’t make calls. I headed for the ATM with a sinking feeling.

I wasn’t particularly surprised when I discovered my bank account was closed. I closed my eyes and fought back rage for a moment. If Justin had closed the account, he’d probably also cleaned out the savings account. The savings account he hadn’t contributed one red cent to. The savings account that I had first filled with the money my grandmother left me, then carefully managed and religiously built up for when we would have kids. The savings account I’d only put Justin on so he could handle things if there was an emergency, like if I was in the hospital.

I spun on my heel and practically ran for the nearest branch of my bank since it was only a few blocks away.

Andrea, the assistant bank manager was polite, calm, and could give me no help whatsoever.

I was out over a hundred fifty thousand dollars.

The son of a bitch had emptied it completely. It was underhanded, evil, and, as far as Andrea could tell, completely fucking legal.

She at least let me use the office phone to confirm that my cell phone was canceled.

I walked back out on the street and just stood there for a moment. I had no idea what to do.

I was just lost.

I started walking. It being Florida, it started raining. Of course.

I didn’t make a conscious decision, I just walked. So it must have been fate.

I found myself, less one shoe that I’d lost somewhere along the way, standing in front of the gym Justin worked out of. Right in front of that was a bright red Charger with JUSTN 88 on the license plate.

I stared at the door to the gym. If I confronted Justin at work, he’d just go hide in the men’s locker room, run out the back, or something.

Gosh. If only there were a way I could get him to come out and talk to me.

The construction site across the road from the gym was buzzing with activity, and they mostly ignored me at first. But a woman in a short blue skirt and a white blouse that was missing more than a few buttons – a blouse that was almost transparent from the rain – will draw the attention of construction workers. A few catcalls sounded off, but they died away as they noticed my missing shoe and my expression.

A big guy who seemed like he might be in charge walked over towards me as I reached a stack of cinderblocks. “You need help?”

“Nope. I just need to borrow this.” I wrenched a cinderblock off the stack and cradled it. “Cheating asshole.”

He nodded and took a step back out of the way with a slight smile.

I was halfway back across the street when I realized most of the construction workers were following me. They stood solemnly while I hefted the block over my head and brought it slamming down on the hood. That triggered the alarm and a wave of groans and cheers from the workers.

I did that four more times to the deafening music of his car alarm before guys started pouring out of the gym. They probably intended to stop me but came up short when they saw the wall of construction workers behind me.

Justin pushed his way to the front and stopped, staring at me wide-eyed.

I picked the block up again. “Where’s my grandmother’s money, you fucking asshole?”

He looked frantically from me to the car. “Look, Babe, we need to...”

The cinderblock exploded into the windshield. It didn’t exactly shatter like I wanted it to, but it looked awesome stuck halfway through.

“Don’t ... you ... DARE ... call ... me... ‘Babe,’ you piece of shit. Bang some teenager in our fucking bed? Steal the money MY grandmother left me? And you think you can call me ‘babe’!?”

The blast of a police siren cut me off.

The officer was already pulling his cuffs out as he stepped out, so I sighed, turned to face the car, and put my hands behind my back.

Once he had me cuffed, he looked over the wreckage, then at the construction workers. “She steal that block off your site?”

The big guy pursed his lips and shook his head. “Nah. Musta just been lyin’ around here or somethin’. It’s got red paint on it, see? None of ours have red paint on them, right guys?”

The officer chuckled at the earnest chorus of agreement from the crowd, but it didn’t stop him from putting me into the back seat of the cruiser.

They booked me on Public Mischief, Destruction of Private Property, Vandalism ... and Littering.

The officer told me that it would probably cost me 60 days “just to cool off.”

But it didn’t.

Late the next afternoon a concerned-looking officer led me out. “Your lawyer came in. Seems you own the loan on that car and there’s no law against busting up your own stuff as long as you don’t file a false report about it. Public Mischief is an overnight hold and Littering will probably be dropped. So you’re out again.”

“My lawyer?”

“Yeah, cute blonde woman with short hair.”

“Oh.” I guessed she must have been from the public defender’s office. I wasn’t sure how that all worked, but I really was broke right now after all. Would have been nice if she’d have talked to me though, so I would know what was going on. They probably don’t have much time though.

I signed for my stuff and reflexively turned on my phone. I was just going to kick myself for bothering to it turn when it buzzed with an incoming text message from a blocked number: BIKE MESSENGER OUTSIDE The messenger was patiently straddling his bike right at the bottom of the stairs, holding a shoebox-size package.

He held it out and I looked at him warily. “Who is this from?”

“I don’t know, one of your adoring fans, maybe?”

The package had an envelope with five hundred dollars in brand new bills and one of those fancy old-fashioned red bricks. I studied the brick and turned it over, seeing the words “Copper County Municipal” neatly scribed into it. No note, nothing.

“You have no idea who sent this? Are you sure you have the right person?”

He grinned and held up his phone for me to read. It was a news story. One of those funny little bits you read to kill time. Under the title “Turbulence Ahead” there was a news story with my mugshot on it. “You’re a meme, lady. You’re all over the internet. Everybody knows who you are.”

I stared at my mugshot for a long moment. The suppressed half-smile, the crazy-ex-girlfriend death stare. Shit. Even to me, I looked like I’d lost it. So much for my job.

Since I had no idea what else to do with it, I dropped the brick into my purse.

I needed to catch my breath. I needed to think.

I needed to get cleaned up. The money would help, wherever it came from. Maybe a good night’s sleep at a hotel instead of the crashpad, so I’d have some privacy and time to soak in a tub. A change of clothes.

I could have headed to a store, but it was getting late. Besides, I had all the clothes I needed at my house. My Uber app worked just fine.

The Uber driver just kept looking at me in the rearview mirror. Then I realized he was looking at his phone.

I googled my name on my weirdly in-service phone. Fuck. I was everywhere. It must have been a slow news day because the mugshot was on every news site. A lot of them had a cell phone picture of me poised next to the Charger with that cinderblock held over my head like some kind of insane avenging angel.

He realized I’d caught him and started to talk. “Are you...”

“Yes. I’m her.”

“Cool! I mean...” He trailed off slowly. “So, um, this address is...”

“My house. I just need some of my clothes.”

He nodded like a bobblehead, grinning. “This is so cool. I never get to meet anyone famous.”

Thankfully, he refrained from asking any more questions.

The house was lit up like a Christmas tree and the music was blaring, but the Charger was nowhere to be seen. Justin had a bad habit of leaving everything on, probably because I was the one who had to pay the electric bill.

At least I didn’t have to worry about any drama. I nodded at the driver. “Wait here, I’ll be right back out and you can take me to the Divinity Hotel over on 19th Street.”

“No problem.” He started tapping away on his phone and from the guilty hunch of his shoulders, I was pretty sure it was about me.

Screw it. If meeting me was the high point of his day, he’d had a pretty boring day. I shook my head as I headed up the walk.

I dug my keys out, which took longer than usual because I had a fucking brick in my purse with them. I couldn’t get the key in the damn lock.

Damn, I was tired. Couldn’t anything just go right? I held my keys up and looked at them to make sure I was using the right one. Then tried again.

Nope.

I looked closer and then looked at the lock. It was new. Not even the same brand as my key. I peered through the window. Right furniture, right stereo.

That son of a bitch. He’d changed the fucking locks to keep me out of the house I paid the rent on. I pounded on the door, my overloaded purse thumping against my side.

Nothing. No motion at all.

I pulled the brick out of my purse and studied it. Edith Johansson, the landlady, would understand; I’d just call her and let her know. Of course, I ended up leaving a voicemail because she never picked up her business phone after hours.

“Edith? You’ve probably seen what happened on the news. Everybody else has. Look, I have to get into my house and get some clothes before Justin gets back and starts some drama. So I’ll pay you for the window, and that light fixture too. Sorry about everything. Oh, yeah, this is Ashley.”

Conscience salved, I pulled the screen off the living room window. Maybe I could make a small hole, just big enough to reach through and unlock it. I tapped as gently as I could with the brick.

The whole window fell apart in a rain of shattered glass. I was sure that was some kind of a God-sent analogy for my life, but whatever it meant, it wasn’t really at the top of my list of things to figure out. I unlocked the frame, raised it and carefully used the brick to clear the glass off the window ledge before crawling in.

Of course, I missed a sliver of glass stuck to the bottom of the frame, so I ended up with a damn river of blood running off my scalp onto my face. I was pretty sure it was a minor thing. Flight attendants have a lot of first aid training, so I knew cuts on the head bled like crazy. I grabbed a random white T-shirt Justin had lying on the couch and did my best to stop the bleeding.

For a moment, I stood in the living room and thought about my missing money. If Justin had taken it all out, he’d have to keep it somewhere. I thought about searching, maybe start with the freezer, but decided nobody would be that stupid. I just needed to get my stuff.

The damn stereo was blasting, the room was dark because the light fixture was gone, and I was tripping over something. I tossed the T-shirt as I caught my balance, then flicked on the nightstand lamp. I sighed and turned the damn stereo off.

I felt a sinking feeling as I heard an urgently whispering voice from the closed bathroom door.

“ ... come on, hurry! She’s in the house. She’s in the fucking bedroom!”

I looked down at the lime green thong panties that had wrapped around my shoeless foot. I was standing next to a metallic orange skirt and Justin’s boxers and jeans.

I didn’t actually have time to drop the brick before the Taser hit me.

Don’t let anyone tell you that Tasers don’t hurt like hell. If you’ve ever wondered, it feels like you’re a puppet getting your strings cut. While getting a whole-body Charlie horse.

After the officer had me cuffed, I managed to glare at him. “I thought you were supposed to say something like ‘freeze’ before you do that.”

He shrugged and pointed the bed. The bloody white shirt was lying on top of a bunched-up blanket. “It looked like you were beating someone to death with the brick.”

I tried to ignore Justin and the skinny-ass green-haired bitch who crept out of the bathroom with him. That didn’t last very long.

“I’ve got a restraining order on her because of what she did to my car. She’s fucking crazy. You need to keep her ass locked up.” Justin struggled to cover himself with a hand towel while the woman apparently had to make do with her own hands.

The officer shook his head. “You really need to stay away from him and his girlfriend.”

“Which one?”

“Which one what?”

“Which girlfriend? The fat one with the My Little Pony tattoos or the meth-y skank here with the ‘It Ain’t Gonna Spank Itself’ tramp stamp?”

He turned and looked, choking back a chuckle at the sight. “Any of them. All of them.”

“I really need to go to a clinic to get tested for STDs.”

“You’ll actually have to stay out of jail for a day or two to do that.” He lowered his voice as he eyed her stringy green hair. “Seriously though, getting tested might be a good idea.”

Justin double-checked to see that the cuffs were on before he stepped a bit closer. “Where’s my car, you bitch?”

“Fuck you. I’ve been in jail until about an hour ago so whatever happened, it wasn’t me. Asshole.”

The officer firmly pushed us further apart. “Let’s not do this right now.”

Justin glared at me hatefully. “You need to arrest her for Grand Theft Auto. She stole my fucking car.”

“Did you report it stolen?”

“Well, no. But...”

“Then how the hell can I arrest her for that?”

Justin stammered into silence as his Joker-wannabe girl snatched the T-shirt off the bed, then promptly dropped it once she saw all the blood on it.

The other women in the jail pod stayed as far away from me as possible all night and I ignored the whispers.

As the officer led me out the next morning, one of them called out. “Go get him.”

The officer looked back tiredly, then looked at me. “Please don’t. Look, you’re being released, okay? Your lawyer, the Blonde Tornado, hit this place first thing this morning. She’s threatened a claim of police brutality for the Taser incident. Your landlady backs your story about you trying to get in and out without running into your husband; she even produced the recording. There’s no restraining order because the request was based on you destroying his car and it turns out the car is actually in your name. And again, there’s no actual law against doing that. Just remember though, you have a domestic violence charge pending, so if they refile based on that, they have a good shot at getting an order.”

I really needed to call the public defender’s office; it sounded like my court-appointed lawyer was going above and beyond. “Do you have the number for the public defender’s office?”

He looked completely puzzled. “Why?”

“So I can call my lawyer; she’s a public defender, right?”

“I’ve been here for ten years; I know every public defender and she isn’t one of them. Hell, your lawyer wears suits that would cost a public defender half a year’s salary.”

I shut up. I had no idea if it was legal for someone to hire a lawyer for me without me knowing. Whoever it was, they kept getting my butt out of jail, so it was best to be quiet. He eyed me suspiciously but let it go.

The bike messenger was waiting, smiling from ear to ear.

It was a small box this time. One thousand dollars, a key card to the Hollywood Suite of the most expensive hotel in town – with a receipt for two weeks paid for in advance. And the key to the Charger, wherever it was.

I thought it through and took the Uber directly to the hotel this time.

I spent the next four days catching my breath. I didn’t have any clothes, but the silk hotel robe was just fine, and the hotel restaurants delivered incredible room service.

I watched bad movies, drank a few too many hotel bar daiquiris, and actually slept. A note from my lawyer arrived, announcing that my divorce was filed, and Justin had been served. I wondered at that since I’d never actually met the lawyer or filled out any paperwork, but I should have, so I was hardly going to argue about it.

I also had time to look over the news stories and memes I’d managed to generate. “Turbulence Ahead” was one of the least sensational ones. “Fasten Your Seatbelts” was accompanied by the cell phone picture of me with the cinderblock. And, apparently, my friendly Uber driver had taken a number of photos of me as I broke into my own house. With a brick.

To top it all off, under the title “Relentless,” there was a delightful picture of me with blood running down my face while I stood in my living room with that brick in my hand. I looked ... well, “unhinged” was probably too kind; but “maniacally homicidal” was a nice fit.

That really explained why the other women in the jail had treated me like a grenade with the pin out.

A phone call confirmed that my employment with Air Expanse was “temporarily suspended” pending the outcome of the domestic violence charge.