By the time I got to them, Martin, the older brother, was stand up wrestling with one of them, grunting and losing. The other one had Curtis against the wall.

Fuck.

I aimed my gun at the dealer on Curtis. “Back off!” I shouted.

His head whipped around. The other one got Martin in a headlock and twisted him around violently so he could look at me.

Their names were Clarence and Jermaine, no street names that I knew of. Clarence had Martin. Jermaine had Curtis.

I kept my gun and eye on Jermaine and channeled my internal badass mother.

“Back off,” I repeated, low.

“Holy shit!” Jermaine laughed. “It’s The Law.”

He pulled Curtis forward by his collar and slammed him viciously into the wall and I heard Curtis’s skull crack against the brick.

Um…

I… did… not… think… so.

My eyes narrowed and my head cocked to the sight of the gun.

In a serious, pissed off voice, I said, “I’ll say it one more time, let him go.”

To my surprise, he let him go. To my despair, he only did it so he could come at me.

Martin was still struggling against the headlock, intermittently groaning and whining. His feral noises of fear were spurring me on by pissing me off even more.

Curtis was standing frozen, likely partially dazed, partially scared stiff.

“Watcha gonna do Law? Slash my tires? Throw a smoke bomb? Light some shit on fire on my doorstep? You’re a f**kin’ joke,” Jermaine taunted.

Excuse me, I never lit poo on fire on someone’s doorstep. That was immature.

“Go. Now,” I returned, ignoring his words. “Leave the kids alone. If you go, no one will get hurt.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Jermaine snarled and then came at me.

When he came at me, I switched my gun to the other hand knowing he’d get physical just to prove a point. The big man subdues the silly woman.

Fuck him.

Right away he gave me my opening, throwing out his arm to grab me. So I took it.

When he arrived at me, I grabbed his wrist and leaned down, ducking under his arm, using my leverage, his momentum and bulk, and I twisted his arm and flipped him up and around and he landed with a sickening thud on his back.

Then without hesitation, I aimed and kicked him savagely between his legs. He let out a ferocious howl and curled into a fetal position. I put my boot to his neck and leaned my weight into it (maybe a little more weight than I needed but I told myself that I was new to this and allowed myself some leeway).

Then I lifted my head, my eyes slicing to Clarence. I switched my gun to my right hand, cupped it with my left and aimed.

“Let him go,” I ordered.

Clarence was staring at me in shock, so much so he didn’t let Martin go.

I dropped my aim and fired. The bullet hit next to his left foot. He felt the impact and jumped but he didn’t let Martin go.

I lifted my gun, aimed it at his head and cocked my own to the gun’s sight. “I said, let… him… go.”

He let Martin go.

Martin ran immediately to Curtis.

I stood aiming at Clarence, my boot still at the writhing Jermaine’s neck and I wondered what the hell I should do now.

Then Clarence’s eyes moved from their study of my gun to look over my shoulder.

“Holy f**k. It’s true,” Clarence whispered but loudly so I could hear.

Like a sixth sense, I felt rather than saw Crowe coming up behind me. Then he got up beside me and stopped, his eyes were on the man at my boot.

I guessed I was wrong about not having a tail.

God, he was good.

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow move from behind Clarence. I focused and Mace arrived at the scene. He was looking at Vance. At the sight of Mace, I got over my admiration of Crowe.

This is just great, I thought with mental sarcasm.

“Did I see what I think I just saw?” Mace asked to Crowe.

“You saw it,” Crowe replied then he looked at me.

It was dark; I couldn’t read his eyes and didn’t try. I looked back at Mace and Clarence.

Mace’s eyes had cut to me; he stared at me a second and I could tell by the white flash in his mouth area that he grinned. Then he grabbed Clarence’s wrist, twisted it around to his back and shoved him face first against the brick wall. He pulled some cuffs out of the back of his cargo pants and slapped them on Clarence.

“Stay,” he said to Clarence as if he was a dog.

I dropped my gun and put it in the back waistband of my jeans.

“You can take your boot out of his neck now,” Vance said to me.

I looked down. Jermaine was still curled up in apparent agony and not going anywhere.

“Whoops,” I muttered and lifted my foot.

Vance crouched and cuffed Jermaine. Mace had pulled a phone out of his pocket and he’d connected.

“Luke. We got a pick up. Yeah, another couple from Law,” he faded a bit into the shadows and I heard him say, “You are not gonna f**kin’ believe this…”

I walked to Martin and Curtis. “You guys okay?”

They didn’t speak, just nodded, mouths open in disbelief.

“Curtis, your head?” I asked.

He just kept nodding.

“Why were they chasing you?” I asked them.

They kept staring at me.

“Come on boys, spill. These are bad guys, worse than most. What were they doing chasing you?”

“We thought we’d help you go after the drug guys,” Curtis told me.

“Yeah, we been followin’ them two for awhile,” Martin threw in with pride.

Oh crap. Not this again.

“All the kids are talkin’ ‘bout doin’ it. We got sick of talkin’ so we decided just to do it,” Curtis went on.

“It’s so f**kin cool you’re workin’ with Crowe,” Martin said and turned to his brother. “Told you she was workin’ with Crowe.”

Curtis nodded but was silent, overwhelmed by the excitement of it all. His eyes moving between me and Vance who had pulled up Jermaine and was positioning him against the wall next to Clarence.

My eyes returned to the kids. “Don’t say f**k and I’m not working with Crowe.”

“Yeah you are. I heard he’s like, your man and you’re like, his woman,” Martin replied.

“Yeah, Sniff said that, today, you two were huggin’ at that bookstore where they all hang out,” Curtis put in.

Damn Sniff and his mouth.

I looked at Vance and noticed he had turned to us. I didn’t know him well enough to guess his reaction to this latest fiasco but, if I’d had to guess, it wouldn’t have been him smiling wide like he was pleased about something which was exactly what he was doing.