2021-12-10 - Alguien que hace lo que puede

It's a frigid evening in the middle of December, a few days after news of the Police Chief's provisional reinstatement broke in the Gazette. It's been raining most of the day, and it's now turned to sleet as the temperature's dropped like a rock.

A car pulls up, with that familiar engine sound; that scratchy growl of far too many cylinders, and an alternator that's almost certainly on the fritz. The driver's side door claps shut after a moment, and the bulky figure who'd climbed out adjusts his baseball cap and digs for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter as he scans for something on his phone.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : You're going to want to step outside. Dress warm, it's cold as fuck out here.

Busted up cars are just the ~norm~. Before Isi's turned into a rumble of mangled metal it was just like that. That's a sad thought of her beloved car being scrap now. Sad sad sad.

What is scary is the text. The one from an unknown number telling her to come outside. "fuck." That's Isi's voice and she's wishing REAL HARD right now that there was a good back door to her place and/or that her front window wasn't currently covered with a plywood board in leiu of actually fixing the damn window. There isn't though, so eventually she does open up the door to peek out.

Y'know, just in case someone is trying to murder her. It's happened.

The car in question is a black, and fairly mud-spattered Charger with the lights still on and the engine running. And a big guy in a leather jacket and baseball cap leaned against the driver's side door, smoking a cigarette while he fiddles with his phone.

(TXT to Isi) Ruiz : It's de la Vega. It's safe to come out.

"fuck." This time to be heard through that crack before Isi pushes open the doorway and exits. She has thrown on a coat, but it doesn't fit well over the cast so she has left the arm hole unfilled and cradles it against her chest instead. It also means the jacket is unzipped.

She only goes a single step from her doorway, distrust rolling off her in waves. She does start the conversation. "I read you were reinstated."

He glances up from his phone at the sight of Isi emerging from her house, then shoves it into the back pocket of his jeans. Looks like he's favouring his left leg a little, the way he winces when he moves upright. There's also clearly someone in the car with him, slumped in the back seat that's separated from the front by a bulletproof security barrier.

"You going to be warm enough in that?" And then, "Yeah." He tries to smile, but it comes out funny. "Investigation's still, you know. Ongoing. I can't talk about it."

"I don't want to know." Isi returns, going to cross her arms, and remembering that's awkward, and so her left arm just falls back to her side again. She glances down at the comment her coat and then looks off tot he side a bit, ashamed. "It's my only coat. Fucking cast doesn't fit through the arm." Still not meeting his gaze, "What do you want?"

When it's pointed out to him that it's her only coat, Javier has the grace to leave it alone. Something in his eyes, though, like he's got more to say on the subject. But he grunts, drags off his cigarette, and crosses to the other side of the cruiser to pop the passenger door for her instead. "Get in."

"What?" Isi just backs the fuck up at that invitation, honest fear crossing her expression. This is one of those times when she isn't being very smart and letting her bias overcome her good sense. That's the passenger side love, not the bad guy seat.

"I didn't do anything - not since I fucking moved to town. Okay, when Alexander suggested going to the mob I considered it but I didn't I already gave you all my evidence." #fearfearfear.

He has to chuckle at that, because he maybe doesn't even blame her for a little healthy suspicion there. Though he's feeling charitable enough to point out that, "You didn't do shit. I have something for you. Get the fuck in, I'm freezing my fucking ass off, yeah?"

It is enticingly warm inside; he's got the heater running, and those seats look comfy. If you can ignore the sirens on the dashboard, and the fact that it screams COP.

Isi doesn't move right way - her heart rate it alllllllll the way up there right now, but reason slowly starts to reassert itself at his chuckle. There's some rhythmic breathing that goes on to try to calm things down.

She edges forward and gives him some space before tucking to get into the car itself. She does not, in fact, do a good job of ignore that it's a cop car. Upon sitting and having the door closed, she reaches for the seat belt then pauses - does she really want to be physically strapped into this car?

"Strap in," he advises. Then slams the door.

At which point, Isi's shut inside a cop car with some guy clearly half-unconscious in the back seat. A guy she may well recognise as her former boss. Assuming she can recognise him with that split lip and black eye. What're a few love taps between friends, right? He doesn't look terribly with it, and doesn't react as she sits down.

Once he's dragged off his cigarette a couple more times, Javier flicks it to the ground, obliterates it with the heel of his boot, and climbs in on the driver's side with a soft grunt. The laptop in the centre column is pushed out of the way, and he reaches up to the roof to flick off a couple of switches, and stow his handgun beneath his seat. Then he too belts himself in and puts the car into gear. "Just going to go for a little drive," he murmurs, "and talk about your friend."

Isi flinches hard core when that door slams, unconsciously trying to make herself as small as physically possible in that chair. It's in searching for a way out that she sees, then recognizes, Emil in the backseat.

"Emil - what?" The last time she saw HIM she was telling the entire auditing department about how he'd been cheating on her to cause enough of a scene so she could run for her life. Now he looks like shit - and she's in a cop car - and just.

"fuck." That gets repeated over and over. Cop cars have those little things where you can't open the doors from inside though, right? (#notacop) so she can't just bail though. "I swear I didn't know." Isi, going back to completely freaked out now.

"Didn't know what?" Javier looks askance to her for a moment, then focuses on his driving. The car's pulled away from the curb, and he guns it for the street. Not particularly hard, but a beast like this doesn't need much to make it move.

"Don't worry. He's not dead. And like I said, you didn't do shit." He scratches at his nose absently. "I was informed the case wasn't going to court, because you didn't want to testify. Don't fucking blame you. So I figured we'd have a little, uh.. what's it called? Impromptu? Impromptu court session right here."

"Anything," Isi answers his question before he can tell her not to worry. Because she's worrying. So worrying. Also, "shit," and she awkwardly pulls her seat belt on with her non-dominant hand.

She keeps glancing into the backseat at Emil, so completely outside her comfort zone. But he's right, "I don't want to make a target of myself - more of a target. Nothing ever comes of our judicial system." Talk about bitterness here. But to address the elephant in the room, "Why is he beat up?"

At some point, his radio goes off. It's silenced with another flick of a switch, and he reaches across her lap to pop open the glovebox and toss it inside. She might catch a glimpse of the contents briefly before it's shut: a holdout pistol, some zip ties, an unmarked bottle of pills and a handful of condoms.

"Because I assaulted him," is the cop's matter-of-fact confession, made while he waits to merge onto the highway. Then the accelerator's gunned again; and this time, the car jolts forward hard enough to pin them both to their seats. "And you're not going to be a target. We're going to decide what to do with him right here and now. Your options are, one: this fucking slimebag never works in this town again, his properties are immediately subject to civil forfeiture, which requires an immediate audit of all of his financials for the past ten years. Or two, I put him on a greyhound out of here, and if he sets foot in this town again, I'll see to it that every single thing of worth to him is burned to the fucking ground."

His dark eyes flick to the rearview mirror. "You catch that, Kovacs?" There's a groan from the back seat.

Isi shies away from his reacing hand as far as she can get, pressing against the edge of her seat and her cast grinding against the door even through the padding of her coat.

Slowly Isi's fear of Ruiz as the hand of the law is eroding and a different fear is setting in.

Fear of Javier Ruiz de la Vega the person - the one that turns off the radio and casually admits to beating another person blank and blue, and hurting everything to the ground.

She should answer him, but what he gets instead is a quiet, "What are you?"

His answer comes a minute or so later, once they're hurtling down the I-5 and the needle's edging 75 miles an hour. "Alguien que hace lo que puede," is the cop's husky murmur, while Kovacs bleeds and bleeds on his back seat. His hands rest easy on the wheel, ten and three o'clock, eyes forward rather than on his anxious passenger.

After another moment or two, he ventures, low-voiced, "What'll it be?"

Spanish? It flies ~right~ over her head. Cities like Yakima might be getting more racially diverse, but the reservations tend to welcome immigrants less. They don't have the rich farmland for migrant workers. Just... what they were cheated out of.

Isi's knuckles are white as she grips her seatbelt tightly. Still afraid, but her stubborn will butts right up against that demand for an answer. "What if they both fucking suck?"

Javier turns toward her slightly, giving her a fraction more of that brutish profile and unsmiling mien. "If you've got a better suggestion, I'm all fucking ears."

Quiet, Isi turns to let her hair fall over her face, as if it could block any bit of Ruiz' gaze from touching her. If she squeezes any harder on that seat she might just get juice out of it. "I want him to hurt - to be afraid for as long as I will be."

There's no answer to that. Just the sound of the road beneath them, and the rain painting the windows, and the occasional pained groan from the guy ziptied in the back seat. It's late enough in the day that the shadows are getting dense and thick, and it's hard to tell exactly what de la Vega's looking at. Isi, maybe, while she's trying to cram herself into a corner of his cruiser. Or maybe his mind's somewhere else entirely, and she may as well not be there.

Finally, he turns back to the road, blows a breath out his nose, and checks the time on his watch. Then they drive in silence for the next mile or so, before swerving off onto a darkened gravel road leading through the coastline.

Silence is better. Silence means she doesn't have to face hard decisions. Just stare out the window as the scenery zips past at what can ~not~ be a legal speed. She jumps when they do swerve off the toad - a question slipping past the silence. "Where is this?"

By the looks of it, they're just on the outskirts of town, headed in the rough direction of the border, and eventually British Columbia if they were to drive far enough. Not that that appears to be his intention, given that he brings the car to a halt on the roadside, where it sits with an agitated thrum of that big engine.

"Doesn't matter. You stay put, yeah? Won't be long." The glovebox is flipped open again, though instead of his service pistol, it's his own personal handgun he withdraws, and deposits into Isi's lap. She's given a wordless look, and then he unstraps himself, pops the lock on the back door, and climbs out with the engine still running.

Isi went for her seat belt the second they stopped - only to freeze when he reaches across into her space. The gun? Now... that is unexpected. Her eyes are locked on it and she doesn't touch it right away. He's out of the car before she gets up the courage to touch it. It doesn't take a rocket scientists to see she isn't experienced - but she's smart enough that the boom end goes THAT way, not pointed at her. Her index finger runs along the outside of the trigger guard till she finds the safety.

Which she doesn't turn off - because she's not a total moron.

He doesn't bring his own weapon with him, notably. Nor his badge or radio, or anything else that would identify him as a cop. Isi's watched for a moment or two to make certain she's not going to shoot herself with the gun, and then he opens the back door and goes to haul out the man slumped in the back seat. He, apparently, is not able or willing to put up much of a fight at this point.

"You stay put," he reminds Isi, before slamming the door and shoving the other man ahead of him into the darkened treeline. The cruiser's headlights pick out only the rain, and the lonely road ahead. Their chances of encountering anyone else out here are slim to none.

No shooting herself tonight. That would be super disrespectful for the nice people who got her patched up after the car accident - even if in compensation they got some of her soul for a while. Hello healthcare in America.

She flinches when the back door is open and then slammed shut again. Hands tightening around the run - though NOT about the trigger - still not being stupid here - she waits in the car, eyes following the pair of them as long as as they stay in the diffused light of the headlights. Then she'll stare at the spot unblinkingly. (Well, until her eyes go 'fuck you girl, blink!' and she does as a regular human must.)

De la Vega's none too gentle with the guy; who's taller than him by a couple of inches, but certainly has nothing on the cop in terms of pure bulk. Emil's given a shove when he turns around and starts to mouth off, which nearly sends him sprawling into the ditch. And then they're moving again at a forced march, and quickly swallowed up by shadows.

The seconds drag by. And then the minutes. Five, ten, twenty; it's hard to say how long they're in there, but Javier sure as hell was exaggerating when he said he'd be right back.

Then there's a gut-wrenching scream that lasts far, far too long before it tapers off and stops. And a minute or two later, the pair of them reappear again. Emil doesn't look any worse for wear physically speaking, but something about his face.. like he'd seen something that broke him on a fundamental level. This time, he doesn't resist being shoved back into the cruiser, and doesn't make a sound as the door's slammed shut.

It's just as impossible to tell how long Isi's nerves hold her into the car before she can't stay sitting there in the rumbling machine any longer. She tests her doorway first and surprise surprise, it does open. Guess she could have jumped out earlier. Lessons learned. Try the door handles next time. She keeps the run in her hands, loose and pointed down, as she steps out.

Oh, yeah, it's cold out here. And her coat doesn't zip.

But she doesn't get back into the car. Even when that scream rips the night air she doesn't get back in. She stares towards the sound and backs away a bit as Ruiz and .Emil come back. She holds her ground as she turns slowly to watch as Emil gets back into the car.

"What did you do?" Well, that would be stronger if her voice didn't shake. But it did.

Javier doesn't answer. Not immediately, anyway. Once he's settled in his seat and shut the door, he pauses to examine his knuckles. Which are a little bloodied; along with his cheek and beard, confirmed by a glance in the rear view mirror. He sniffs once, and digs for a box of tissues under the dash. "You said you wanted hurt. You said you wanted afraid." He swallows something back, bile maybe, and wipes his face clean. Then a quick stab of his dark eyes toward Isi's face, and for perhaps the first time tonight, he meets her gaze directly. Pins her there like an insect to flypaper.

His voice, when he speaks again, is a rough, low rumble an inch away from a snarl, "You should be careful what you ask for."

Isi... doesn't understand. Despite the blood on his face, and the way his eyes meet hers, she doesn't understand. The tension has her gripping the gun that much tighter though, as if that scant protection could keep her from that gaze.

"What did you just do." Yes, there's a quiver in her voice, but the words are clear. Tiny little backbone there. Working on it.

But it's hard because Javier is scary.

He's not stupid enough to think that all his power could save him if she decided to turn that gun on him. So, slowly -- so as not to startle her -- he attempts to reach for it and place his hand over the weapon, without taking his eyes off hers.

"He won't be bothering you again," is all that's offered in explanation, his voice cracking softly partway through. Like whatever he did out there created a fissure in him, just below the surface.

Isi doesn't shoot him. This is the most important sentence of this pose.

Her hands ARE shaking when he touches the nose of the gun and the pressure points it down just a little bit more. "That's not good enough." Said flatly - "Ravn says you can do... shit. He was on my sofa last night drunk as fuck and screwed over."

There's a few heartbeats as she keeps up that eye contact. "What did you do." A demand more than a question.

Javier's breath tumbles out in a tense laugh as his hand brushes along the muzzle of the gun, and briefly makes contact with Isi's fingers as he tries to take hold of the grip and remove it from her lap slowly. His touch is warm, callused.

"He fucking asked for that. He knew what he was getting into." The glovebox is popped open with his knuckles, and the weapon is shoved inside before it's shut once more.

As for Emil, who's practically gone catatonic there in the back, "I scared him a little." It's a dismissive grunt, two taps to his temple to give her some hint of what he means. Then he goes to put the car in gear, to get them moving again.

Isi almost drops the gun when his fingers touch hers. Not because she's got a touch problem like others, but because it scares the shit out of her. It's good that he takes control of it before it drops and bad things happen because it's a gun in a confined space.

She wraps her arms about herself again, this time leaving off the seat belt because that would require reaching and she's rather not at the moment. "You scared him." She turns to glance behind her at Emil, but then keeps turning to stares at him. There's something about the broken look of the man that she's just going to examine.

Abruptly, "Whatever you did." Which she doesn't understand even a little bit, "He deserved if. If I knew the fucker who drove the truck - I'd wish it on them too." She's refusing to be sorry.

"That's what you said you wanted," Javier replies, working his jaw slightly as he pulls a U-turn and gets them headed back into town. Gravel's kicked up by the tires as the vehicle accelerates, and within moments the lights of Gray Harbour are visible again as an orange smudge across the landscape.

The cop flicks his eyes over once or twice, but doesn't seem to have anything more to say.

"I'll regret it." Isi says, her voice tight with bitterness as she turns back around, putting her back to Email again. "I'll regret it when I don't jump any time a car passes by, and when I can sleep at night without being afraid." There's a line of steel in her voice.

"Until then... they fucking deserve what they get."

Lapsing into silence beside him she lets the miles go.

Isi will be dropped back off at her front door, once they roll into town. Advised not to bother mentioning any of this to the other cops, and the mud-spattered cruiser with its cargo veers off into the night.