Arianna's Tale Pt. 01

Through a tear in a bed sheet haphazardly stapled over a grimy window, soft traces of moonlight peeked in on the face of a sleeping blonde. Her snores echoed through the rather messy room. Clothing lay strewn about the floor, a vanity table had a veritable pile of rarely used beauty products and occasionally a broken light would flicker through the cracks of the nearby bathroom door. An alarm clock with a thick layer of dust read 11:52 PM. It was late at night and all was peaceful, it was not the time in the evening when you'd expect someone banging on your front door loudly, startling you out of your sleep.

But this is exactly what happened.

She was off in a world all her own, dreams full of money, freedom, and materialistic items she hoped to acquire someday when she was forcefully yanked back to reality. It came as slight taps at first, teasing her from her state of sleep. But then came the bangs again as a fist slammed on her front door loudly. Arianna eased open her eyes and groaned. Who in the hell was knocking on her door at...

She glanced at her clock.

Almost midnight. She sighed, in this neighborhood, it could be just about anyone. The local junkie, the police, or even her dealer wanting to see if she needed a 'hookup'. It could even be a gang member waiting for her to open the door so they could blow her away with a shotgun. The opportunities were endless and yet, this is the way she liked it. The reason she'd joined up with Styx. The reason she was a part of 'asset recovery'. She didn't look it, but she knew how to throw a punch and appear intimidating.

Arianna sighed and swung her legs over the edge of her bed. She was still in her clothes from the night before. A pair of torn-up blue jeans, grey socks, a white t-shirt, and a softshell green jacket she was rather partial to despite its many holes.

The banging from the other room escalated slightly, a voice carrying through her small 1 bedroom home. She couldn't make out who it was as she tousled her hair, nearly tripping on a pile of laundry on the floor as she stumbled out the door and into her main living space which was still messy, but considerably cleaner than her bedroom. A basic room with a small kitchenette and a stack of 'overdue' bills laying on her counter. Sometimes illegal activity just didn't pay.

Arianna made her way to the door silently, first pressing her eye to the peephole to see who it was.

A relieved sigh escaped her as she recognized two of her closest friends. Snips and Ajax.

She tugged the door open and looked out at them through sleepy eyes, "The hell are you guys knocking at my door at almost midnight for..?" An edge of irritation in her voice.

Snips and Ajax looked at one another and then to Arianna before Snips spoke up, "Uhm. Ari, it's Wednesday. We were supposed to go smash up that big building on the edge of town remember? Hopefully, drum up a bit of 'protection' money from whoever owns it."

Arianna furrowed her brows slightly when she considered Snip's words. She did vaguely remember that conversation. Part of their bosses strategy of getting more 'customers' per-se. Customers who paid for nothing more than to not have their properties smashed up by the Styx. Arianna grumbled and kicked open her door.

"Right. Give me a second to get my kit. You better be driving, because I don't remember where I put my keys after my bender yesterday."

Snips and Ajax followed her inside. Ajax whistled slightly, "Jeeze Ari. Since when did you let yourself go so much? Don't worry about the car. We will drive."

"Let myself go?" She asked pointedly, casting a dangerous glare at Ajax. Snips gave Ajax a sharp elbow in the ribs and waved Ari off to grab her kit. She disappeared into the bedroom.

"Ajax. Dude. She just lost her other half. The wounds are still fresh. Of course she's having a hard time keeping herself together you moron. You know her other half--"

"How about we cut that story short Snips. I'd rather not go back down that hole, nor do I have any interest in bashing your head in tonight." Ari said as she came out of her bedroom, a navy blue backpack slung over one shoulder with a baseball bat casually fed through the straps like some sort of post-apocalyptic warrior.

Snips nodded quick, "Right. Consider it ended. Sorry Ari. Let's get this show on the road then!"

Together the three of them headed out of the small one-bedroom house. A tiny little plot of land Ari had 'acquired' thanks to a charitable 'donation' from one of their protection customers who couldn't shake up the cash to pay their bill. Arianna had won the bid for the place and had gone ahead and gotten completely behind on every single bill that came with it. Of course, there were some extenuating circumstances involved and luckily enough not many bill collectors were daring enough to try and collect from an alleged member of Styx.

Down the paved front path they went, climbing into a '61 Lincoln Continental that Snips had picked up for a song at a wreckers auction. He claimed it made him look more 'gangster'. Ari hated that description, but she could appreciate the jet-black car with its suicide doors in the back and sleek look that Snips kept in good nick.

Ari slipped into the back, setting her backpack down beside her and looking up at the sky. The clouds had backed off a bit tonight, letting a wash of glowy moonlight trickle down over the city. Usually, at this time of year, the fall sky was full of rain or snow clouds. Most mornings greeted you with a thin layer of frost across the grass and fog thick enough you could cut through it with a knife. This was one of the few clear nights they'd had in a while, which was good. Because with how Snips drove, having any semblance of ice on the road was pretty much a death sentence.

Ari stared out the window as the other two climbed in. From behind, you'd think Snips and Ajax were twins. Both with their tawny brown hair cut into no-nonsense buzz cuts and wearing stupid-looking hats called snapbacks which had a flat bill and in Ari's opinion, were the silliest looking hat on the planet. But alas, her two friends insisted on wearing them and who was she to judge. To each their own. She leaned back and closed her blue eyes.

It wasn't a long trip to the building in question. A huge facility on the edge of the city encircled by 12 foot high hedges and fencing topped with barbed wire. The place had been there for as long as Ari could remember and rumors always floated around about what exactly it was. Some said it was an old abandoned prison. Which would make sense except it had brand new gates and its parking lot was often populated with vehicles most days of the week. Others said it was a mental asylum for dangerous cases. To Ari, this made the most sense given the bars on the windows and the barbed wire-topped fencing encircling the property.

It wasn't too far, so she may as well try and get a bit more shuteye. Or at least she might have if Snips hadn't turned on the radio and cranked it up loud enough to blow out a normal person's eardrums.

~You're going to be deaf by the time you're thirty Snips.~ She thought to herself as the car rumbled along, blasting its rock music loudly. So much for a 'stealth' operation. Though luckily Snips was smart enough to turn the volume off as they neared the edge of the city. Where the buildings became farther and farther apart and the only light was the moonlight still weakly shining down through a thick copse of snow clouds rolling in.

Snips parked the car in a small abandoned lot a kilometer down from the edge of their target property. It was better they walk the rest of the way instead of parking at the building which could very well be covered in cameras or have night security stumble across their car.

As they walked. Arianna shivered a little bit. Wishing she'd brought her thicker jacket. Her breath showed in puffs of steam as she spoke, "Have we ever considered that this could actually be a facility for mentally dangerous individuals? What if it's full of serial killers or something?"

"If it is. They're likely all in bed Ari. You think a facility full of dangerous people is going to let them wander the grounds at half-past midnight?" Ajax responded.

Alright. At least Ajax had a bit of logic bouncing around in that thick skull of his, "Alright. Point taken. So what's the plan then? Break into the yard, smash some windows and leave a note as per usual?"

Snips nodded, "Yup. Pretty simply smash and drop. Hopefully, you've got a good swing with that bat because every single set of windows is barred like some sort of prison."

"We talking steels bars? Or those flimsy aluminum cages?"

"Vertical bars."

"Overhead swings it is." Arianna mumbled as they reached the exterior 'hedge' surrounding the property. She tugged her steel bat from inside her backpack as Snips and Ajax worked on breaking and tearing their way through the hedges until they had a hole right through the fence.

"Holy crap, these bushes are like a foot and a half deep. For how much maintenance they take, why in the hell wouldn't you just put in walls...? Cheaper in the fuckin' long run." Ajax cursed as he pulled a pair of wire-cutters out of the black duffel bag he'd brought with him.

"Could you just shut up and get the fence open?" Arianna snapped.

"Just chill Ari. We're going as quick as we can."

"Yeah well I wasn't expecting to be up and about tonight and I have no interest in freezing my ass off in the less than zero degree weather, alright? So shut up, hurry up and let's get this over with." She had a very sharp edge to her voice as she spoke and also one of authority. There was a reason not many people spoke 'down' to her. Or at least those who did only did it once.

32 cuts later and Snips was pushing the snipped-off piece of fence inward, "Alright. Doors open ladies and gents. Shall we?" Snips asked with a bit of a stupid grin. Arianna shoved him right through the hole and slipped into the interior of the yard with Ajax in tow.

The three weren't sure what to expect on the inside. Perhaps just a big courtyard? A couple of picnic benches, maybe a basketball court?

That is definitely not what they found. When they emerged from their hole in the fence all three of them paused and stared. They were standing in the middle of a lush field. A field definitely not visible from the road. It was well kept and scattered about the field in some sort of course, were jump standards, like the ones used for horses to jump. Arianna blinked a few times, "It's like those poles I used to jump when I did horseback riding as a kid. Is this a horse facility? What in the fuck is all this about?"

"It certainly doesn't smell like a farm. You'd think if they kept horses then it'd have that farm smell, right?" Ajax quipped.

"Good point." Arianna walked up to the nearest jump standard. It was freshly painted with a steel pole showing no signs of rust on it, "I mean, this is definitely as well kept as the grass. Guess we ought to be careful, I have no interest in getting trampled by a damn horse."

"Righto. Let's go smash some windows!" Snips said quickly, the three of them heading off across the field towards the main building which was hard to see except for the lights shining through some of the lower windows. It was still a bit of a walk to get to the stone exterior of the building. It was hard to tell what everything they passed was but Arianna pointed out what looked like a round pen for horses, some sort of obstacle course that looked like it was for dogs, and a line of odd cages in a small enclosed space that definitely couldn't house horses.

"So not horses then? Maybe a dog kennel? This is an awfully big dog kennel." Ajax said as they reached the exterior wall of the building. From a distance, the building seemed slightly decrepit during the day but it was clear THIS part of the building, the one enclosed inside the fenced-in area was extremely well kept. There wasn't a crack in sight, not a chip of paint out of place. It was completely different from the front of the building and Arianna had to admit, it was such a curious thing. If it was a dog kennel, had they just cut a huge hole in the fence for the dogs to escape? She'd had a dog once and didn't like the idea of accidentally letting several people's best friends get loose and hurt.

She made a note to find a way to resecure the fence on the way out.

"You done admiring the paintwork Arianna? You'd think with someone with the last name Allegri which translates to swift, would be quicker at getting to work." Snips teased.

Arianna shot him a glare and huffed, "Shut the hell up Snips. At least I'm good for something other than driving the car and snipping away some fencing." She tugged her bat out from the straps of her backpack and walked up to the nearest barred window. The window was high up enough that she couldn't see through it and she had no interest in trying to climb ice-slicked bars to peek into the window. She took a few test swings with her bat and then cast a grin at Snips and Ajax.

"Batters up." She said before she launched an overhead swung the slipped between the wide-set steel bars and slammed into the window. The resounding crash echoed through the courtyard and Arianna had to scramble backward quickly to avoid being showered in glass.

A chorus of whinnies echoed from inside the building as Arianna stumbled backward, "Oh shit, it actually is horses inside. Best get this done quickly, that made a LOT more noise than I expected." She said quickly, running to the next window, glad that no sort of alarm or anything had sounded. That was promising, unless it was some sort of silent alarm, in which case, haste was their best bet.

"Let's have some fun, shall we?" Asked Arianna with a bit of a grin, that self-destructive and angry itched having been scratched by the violent smashing of a window.

The three of them spent the next twenty minutes smashing out every window they could find and getting lost in that destructive 'high'. Their laughter echoed through the courtyard as they smashed their way around the building like a tornado. They pushed over a stone statue of a horse directly behind the building, smashing it to pieces, they bent and folded odd hollow steel posts with rings on top of them into the ground and as their mini-destructive wave settled down they lit a large wooden shed to the side of one huge set of doors at the back of the building. The three stood, watching the flames lick up the side of the shed, grinning stupidly.

Ajax had left a note taped to what appeared to be the main door of the building. A note implying that 5k a week would protect the building from such blatant destruction and vandalism. From the eyes of other 'organizations'.

As the three of them stood, watching the flames engulf the large shed. The smell of burning wood and leather finding their noses. Behind them, the sound of a door opening and shouts echoing through the courtyard could be heard. Arianna turned quickly, looking towards the building. She saw flashlights clicking on and could hear shouts echoing across towards them. She couldn't make out what was being said but she knew what they had to do.

"Jigs up! Split up, meet back at the car!" Arianna said before taking the straightest path into the dark that she could. Straight ahead and out behind the building. Several flashlights followed her while several others followed Snips and Ajax as they ran left and right respectively. They could have made a beeline for their exit, but splitting up had its advantages. Even if they were running almost blindly in the dark except for the moonlight.

It would seem the chase was on.