Arria stopped in the middle of the road, the hair on the back of her neck vertical with a silent warning. The night air swirled around her, bringing with it the smell of unwashed bodies. Whoever was stalking her did not consider hygiene a priority. She crinkled her nose. Probably men. About seven of them give or take one, laying in wait up ahead. Were they really going to try to ambush her? Really? Why did that even seem like a good idea? All she had on her was the Platinum Chip that she was supposed to deliver to The Strip.

Someone walked out behind her, trying the herd her forward. Smirking, she walked toward her would-be attacker, cracking her knuckles. It had been a while since she had gotten the chance to stretch her muscles. This was going to be fun.

The man wielded a knife wildly in her direction, which she avoided. She used his momentum to bring him closer. When she was within arm's length, he reached out again. In the blink of an eye, Arria grabbed his arm and twisted as hard as she could. Vaguely, she could hear the bones in his arm crack. With a gentle tinkling sound, the knife fell to the ground. He groaned in pain before she flipped him over and kicked his head in.

As she began to wipe his brains from her boots, two more thugs appeared, this time on the road in front of her. Abandoning her cleaning, she walked out to meet them. Both wielded shotguns aimed directly at her head. She raised her hands, pretending to surrender. They came closer, caution written in their movements. One man put his shotgun back in his pack to begin patting her down. When he was bent down to check her legs, she grabbed his gun and shot his partner in the face. Then, she beat him with the butt until he stopped moving.

She raised the pilfered gun to strike one last time when her vision suddenly became blurred by pain. Her body was propelled to the ground by a brutal knockout hit from behind. She rolled herself over, groaning, to find a man in a checkered suit standing over her. Before she could try to get up, he brought the gun down, and all she saw was black.

Her eyes were lead weights which she fought to open. Her knees protested the weight of kneeling. The pounding in her head was a constant reminder that, despite whatever had happened, she was still alive. Wait. What had happened? She groaned quietly. Slowly, the previous events flooded back into her mind. At least she had thrown her pack at the last minute. Bastards didn't deserve her stuff.

The calm of the night was disturbed by the sounds of someone out of her range of sight digging into the earth, his pace steady and unhurried. Men in front of her argued loudly about some kind of payment, and she flinched at their raised voices. She couldn't make sense of what they were arguing about. Through squinted eyes, she attempted to survey her surroundings.

The man in a checkered suit stood directly in front of her. He seemed to be the one in charge, characterized by his proud stance and sneer of importance. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out over her head. He was surrounded by four other men, all of them with some sort of weapon. Her eyes darted between them trying to formulate an escape plan, despite the less than desirable odds. It wasn't as if she had seen worse. She tested her trusses to find no weakness. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Guess who's waking up over here," one of the men commented. His voice was rough, and he had a slight accent that she would have guessed was Great Khan. She lifted her head to look her captors in the face.

The man in the checkered suit took one last drag, blew the smoke in the direction of her face, and stomped it out. "Time to cash out," he said simply. His men begged him to just "get it over with", but he held up a hand.

"Maybe Khans kill people without lookin' 'em in the face, but I ain't a fink, dig?" His companions shuffled nervously with that proclamation. He finally looked at her as he pulled out the platinum chip she was supposed to deliver from his jacket pocket. Anger surged in her, and she noted that anger was probably not what she should have felt. "You made your last delivery, kid." And with that, he put away the chip and pulled out a mint condition 9mm pistol. She eyed the detail with appreciation. It was adorned with nickel and ivory, definitely for show. Not the most practical gun for the Mojave, but he didn't look like he had to use it much.

"Sorry you got twisted up in this scene," he said, eyeing her intently. He flashed the gun in a way that was meant to scare her. She just smirked up at him in defiance. "From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck. But, truth is...the game was rigged from the start." He aimed the gun straight at her head. She reared back and spit in his face right as he pulled the trigger. Always knew I would die by the gun, she thought to herself before everything went black.

A gun shot followed by blinding pain and a white light were her last memories. The phrase "18-carat run of bad luck" echoed in the nothingness. It could all have been a dream if it weren't for the pain. At least there was no more fighting, no more guilt. Whatever happened to her now, she was free. Slowly, the pain subsided, melting into comfort, and she floated on an ocean of tranquility, vaguely wondering if this was what death felt like.