A/N: ASHDFUYGKUHVI PENULTIMATE CHAPTER WOOOHOOO yeah it's crap as usual

Warnings: swearing, guns, gore, blood, kissing and shit like that

Word count: 1303

 'Ready?' Drake asks me.

'When have I ever not been?' I ask, then hold up a hand as he opens his mouth. 'That was rhetorical, you bastard.'

He chuckles to himself. 'Like that was going to stop me.' He raises his eyebrows. 'Besides, we aren't going anywhere. The coyotes haven't come yet.'

We crouch behind the dumpster, waiting for the coyotes to start streaming through the streets. Sam's out of the way now - probably creeping through the school somewhere, looking for Panda, assuming Caine will be there, unaware that Drake's got all four limbs functioning. I hear the patter of clawed feet, and I reach back and touch my rifle where it's slung over my shoulder, checking it's still there, I guess. I pull out my pistol, and we stand up, melding into the flow of coyotes. We swarm the day care, and I aim at the space between Mary Terrafino's eyes. I see them flick to the door, and I shake my head.

'Uh huh, go ahead and try, you won't make it two steps.'

She's silent for a bit, looking stunned. Her eyes slide down and focus on the hickeys littering mine and Drake's necks, and her face pales. Suddenly she turns to Drake.

'How dare you scare the children!'

There's a blur of red, a tiny sonic boom, and then there's a welt weeping red blood on Mary's cheek. As it drips down onto her shirt, Drake steps forward, towering over her. 'Shut up.'

'You can't just barge in and - I - Caine won't allow this,' she insists.

'What tells you that he didn't send us here?' I croon, slinging an arm around Drake and smiling sweetly at her.

'If you shut up, and you'll be safe,' Drake snarls.

'How dare you scare the children!' She repeats, and lightning quick, Drake's whip hand flies out and wraps tightly around her neck. Her eyes bulge out, her mouth falling open in a futile attempt to suck in air.

'What do you want?' She wheezes out.

Drake smiles knowingly down at her. 'The coyotes are hungry. Aren't you, Pack Leader?'

'No kill, no eat,' it whines back. Drake releases a shocked Mary disdainfully, his misogyny - for everyone but me - showing as he lets her collapse to the floor.

With a huff, Drake slumps into the glider in the corner, surveying the day care. I lean on the wall beside him, scrutinising Mary as she shakily goes to put in a DVD of the Little Mermaid. A movement outside catches my eye, just as every single one of the coyote's heads raises as they catch a new scent. I stroll over to the window and wink at Sam through the glass, smoothly yanking out my pistol and flipping it in my fingers to point at the closest kid.

Bang, I mouth, mimicking the recoil. Slowly, I pull down the blind, giving him a mock salute. I wade through the kids, stepping on more than five pudgy hands of those not slow enough to move out of the way.

As I walk past Drake, his whip snakes out and wraps around my waist, pulling me onto his lap.

'Hey,' he says softly, and I grin and kiss him, running my hand through his sandy hair and knotting my fingers in its strands, locking our faces together. Mary clears her throat, and I turn around, brows raised.

'Anything I can do for you, ma'am?'

'There are kids here, you know.'

I stand up, watching her as she flinches as I stalk closer. 'If they ever survive, they might as well learn now. People kiss.' I say with fake brightness. 'And speaking of teaching, don't you think the kids would like to see what your brains look like outside of your head?'

'Dinner time!' A voice yells, and I spin around, seeing an Asian girl holding a tray of raw hamburgers.

'Taylor!' Drake yells, whip hand snapping just as she hurls the hamburgers against the wall and teleports away. The meat drips slowly down the wall. There's a second of silence, and then the coyotes go absolutely mental. They start barking madly, trampling over the kids, attacking each other, the Pack Leader lashing out at the others around him, trying to get a share of the meat. And suddenly, the coyotes, the wall, are up in the air.

'Dekka!' Drake roars, and suddenly a beam of white green light slices through the coyotes, leaving globules of blood floating there. Just as soon as they rose, the coyotes and the wall drop to the ground, and the deadly beam of light swings towards Drake and I.

Quickly, we turn, slipping away, sprinting over to a dumpster and hiding behind it. I spot Sam, watching as he walks past, and I see my chance. I leap out, tackling him to the ground and twisting as he tries to pin my arms, squeezing out from under him and pinning him to the ground. I pull out my pistol, keeping a foot on Sam's chest.

'You may be a surfer dude, but I'm the Girl in Black,' I say, making quotation marks with my left hand, leaning down. 'Remember, Sammy, what I said back at Clifftop?' I croon. 'Or shall I remind you: you hurt him again, you get even worse. And I'm pretty sure you burnt off his arm.' I smile coldly. 'I'll kill you, but first I get my fun.' I move the muzzle of my pistol to Sam's right elbow, pull the trigger. He screams, when the loud bang bang bang of bullets and I have to spin and raise a forcefield over Sam, Drake and I. I don't even need to speak to get Drake to start attacking, whip hand cracking down on Sam's back almost before he's flipped him over, opening up a red welt. He wraps it around Sam's neck and squeezes, when suddenly a bolt of light shoots through my vision. I feel its impact on my forcefield, feel it buckle and break. As soon as it does, the spray of bullets picks up again, and I duck behind the dumpster, Drake close behind me, Sam left half conscious on the ground.

'Back to the house,' Drake whispers in my ear. 'Quick, before he gets us.'

I lope down the street, holding up a forcefield, not that it'll do much against Sam. Drake follows, guarding my back, and he reaches into his back pocket and passes me his keys to get into our house. Almost as soon as I'm through the door, he slams me against the wall.

'You really said that if he hurt me...?'

'No, of course not, I just made it up and hoped he played along, Drakey.' I laugh. 'Of course I said that.' I grin, twirling a lock of hair around my finger. 'And I meant it.'

'God,' he mutters.

'What?' I ask, taking his whip hand and curling it around my pinky.

'You're fucking hot when you get angry.'

I laugh. 'Is that so?'

Drake doesn't answer verbally, simply crowds me up against the wall, a hand running lightly up my waist, over my ribs, stopping dangerously close to the undersides of my breasts and wrapping around my ribcage, pulling me closer to him and kisses me with more gentleness that I thought was possible from him, his whip hand curling around me tightly, making sure I'm not going anywhere. He stays there for a second, lips against mine, before pulling away.

'Let's lay low and lick our wounds for a while, huh?'

'Your eyes are telling me you're going to be licking something other than your wounds, Merwin.'

'Does that bother you?' He asks, hands slamming against the wall, either side of my head, boxing me in.

I smile. 'Not a bit.'