Sam screamed as saw Rebecca nearly drop when that piece of shit from earlier buried his fist in her gut.

"No! I'mma rip your eyes out!"

The wall was so close... she just had to get Epstein's semiconscious dead weight over to it. Maybe loop his arm through the ladder or something. "Doug... Lance, wake the fuck up man—" Water got in her mouth, making her sputter. "Come on, I need to go help her, wake up wake up wake up."

He groaned, but didn't seem coherent yet, and if she stopped to let her rage cool, she could've broken down crying agonizing over choosing to rescue him or helping Rebecca. Fuck that kind of video game, there's always an option C. I just have to be faster!

The majority of her upper body muscles burned, but that was just pain she was going to re-inflict tenfold. A little further to the wall, get Epstein secured, get back across the pool. Grab a chair and swing it, or bash one of the tables and get a shard of glass to open his throat with...

Oh, thank god. Jack, you're my fucking hero. She saw the blond youngster running full tilt alongside the pool towards her, and when he got close, he lay down at the edge of the pool and reached out towards her with both hands.

"I can hold him up, Sam. I'll keep his head above water."

She could have cried again, with relief this time, and probably would thinking back about it later. But for now, more blood needed to be spilled, and not anyone's she cared about. Just a little... Yes!

Jack's small hands balled into fists around Epstein's shirt and he pulled, hooking one arm under Epstein's good shoulder as Sam slid out from under it. "Got him!"

"Thank you, Jack. Thank you." She immediately flipped around in the water and practically stomped both feet against the wall, and heard Jack shout as she rocketed away.

"Kick his ass, Sam!"

That is exactly the plan, little man. Sound was garbled after that as she plunged her head underwater and settled into a forward crawl / 'freestyle' stroke, sucking in air over her right shoulder every other arm swing. She looked up one time halfway across the pool to make sure she was on course and saw Rebecca slammed against the fence, then lifted her head again several strokes later as she neared the wall.

As she reached for the edge, motion a few yards to Rebecca's right caught Sam's eye. Rufus, dear sweet lick-you-to-death-or-kill-you-with-his-breath Rufus, was just clearing the the hedged fence. His leap to the top had been blind, and his landing messily collided with the chairs and a table. Some of that might have been because he was already looking to his side at his human in distress.

She winced as he crashed to the ground, one leg tangled briefly in an armrest, but he quickly got to his feet again, let loose with a deep-chested noise she'd never heard him make before, lunged two galloping leaps, and then flew at the struggle against the fence. Seventy-something pounds of angry, blockheaded, thick-jawed mutt tore Rebecca's attacker away from her, carrying both Rufus and his target at least a yard away. Even as they tumbled to the ground, his jaws stayed locked around the arm they'd seized, and once upright, he started thrashing violently, snarling the entire time.

Sam hauled herself out of the water, hissing as she scraped her shin against rough grout at the edge. More blood on the balance sheet. "Rebecca!"

Sam saw her shoulders heave twice where she'd landed, but then Rebecca's eyes snapped up and locked onto the continuing fight. Sam's followed suit when she heard a yelp and repeated hollow thumps before resumed snarling. The man who'd been maligning Rebecca so had shifted his ire to Rufus, trying to shake him off and striking at him.

Rebecca's primal shriek startled Sam, making her fear she'd been injured even worse than it seemed. That notion was dispelled when Sam saw the speed with which Rebecca bolted towards the fight, not even lifting herself fully upright, and then landed on that human shitbag with a knee pinning his free arm and another on his chest.

Sam was dashing towards them as fast as she could, so she clearly saw when Rebecca's right arm cocked back all the way and then drove forward repeatedly.

"Don't..."

Punch.

"You..."

Punch.

"Touch..."

Punch.

"My..."

Punch.

"DOG!"

Punch.

Sam was close enough by the last strike to see Rebecca had been pulling up on his shirt with her left hand while wailing away on him with her right, and let go just before the finishing blow so her fist sent his head back to the concrete. His nose was clearly disjointed, the areas around his eyes were a blotchy mix of red and pallid, and both of his lips were split.

**

Rebecca collapsed back away from fuckface's well-fucked-over-face and landed on her butt, gasping for breath. Sam was immediately at her side, extended fingers cool against the flushed skin of Rebecca's shoulder. Rebecca looked up at her with relief and smiled weakly.

Sam briefly looked like she was trying to make a decision... then Rebecca saw it click. Sam drove her heel into fuckface's abdomen, twice, with her weight behind it. "Or my girlfriend, asshole." Then, she squatted down next to Rebecca, face full of rage melting to worry, plenty there for Rufus too as she glanced at him.

"Rufus," Rebecca called, coughing. "Leave it."

He stopped thrashing, but still held the gnawed limb in his teeth.

"Rufus. Leave it."

He dropped it after a perfunctory growl, and she tensed when he paused to sniff at the beaten man's face and neck, but he didn't sink his teeth in. He just made his way over to lick at her with concern, but clearly positioned himself between her and their defeated foe.

She realized for the first time that his leash was dragging around after him, still attached to his collar. She moved it aside and wrapped her arms around his neck with a trembling sigh into his shoulder. "Who's my big strong boy. Who's my brave boy." After a moment, she looked at Sam, who was kneeling now, blatantly fretting over her. "Lance?"

"Jack's got him, he's okay for now."

Rebecca closed her eyes and groaned. "Good kid."

"Great kid. Oh god. I'm sorry I took so long." Sam gently touched Rebecca's face, then trailed down her arms, inspecting. "What do you need? What hurts? I saw him..." Her hands hesitated just below Rebecca's ribs.

"Everything hurts at least a little bit, but nothing super bad. Stop apologizing." Rebecca coughed as she inevitably laughed at the irony of her saying that. "Ow. Okay. Coughing hurts more, but I've still had cramps worse than what that pussy could do."

"Don't grace him with that word."

"Nng." Rebecca winced and tried to push her hair back, deciding to let Sam finish the effort. "Don't, don't make me laugh. How bad do I look?"

"I'd still invite you to prom. But really... not too bad. Jesus, you had me scared."

Rebecca sighed and leaned her head against Sam's. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Sam started to reply, but the both startled when the gate banged open again and the one remaining guy that had been at the table hurried in. They also both swore, and Sam reached to help Rebecca up.

But then he looked behind him, with only the briefest double-take their way as he turned... and Laura entered, Rebecca's pistol in hand, tucked in close to her hip and leveled at the carrot-top. Rebecca could see the glow of the active laser sight where the beam brushed Laura's uppermost knuckle.

"You made me run," Laura said in a tight monotone that Rebecca had learned to worry about in her youth, "for the first time in decades. I haven't held this gun much. It would be really easy for it to go off accidentally."

She bobbed the muzzle in the universal sign for 'keep moving, dumbass' and after ushering him further towards the diving board, ordered him to sit in such a sharp tone Rebecca was surprised Rufus didn't obey too.

Sam slid under Rebecca's arm, wrapping an arm around her waist, ready to support most of her weight. Rebecca was pretty steady, but found Sam's closeness doubly reassuring. Rufus did respond to Sam's prompt to 'heel' right away, and paced beside them towards Laura.

Laura's prisoner looked back and forth between the four of them. "I told them it was stupid and to knock it off, I swear. I tried to make them... and when the other guy showed up I tried to calm everyone down."

Rebecca glanced at the gun, seeing the small tab that pushed up when a bullet was chambered. Good, Mom remembered to check that. She had the magazine in, but specifically had not left a round loaded while the pistol was in the bag — just one more layer of safety with the kids around. With that out of the way, Rebecca refocused on the guy running his mouth.

"Look, they—" His eyes widened, and he suddenly was trying to back away from her without getting up fully. "Oh shit. I'm so sorry, we didn't know, I swear we wouldn't have done it if we knew..."

She narrowed her eyes at him, no patience regenerated after her ordeal. "Knew what? That we'd kick your ass? Kinda had it coming."

"No, yes, sort of! We didn't know it was you!"

Rebecca took another step towards him, fists clenching, but careful not to step in front of her mother. "Clarify what the fuck you are talking about before I decide you need a turn too."

He gestured frantically towards her, but wasn't making eye contact. "That it's you! The girl — girls — from Echo!"

Rebecca realized he was looking down — not at her boobs, apparently even he wasn't stupid enough to do that at gunpoint — but to one side. Trying to avoid eye contact and not look challenging? No. At... her shoulder? She glanced down for a split second — her rashguard was thoroughly rumpled from the fighting, waistline uneven and sleeves ridden up, and most of her ricochet scar was exposed. She failed to see how it made him nearly piss himself, but filed her evident reputation away for later consideration and glared at him again. "One, that shouldn't matter. Two, get your asshole friend out of the water, then sit there and shut up. And this time? Do a better job of dissuading them from being asshats."

He nodded shakily and began to comply, so Rebecca withdrew to a safe vantage point with Laura and Sam. Laura clearly gave her a concerned once-over while passing Sam their bags. "Why don't you let me keep playing HBIC for a bit, while you get dried off and see to the kids and— shit, is that the guy who came with you to find me? He wasn't part of... whatever the fuck this was, was he?"

Rebecca shook her head, remembering halfway through the gesture not to move too much. "Not on their side anyway. We gotta check on him too. Will you be okay if the fuckface on the ground there wakes up?"

Laura bared her teeth. "Oh, I'm pretty sure I can keep these dipshits in line. From the looks of things, I could just let Rufus finish what he started."

Rebecca let out an amused, visceral huff. "Thanks, Mom." She hesitated for a moment before nodding wearily, then let Sam shoo her into a chair.

Carmen was already helping Nate up, and it looked like Epstein was rebooting enough to hold one hand to his head. If he wasn't too worse for wear, maybe she really could just relax for a minute. The chair had a high back; she was happy to slump against it as the adrenaline waned. Maybe that crash added to the shivering that started after a few moments, and she dragged a towel up from their pile of belongings to wrap around herself.

Rufus nosed his way under her left hand, so she ran her fingers soothingly — for both of them? — through his fur and closed her eyes.