Editing Getting the Band Together (section)

=== '''The Station'''===

A few minutes later, Eddie returned, carrying a half-full 40oz bottle. “No one there. The door is on the west side. Okay... probably won’t be locked. We sneak up. I’ll open the door and yell at them. I’ll throw this bottle of... beer... piss... at them. They’ll chase me out. Especially if I hit Wart. While they’re chasing me, you go in, find Cali, and get her out of there. I’ll run them as far as possible. I’m pretty sure I can outrun them.” He said it uncertainly but with determination.

“Sounds good. Let’s go.”

They sneaked up to the station, going around to try peeking in the windows, finding them taped shut. The industrial buildings surrounded the station and shadowed it from the sun. She looked it over and figured it must have several rooms inside. Two bays in the garage. Six empty gas pumps. A good squat.

Eddie shook his head, looking terrified but determined. He reached up and grabbed the door handle, opening it quickly and stepping in.

Eddie looked around the room and saw the surprised look on Wart’s face. "Look! Eddie’s come to sing for us!"

Eddie yelled raspingly, “YOU FUCKERS!!!!! WHERE’S CALI!!!????” He threw the bottle and hit Wart in the chest, splashing him liberally.

Behind him, Gadget stepped in.

The men jumped up as one to chase Eddie. Eddie turned and bumped surprisingly into Gadget.

Gadget put her right hand on his chest, pushing him hard against the door jamb. With her left hand, she raised a .45 automatic.

The young men stopped. Wart said, "I don’t know you, but pointing a gun at me is going to get you slung up in our back room, Blue."

She looked around the room at the squalor. Cigarettes, beer, takeout boxes. The smell of sweat and male testosterone. Somewhere was the smell of desperation and semen. Her hackles rose.

She regarded the men. She could feel their anger. She looked at Eddie, as her hand pressed him to the door-jam. Fear. Shock. Uncertainty.

"That thing looks like a cannon in your hand, you stupid slit. Put that down, and I might let you walk to the bedroom rather than beat you down and make Eddie watch us."

The loud crack of the gun echoed in the room, shocking everyone except Gadget.

Gadget tracked from left to right, putting a round into each of the chests of the gang members. Eddie’s eyes went wide in shock.

Gadget stepped into the room, slowly walking to each man, kicking them for life signs.  Wart was last, looking up in despair. "No!!! Please!!! No!!!" Gadget fired again.

She turned to Eddie, “Find Cali.” He staggered past her, walking past the dead into other rooms.

Gadget moved among them, taking wallets, cash, and jewelry and stashing them in her pack. Weapons she quickly put into plastic ziplock bags and put them into her satchel. She looked over the table and grabbed several bags of green herbs. She walked around the room and found a backpack, looking in she found several kilos of pressed powder.

She stood and went to each of the dead and took a picture of each with her cell phone.

She made a call. "Gadget. Targets Neutralized. Send in the Cleaners."

Eddie came out carrying a limp girl. She was bruised and sweaty, dirty, and clearly had been abused. Nude, of course. He was white as a sheet, a mixture of awe and terror. Gadget stepped to a couch and shook off a comforter. They put her into it, wrapping her.

"You killed them," Eddie stammered, his voice cracking as his mind struggled to reconcile the woman beside him with the efficient, lethal force he had witnessed moments ago. "How could you?"

Gadget didn’t flinch at the accusation. Her gaze remained fixed ahead, her steps even and deliberate. Her voice, when it came, was calm, devoid of the chaos that lingered in Eddie's mind. "How? Efficiently," she repeated, her tone as cold and deliberate as her actions.

The weight of her words struck Eddie harder than the gunshots, leaving him speechless. The horrors of the room behind them—the blood, the screams, the sharp finality of death—clung to him like a suffocating fog. But there was no hesitation in Gadget, no regret in her stride. To her, it was necessary. Clean.

They crossed the empty road, the cracked asphalt beneath their feet a reminder of the desolation that surrounded them. The industrial skyline loomed like a graveyard of forgotten ambitions. Gadget kept her hand on her satchel, its contents jingling faintly—a collection of stolen wallets, weapons, and evidence now safely in her possession. She knew every item had a purpose. Every detail served a larger goal.

Eddie's steps faltered as he glanced down at Cali. Her face, bruised and streaked with grime, remained slack and lifeless. But there was a faint rise and fall to her chest, a fragile confirmation that she was alive. It was enough for now.

"You didn’t have to kill them," Eddie murmured, his voice barely audible.

Gadget stopped abruptly, turning to him with a gaze sharp enough to cut through steel. "Yes, I did," she said firmly. Her tone left no room for argument. "They were predators, Eddie. They thought they were top dogs, apex predators of the scene here. But that’s what happens to beasts when a new hunter shows up. I am the apex predator around here now. I'll do what needs to be done. They preyed on people like you, like Cali. You think they would’ve stopped? Changed? That girl in your arms is living proof of what they were willing to do."

Eddie swallowed hard, unable to look her in the  eye. He knew she was right, but the sheer brutality of what he had witnessed gnawed at him. His grip on Cali tightened, as if holding her closer might make sense of the chaos.

"We’ll get her back to the squat," Gadget continued, her voice softening slightly. "She needs rest. Food. Medical attention. And you all need to keep your heads low for a while. This isn’t over."

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked, his voice trembling.

"I mean that there will be repercussions," Gadget said. "Wart’s crew isn’t the only threat out here. There’s always another predator waiting to take their place. But I’ll deal with that when the time comes."

They resumed their walk, the squat just a few blocks away now that offered a distant promise of safety. Eddie held on to that thought, clinging to it as tightly as he clung to Cali.

Behind them, the gas station stood silent, its sordid history now marked by the finality of Gadget’s intervention. Whatever demons she carried, she had made one thing clear: in her world, survival meant making hard choices. And she was prepared to make every single one of them.

Unseen by the pair and their rescued companion, a pair of white vans pulled up to the station. Men in hazmat outfits got out, entered, and began to work.

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