Chapter Text
Daisy was led through the jail hallways by a guard, her handcuffs fastened over her wrists. Other inmates often complained about the tightness of the metal handcuffs, but Daisy hardly even noticed they were there. She was really used to the whole jail thing.
As was her habit in jail, Daisy had been running through the heist she’d been arrested for, and thinking about where things went wrong. The heist was two days ago, when she and Snake had tried to use Tread as their getaway in order to steal the money from the airport. It was pretty obvious why this plan hadn’t worked out; Tread hadn’t been pleased to discover he was part of the heist, and had literally driven them into jail. Daisy completely overestimated his competitive streak.
At least he hadn’t been arrested too. Unlike Daisy and Snake, Tread probably had a clean record, minus some speeding tickets. Jail was no place for him.
Daisy looked up when the guard stopped in front of a door. The guard pressed a button, and the door opened, revealing the outside courtyard. The dead grass fields and tall concrete walls were just as Daisy remembered them. The guard led Daisy through the door and took off the handcuffs before taking her place near the doorway. Daisy wandered around the courtyard for a bit, when she spotted Snake Rattler sitting on a bench. That was one of the perks of breaking laws with accomplices; it made jail less lonely. She sat in the empty spot next to Snake.
“I see we have the same yard time.” she said.
Snake only glanced at her, and didn’t say anything.
“Well, at least we only have, like, 30 minutes until we get out of this place.” Daisy said to try to lighten the mood.
Snake seemed troubled. “We shouldn’t even be here. Our heist would have been successful if Tread hadn’t messed everything up.”
Daisy felt slightly defensive. “Yes, Tread was a bad idea. I know. But, hey, at least now we know to be careful before we bring others into our heists.”
Snake looked at the ground. “There’s something I still don’t understand. You were totally fine manipulating Tread as part of our plan, yet you got angry with me when I was trying to use Dirty Duke for my own plans. What’s the difference?”
Dirty Duke. Just the memory of what Snake had turned Duke into made her uncomfortable. “Snake, you can’t just manipulate Duke when he’s in a vulnerable state!” Daisy couldn’t believe she had to explain that to him. “Besides, robbing banks goes against everything he stands for.”
Snake squinted his eye at her. “ If you're so against using people in ways that go against their standards, shouldn’t the same go for Tread? Might I add, using him was your idea.”
“Tread and Duke are different.”
“So what makes Duke so special?” Snake said.
His bitter tone took Daisy aback. Why was Snake so upset about this? “Duke and I...we go back. You just shouldn’t mess with him, ok?”
“I don’t like you telling me what to do. You may have some sort of loyalty to him, but I don’t. Besides, it’d be one thing if you were mad at me for manipulating both people, but it just seems hypocritical when Tread was your idea.”
“You know what Snake, we shouldn’t have manipulated Duke or Tread. Both situations were wrong. I’m sorry, ok?”
“Maybe you’re sorry, but don’t expect me to apologize for what I did.”
“Even though it went against your code?”
“Leave the code out of this.”
“Well then you should leave Duke out of this. If you mess with him again, I’m warning you, I won’t hesitate to tell the cops on you again.”
“Again?” Snake bared his teeth in anger. “You mean, YOU’RE the one who ratted me out to the pokey?”
Daisy winced. She hadn’t meant to give herself away like that, but maybe it was better this way. She needed to get it straight with him that Duke shouldn’t be messed with. The last thing she wanted was for Dirty Duke to reappear, and turn against the city Duke tried so hard to protect.
Snake growled. “I can’t believe you’d go behind my back for a lawman.” He shook his head, then turned his gaze toward the ground.
Daisy left Snake to his sulking, feeling a little bad for what she’d done. But it wasn’t like she owed Snake her loyalty. She didn’t have nearly the same extensive history with him that she did with Duke.
She and Duke had been close friends as kids. They practically did everything with each other. Their friendship continued into high school, where they were considered by others to be the “weird kids”. But it hadn’t mattered what others thought because they had each other for company. True, they were prone to fights. They were so different that they fought fairly often. Duke had always been the rule-follower, while Daisy had always been the rule-bender and rule-breaker. But fights were a part of any relationship, and she and Duke had always worked through them.
It wasn’t until college that they went their separate ways. Daisy dropped out when she felt like college wasn’t fitting for her, while Duke went on to the police academy. As a fresh college dropout, she’d needed money and couldn’t find an honest job, so she turned to crime. This had led to an awkward encounter when Cadet Duke had been the one to arrest her. Their relationship had never been the same since. It was like Duke was unable to see past her crimes and see that she was the same person that he’d been friends with.
Going through her happy memories with Duke made her realize how much she missed being friends with him. He was the only person she’d ever felt close with. Well, there was also her old partner in crime, but she tried not to think about them. They had been transferred to another prison, where the sentences were longer. Daisy hadn’t seen them for years, and probably wouldn’t see them again for many more years.
Besides her ex-partner and Duke, everyone else just seemed distant when she spent time with them. No one quite understood her the way they had.
It was just too bad she couldn’t explain any of this to Snake. He was a loner by nature, and he wouldn’t understand. Daisy’s thoughts were interrupted by the prison guards approaching them.
“Alright you two, it’s time to go.” a guard said.
Daisy got up from the bench, followed by Snake. They followed the guards back through the prison courtyard entrance, back through the dull gray hallways, and into their changing rooms. After Daisy got back into her normal clothes, she was escorted out of the jail gate. Snake was already outside the gate, walking down the sidewalk, and he didn’t stop to say goodbye to Daisy. That was pretty typical for him, even during the times he wasn’t mad at her.
Luckily for Daisy, her place was literally across the street. Unluckily for her, she’d have to face her mother’s disapproval and anger again. That was a worse punishment than jail ever was. She reluctantly entered the apartment complex and waited for the elevator to her floor. She didn’t like that she had to live with her mom, but she didn’t have enough money to find her own place and support herself, especially with the housing market being what it was. It really didn’t help that Daisy couldn’t find a career, either. While she tried stealing money to make ends meet, that money usually seemed to make its way back to the police station.
She arrived at her destination and opened the door, bracing herself. Her mom was standing near the doorway, as if she were expecting her. Her mom’s height dwarfed Daisy’s, and her dark brown shoulder-length hair was slightly frazzled, matching her expected look of anger.
“Are you kidding me, Daisy? You got yourself in trouble again?!”
“Sorry.”
She glared at Daisy and continued her tirade. “‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it. I never raised you to be like this! Why can’t you just get a job like a normal human being?”
“You know why I can’t get a job!” Daisy snapped. “ I’m just going to blow everything up! Don’t you remember what happened to that coffee shop?”
Her mom closed her eyes, putting her fingers to her forehead. “I can’t handle this right now. Just go to your room.”
“Fine.”
Daisy turned away, fuming. She hated living with her mom. She was treated like an incompetent child, made to feel like she was her mom’s worst failure in life. Her mom thought Daisy was just making up excuses for why she wasn’t employed, but in actuality, no place wanted to hire her. Due to her destructive tendencies, companies simply did not have the insurance to keep her. And she had to admit that robbing places was pretty fun. She had no boss to tell her what to do, nobody to impress. Besides, she was Daisy “Kaboom” after all. Crime basically felt like part of her identity now. She reached her room and closed the door.
Daisy groaned as her alarm sounded. She rolled over and reached to turn it off. She didn’t realize how close she was to the edge of her bed and nearly fell off. That forced her awake.
She got out of bed and rubbed her eyes, slowly walking to the bathroom. Since her jail time two weeks ago, she’d fallen right back into her usual morning routine.
She turned on the bathroom light and was slightly shocked to see how she looked. Her hair was practically sticking straight up, and dried mascara smeared under her eyes. She washed her face, and tried to slick down her wild hair, but it bounced back like a spring. The last resort was to try to brush her hair and hope that’d tame it. After, struggling and cringing through the knots, her hair finally seemed to be back to normal.
She walked over to the closet and quickly glanced over the outfits. She had a black fancy dress with a fire design along the rim. She never wore it. What would be the occasion? She had some athletic clothes, but she wasn’t planning on going on a run. She even had an old jail jumpsuit that she forgot she kept after she broke out of jail one time. Sure, it would be helpful to return it, especially because she lived across the street from the jail, but it would be a very awkward conversation considering she was a pretty regular inmate. Plus, they’d probably try to charge her for it. It was just easier to leave it to become forgotten in her closet.
None of those options compared to her classic red leather jacket. The design of the bomb on the back was basically her logo, and alongside her ripped jeans and striped shirt, it perfectly fit her style. She rarely wanted to wear anything else for her day to day activities, especially since those activities usually involved blowing stuff up and doing illegal things. She took off her tank top and sweatpants, and put on her striped shirt, red jacket, and gray ripped jeans. She tightened her spiked belt to the right notch and put on her black boots. All that was left was to put on her choker. With her look complete, she made her way to the kitchen for some breakfast.
She grabbed a pan and turned on the stove top. She opened the fridge and grabbed two eggs for her to cook. With a simple tap on the rim on the pan, the eggs cracked open and spilled their contents onto the pan, sizzling on impact. She turned to the pantry to grab some bread for toast, but as she did so, a loud boom went off behind her, rattling her eardrums. She cringed and slowly turned to see the damage.
She gasped. The stove looked like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. Shattered plastic and glass littered the kitchen, and there was a gaping hole where the stovetop had been. Black soot singed the wall around the stove. Sure, this hadn’t been the first time Daisy had blown something up in the kitchen, but those explosions had only destroyed the food she was cooking, and maybe a pot or pan. The damage had never been this severe.
“Again Daisy?” Her mom came running into the kitchen. “How many times do I have to tell-”
She stared at the remains of the stove in shock. “What happened?!”
“I don’t know!” Daisy said. “I was just trying to cook eggs, and then your stove exploded!”
“You think this isn’t your fault?!” Her mom’s face reddened. “You’re always blowing things up, and now you’ve gone and destroyed my new stove! Don’t you know how expensive that was?!”
“I’m sorry, it was an accident!”
“That’s it! I’ve had it! You have one week to get out of this house! I can’t keep up with your explosions!”
Daisy was stunned. “What? Are you serious?”
“You heard me!” Her mom folded her arms. “Enough’s enough!”
Daisy spluttered. “Wait! Where would I go? You know I don’t have any money!”
Her mom scowled. “Well maybe you should’ve thought about that before you decided to become a college dropout!”
“Just give me a year, alright? I’ll have money by then!” At least, she hoped she would. The only way she really made money was through her various crimes, but so far, most of them had been unsuccessful. But at least a year would give her more time to figure something out, and maybe she’d have at least one successful heist by then.
Her mom shook her head. “I’ve already given you too much time! You’re 26 for crying out loud!”
Daisy tried to calm her mom down; she obviously wasn’t thinking rationally. “Think about this, Mom. Where can I go? I have no money, no extended family, not even a car. Just a motorcycle.”
Her mom gave her no remorse. “I don’t care! Leech off one of your friends!”
“What if none of them let me live with them?” She could feel her panic growing. Her mother seemed completely beyond reason.
“Then sleep outside.”
Daisy couldn’t believe it. Her own mother didn’t care if she was homeless. There was absolutely no way she could make enough money in that time to get her own place, not even if she set her bar as low as possible. And it was obvious her mother wouldn’t budge.
Daisy stormed out of the apartment, feeling tears of frustration stinging her eyes. She slammed the door and even kicked it on her way out. Once she was outside the apartment complex, she stopped, taking a deep breath to try to drive back the panic and anger she was feeling.
What was she supposed to do? She started walking, but didn’t have a clue where she should go. Who did she know who might offer her a place to crash? She went through the list of people she knew. She didn’t have any other family who could help her. There was Snake, but things weren’t looking great with him, after their argument. Maybe there’d be a better option. She’d done many robberies with Hacksaw, Betty, Vito, Frankie, and Clara, but they were more co-workers than actual friends. And that was it. She couldn’t think of anyone else who might help her with her situation.
Daisy shivered as a cold breeze flooded over her. She didn’t realize how chilly it was outside with it being the end of winter. That made things worse. She didn’t know how she’d survive with it being cold. She shook away that thought and made her way to a place on the outskirts of the town. She now had an idea of where to go. There was no time to waste.
Daisy approached the large steel building. It mostly consisted of massive garage doors. Daisy had a hard time finding any sort of entrance when she spotted red steel doors off the side of the large garage door. She went up to them, unsure of exactly what she was supposed to do. Knock on the door? Ring a doorbell? Perhaps there would be some crazy security mechanism? She inspected the area, but found nothing. There was just a doormat that read “DO NOT STEAL (that means you, Tippy)” . She knocked on the door and waited for a moment. The door opened a crack, and she saw a pair of eyes squinting at her.
“Daisy?”
The door opened wider to reveal Hacksaw Hank holding a hacksaw. “What are you doing here?”
Daisy put on a chill smile, trying to hide her desperation. “Oh, you know, I was just around and wanted to see what you guys were up to.”
Vito’s voice came within the hideout. “Hacksaw, who’s there?”
Hacksaw turned behind him to address Vito. “It’s Daisy.”
Frankie perked up “Is she here for game night?”
Hacksaw turned back to Daisy. “Wanna join us for game night?”
Daisy was glad it was game night; it would offer an excuse for why she came. “Sure, but it’s not exactly night.” she said, looking at the blue sky overhead.
Hacksaw chuckled. “When we play card games, it always goes until night.”
Daisy did the math. Sunset wasn’t until seven hours, which was longer than most of Judge Strictpunish’s sentences. They were ridiculous, but at least they seemed friendly with her.
Hacksaw cleared the way to allow Daisy to enter their hideout. Inside stretched a fairly large, open room that resembled a garage, but with better insulation. The huge monster truck that they often used in heists was parked to her right. To the left of the truck was a small table that Vito, Frankie, and Big Betty were sitting at. The far wall held a few doors that lead to other rooms. This whole place reminded her of the fire station.
Hacksaw led her to the table so she could be seated with everyone. Big Betty greeted her with a smile, Frankie waved, and Vito was busy shuffling cards. Clara sat next to him, looking bored. As they waited for the cards to be shuffled, Hacksaw brought out a bowl of candy. He scooped out a handful and stuffed them in his mouth.
He held the bowl in front of Daisy. “Want some?” A few jellybeans flew out of his mouth as he spoke.
Daisy shook her head. “I think I’ll pass.”
Hacksaw put the bowl in the middle of the table. The others were attracted to the candy like a magnet. Vito finished shuffling the cards and passed them out quickly to each player. He then explained the rules. “The game is Go-Fish. Whoever loses has to clean out the monster truck.” Daisy took a look at her cards and smirked when she saw she already had a match. As the game continued, Daisy tried to start a conversation.
“So do you guys always hang out like this?”
Betty responded as she was looking through her cards. “Pretty much. Fendrich hates it when we mess around when he has a job for us, so he gave us this place to let us mess around during our free time.”
Daisy chuckled. “I remember when Fendrich wanted to make me a permanent part of his team. But I found it much better to do my own thing.”
Vito raised his eyebrow. “Do you have more successful heists when you work alone?”
It pained Daisy to think of the truth. She had not made even one completely successful heist in a while. If she had, then maybe eviction wouldn’t be a concern for her right now. “Well, not as often as I’d like. Have you guys had successful heists?”
Hacksaw gave Vito a card and spoke. “We’ve had maybe a few, but most of it goes to Fendrich. But in return, he gives us stuff like this hideout. So it kind of balances out.”
Daisy didn’t like the idea that the only way to be a successful criminal was to work under some corrupt businessman. But she had no other options. “So, do you guys actually live here?”
Frankie, who still had no matches with his cards, spoke. “I mean we have our own places where we sleep, but we spend most of our time here. Plus, sometimes we have sleepovers here!”
Vito rolled his eyes. “Those weren’t sleepovers! I accidentally fell asleep and you guys pranked me in my sleep!”
“Sounds like a sleepover to me!” Hacksaw said with a giggle. Clara rolled her eyes, but had a small smile on her face.
Vito set down his last two cards and folded his arms in his victory. Clara followed right after. Vito looked over her cards in suspicion before putting them down in resignation. Clara had been known to cheat a few times before, but this time she passed inspection. The game continued, and luckily Daisy was the next one to win. She was not going to clean their truck. Next Hacksaw won, leaving Betty and Frankie. The round was quickly over with Betty as the winner. They all handed Frankie a few rags and a bucket of soapy water.
Vito waved him off. “Have fun!”
Daisy realized that she was as close to talking about the reason she came then she was ever going to get. It was time to drop the bomb. “So, I was sorta wondering… Do you guys think you’d have enough room in your team for one more person?” Daisy figured if they’d accept her as part of their team, they wouldn’t mind if she stayed here.
Clara looked up, surprised. “Didn’t you just say you did crime yourself?”
“Plus,” Vito added, frowning, “If you were going to team up with anybody, I’d thought it would be that dumb cowboy.”
Daisy shrugged. “I guess me and the “cowpoke” don’t really get along. But lately, I have been interested in being part of a team. Don’t you guys think you could benefit from using my dynamite?”
What she was saying was a half-lie. She wasn’t really interested in being part of a team, but she was interested in the money that came with the team. But what she’d said about Snake was true. She would’ve preferred to see if she could stay with Snake, but he’d been weird ever since she confessed reporting him to the police. And he seemed perfectly happy being alone at his hideout. No, her only real option was with these people.
Vito still looked suspicious about Daisy wanting to join their team, but Hacksaw responded to her request. “I mean it’s not really our decision, but I’ll be sure to ask the boss! He’s liked you on the team before, so I don’t know why he wouldn’t say yes.”
Betty chimed in, “ I think it'd be fun to have you on our team!”
Vito still looked uncomfortable. He turned to Hacksaw, Clara and Betty. “Wait, could we discuss this first?”
He grabbed Hacksaw, Clara and Betty and moved over to Frankie, who was still washing the truck. They huddled together like a sports team figuring out their game plan. Daisy wasn’t exactly sure why Vito was uncomfortable with her joining the team. They had teamed up before to do a few crimes and he had no problems then. After their discussion Hacksaw came up to Daisy.
“So, we decided we’ll ask Fendrich to see if you can join our team!”
Daisy let out a small sigh of relief. “Thank you. Oh, and if you could, please let me talk to Fendrich as soon as possible! Preferably sometime this week.”
Hacksaw nodded, while Vito only suspiciously squinted at Daisy.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you guys around.” Daisy made her way to the door. She may have hated Fendrich’s guts, but she still hoped he would let her be part of the team. It was better than sleeping out in the cold.