Chapter 2: Second Chances.

Chapter 2: Second Chances.

"Hells Bells." Hamilton moaned, his cheek planted on a plastic table as he yanked at his sweaty button up shirt with his cyborg arm. The AC was out, its copper wires stolen once again, forcing Hamilton and his gang to use a bunch of portable fans to cool the office. Sadly, no doubt their electricity bill would be the coup de grace to shut down their office.

If only they hadn’t updated their firewalls then I could steal a soda Hamilton moaned to himself

"HAMILTON! HAMILTON YOU BASTARD GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Oh great. She's here. Hamilton sighed, closing his laptop where he was pretending to be a girl online to fish for money.

As if to compound his growing laundry list of issues the rickety door of his office was kicked in, followed by a very curvy, very angry redhead wearing a brown leather jacket with a cat-eared motorcycle helmet under her arm.

"YOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD BE DISCRETE!" The detective threw her helmet, forcing Hamilton to dive to the floor as the woman's yellow projectile smashed his desk. "DISCRETE!"

Hamilton popped back up, his face contorted as he used his metal folding chair as a shield. "Hey, that was ten bucks!"

"I told you one thing! One thing Hamilton! And that was to call me when you had a lead! NOT FUCKING KICK IN THE DOOR AND KILL EVERYONE INSIDE!"

"Hey, hey, now wait a moment detective, I take offense to that!" Hamilton argued, pointing a finger as he crawled behind the remains of his plastic table, kicking up dozens of discarded Twonkie wrappers in the process. "I didn't kill anybody!"

"Yea! I killed all those scumfucks!" Lily exclaimed proudly, barging into Hamilton's office, cat tail wagging with her hands on her still bloodied maid outfit.

Detective Gibbs pinched the bridge of her nose, attempting to calm herself as Lily's manic laughter echoed throughout the office.

"Wha- hey! Where we going!!?" Lily screamed as Vaz suddenly appeared, carting the squirming girl off, and shutting the door behind his muscular frame.

Hamilton stood up, unveiling duck tape from his back pocket and performing emergency treatment on the two halves of his broken desk.

"Look, they knew the VCPD were onto them and investigating so they were in the process of moving and cleaning house." Hamilton explained as he rolled the ducktape round and round the crack in the desk. "If we didn't get in there when we did, they'd have either killed all the poor girls or moved them somewhere else while torching the place."

The officer sighed, kicking the trash out of her way that littered the floor.

"Look, I'm not saying I'm unhappy with the results, but this could have been handled much better if we had a heads up. The press is tearing our administration up."

Hamilton scoffed, sitting down at his refurbished desk. He cocked his head at the woman as he arranged notes and pens on his table. "Really Gibbs? VCPD response time is what? Lowest in this cesspool of a country? I literally almost took three bullets on the drive back to this dump. By the time any of you cowboys arrived I'm almost certain we'd be standing over a burned down warehouse trying to identify bodies."

"God you are such an ass." The woman scoffed. "I want to shoot you, but doing so would be too much paperwork."

“Not if you don’t report it.” Hamilton laughed, taking the detective's helmet and gingerly placing it on his desk to test the weight management. “See, thats your problem, you’re too by the book with these things.”

“And wind up a bum like you? No thanks.” Gibbs said, folding her scarred-up arms. "Sorry about the desk,"

"You can apologize by buying me a new one, preferably one in pink this time, most people tend not to break cute things, speaking of money-"

The woman smacked her lips as she took her helmet off the table, resulting in it curving from the sudden shift of weight.

"Oh c'mon detective, I just fixed it."

"I talked to the Chief and he's agreed to pay you-"

Hamilton froze. Before closing his eyes and smiling at the heavens above, perhaps there was a god after all.

"A portion-"

Of course.

"-Of the agreed upon amount." Gibbs pursed her lips as Hamilton banged his head into the remains of his desk. "Be lucky you guys are getting anything at all, I had to fight tooth and nail to get your guild licenses restor-"

Suddenly Hamilton was up, kicking away his shattered desk and hugging the woman with a tearful laugh. "Ah you beautiful redheaded bitch!"

"Egh! Stahp! Get off! One more fuck up like this and I can't help you guys anymore!" The detective yelled, peeling the grown man off of her with a flustered look.

Suddenly a knock at the door interrupted the pair, with Lily’s furry ears peeking into the office with her head a moment later. "Hey Hammy! There are people in the lobby who can't read a closed sign! And when I pointed a gun at them they smiled at me! But I don't have any bullets since you took them all, can I borrow a few from you? Pleasssse? Pwetty please?"

Hamilton sighed, turning to the Detective who was eyeballing the shortstack, "Thanks Kate, I mean it. I know you fought for us." He said, using her first name for once as he passed by.

The woman folded her arms with a sigh. "I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear any of what I just heard."

"Thank you thank you." Hamilton kowtowed before leaving.

"Just don't fuck up again, last chance Bob, I mean it! It's not just your ass on the line but mine!" The officer yelled as Hamilton scurried to the lobby of their rundown office to greet their mysterious guests. "And clean up your damn office!"