I am Baaack! Part 13

They watched Joan move toward Stella with her arms outstretched. Stella tensed, and Joan stopped. Her voice calmed. "I know I told you when I brought you here that you could rot in this hell till you died. I guess I started to change when I found that Jack was actually a nice guy and was treating you better than I thought you deserved. I wanted to get on his case about it, make him be tougher, but I didn't. Lately, a lot of things have happened to make me realize that that rape so many years ago made me into a person no better than you guys who raped me.

"I thought I was being sensible, that being the biggest bitch on the block was the way to go and that humiliating MEN was only what THEY deserved - no matter what the individual man was like. Do you know I'm actually helping one of the men - well, she's not a man anymore, but it's by her own choice - one of the men I sold into shemale slavery to get revenge on the two women who betrayed him? I'm going to try to talk Rose - that's her name, now - out."

Joan never had a chance to finish. Half-listening to what Joan had been saying, the name "Rose" snapped the two watchers to full attention, and the import of Joan's words was not lost on Lou.

"That BITCH!" Lou screamed. "She's gone over to THEIR side!" And before Ed could stop her, she had kicked in the mirror door, burst into the room, and was swinging Jack's shotgun around to bear on Joan. Not having much choice, Ed followed, drawing her gun.

Caught off guard, Robbie was a split-second slow in starting to move and draw her gun. Stella, knowing the room, wasn't, though, and knocking Robbie out of the way, she threw herself in-between Lou and Joan, taking the blast meant for her. Joan dodged sideways to place herself between Lou and the now emerging Ed and Dainie. Robbie dropped, rolled, and fired her Glockenspiel 7mm at Lou, catching her right between the eyes; Lou was dead before she hit the floor. She started to swing the gun around, only to find herself looking down the barrel of Ed's gun. "Drop it, bitch!" snarled Ed.