Chapter Text
Jamal makes the mistake of pointing at Rottie's table, and suddenly Rion is backing away from her chair, pint left half-drank, hands splayed non-threateningly and averting her gaze as much as she can while still keeping everyone in her peripherals. Eggsy, the gigantic idiot, is pushing his luck like he always does, touching Rottie on the elbow like they're friends before sidling out of the way. Rion would never have the balls to do it, has always tried to stay well out of reaching distance of any of Dean's goons, but Eggsy has some sort of invincibility around him.
They're outside for all of three seconds before she tucks her hands in her jacket pockets, because the nights are still cold and the only pair of mittens she has are raggedy and don't fit the look she's been trying to pull off lately. Fuzzy mittens and a leather jacket just won't cut it.
"They weren't fuckin' worth it," Rion says, because Eggsy's face has gone a bit blank, and Jamal looks put out that he's laid down a few pounds for a drink that Rottie's likely downed by now.
"It's freezing," Eggsy says. Rion pops her hood up and glances over at him just as he pulls one hand out of his pocket. "Why are we walking?"
This is so incredibly not good.
"You jacked his fucking car keys, bruv?" Jamal is not an idiot, and he knows where this is going, too.
"Yeah," Eggsy says. "Now we're gonna nick his car."
He takes two steps to the bright yellow monstrosity that Rottie coddles, and Rion meets Jamal's gaze. There's really no doubt what they're about to do, but sometimes she likes to make sure that she's not the only one who realizes that they're essentially following an insane person around.
Jamal is not an idiot, and he knows what's coming, too.
The car chirps brightly at them, a sure indication to Rottie inside that something's about to happen, but they're all dashing for the car like the little mad idiots they are.
"Fucking..." Jamal mutters, even as he's reaching for the door.
"Shit," Rion says, because she has been here before and it never ends as well as Eggsy wants it to.
Eggsy is already pulling doughnuts before she manages to get her seatbelt on, but it means that by the time Rottie storms out the doors of the Prince, she's already got her window cranked down and is waving two fingers at him, grinning like a loon. He's shouting at them from the sidewalk, face screwed up as he points uselessly at them, but she can't hear a word of it over the screeching tires and the boys hollering in her ear.
She's in the front seat, which means she gets a perfect look at the fury on Rottie's face every time the car swings around again. There is no doubt that they're going to pay for this tomorrow, but in the meantime, they might as well make it worth it.
"Floor it, Eggsy!" she shouts, riding high on adrenaline and making bad decisions. The blankness that has been haunting Eggsy's features is nowhere to be seen, and he's smirking as he shifts into gear and they roar off around the corner. He looks alive. "Floor it!"
Their neat little getaway has a kink thrown into it about three seconds later, when they come nose to nose with a panda car. She can see the look on the coppers' faces as they try to process what they're seeing before the driver lights the top up, which is just long enough for Eggsy to throw them into reverse and backtrack past the pub. Rottie is still out front, already on the phone, likely bitching to Dean.
Bloody perfect.
They whip past, Rion and Jamal still encouraging Eggsy because they're all in this together now, aren't they, and he's their best shot of getting out of this mess. Eggsy's been a natural behind the wheel since the first time he turned an ignition over, even if he's never owned his own car.
The rear end of Rottie' car scrapes against the pavement as they roar over rough stretches of road, and Rion is hanging onto the dash and the window frame just so she doesn't bounce straight out of her seat. She's staring the coppers right in the face as Eggsy drives, and she can't help but howl with laughter. Her blood is pumping fast as they weave through traffic, dodging cars and busses so neatly that it's like Eggsy planned this route before they even left.
She waves cheekily at the police, who do not look very impressed.
Eggsy is twisted around in his seat, checking for available space on the road and taking every inch that's there, until he jerks them hard to the side and Rion's whole front suddenly blooms with pain where her seatbelt has caught her, and the sound of the car crunching is background noise to the ache in her chest.
"Foxes are vermin, cuz," Jamal says. He must've been looking out the rear window too.
A fox. A damn fox is going to get her put on probation. Or worse.
"Should've driven it over," she says, even though she likes foxes because they're a pretty colour and have bushy tails. Eggsy's knuckles are white against the steering wheel.
"Should've done a lot of things," he says, eyes fixed on the patrol car. "I'll sort this out. Get out of the car."
Rion stares at him. She thinks Jamal must be doing the same.
Eggsy turns to look at her, and the fleeting joy he'd found has been replaced by some sort of determined rage, because he shouts, "I said, get out of the fucking car!" and she and Jamal are scrambling out the doors an instant later.
She's managed to run only a few meters away before the engine revs again, and there's a squeal of tires and another awful crash, and she looks back just long enough to see the front end of Rottie's car mangled with the panda.
Oh, goddammit, Eggsy.
***
Rion ducks down alleyways and doesn't run in a straight line for more than two blocks at a time. She runs until she's out of breath, and then pushes herself another few blocks just to be sure.
There's no sirens behind her when she finally staggers to a stop, leaning up against the side of a building and letting her lungs try to heave enough oxygen back into her body. The shoelaces on her left foot are mostly loose, and if she'd kept going, she would've certainly lost her trainer in the next few minutes. Rion sinks down to the ground, ignoring how filthy it likely is, and struggles to calm her shaking hands enough to rework the laces. And then her legs are exhausted, so she just stays low, shoulder pressed firmly to the brick wall, knee digging into the ground.
It takes a long few minutes for her chest to stop heaving, and she rubs at the stitch that's spearing through her ribcage. She's a little ungainly getting to her feet again, wobbling on unsteady legs. God, it's almost a good thing she just ran her heart out; it's so cold outside that a walk in any other circumstance would be a real problem. At least now she's flushed hot under her jacket. Rion keeps her hood up against the wind, evaluates where she's ended up, points herself east and starts walking.
It was already pretty late when they met up at the Black Prince, and by the time Rion shuffles up the steps to her front door, it's nearly midnight. With any luck, her dad's already asleep. She holds her keys tight in her fist so that they don't jangle too much when she opens the door, but it doesn't help her, in the end.
Somehow, word's already gotten 'round.
Her dad's got the telly on, something stupid that plays late at night when no one's actually watching. His eyes are looking at it, but Rion doesn't think he's seeing a single thing.
He certainly hears the door open, though.
"What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he growls, pushing out of the chair. Rion freezes, hand still on the doorknob, keys clenched in her fist. She hasn't even pulled the key from the lock, yet.
He's not a big man, her father. Only an inch taller than herself, a bit wider where she's pretty thin. But part of her will always remember the way he towered over her when she was little, a giant with heavy hands and a short temper.
"Don't got nothin' to say for yourself?" he presses.
There's nothing she can say that'll make this better.
She gives the key a slight tug to try and loosen it from the door, which has always been finicky at best. Her dad catches the motion, rips the keyring out of her hand and wrenches it from the door. The keys jangle merrily when he whips them across the room.
Rion may be twenty-four, but she's never felt smaller and more helpless than when her dad is in a towering rage. She barely has time to get her forearms up before he starts to smack her around the ears.
***
She comes to in a daze. It's still dark out, and she's curled up against the front door, closed now. She sniffles, wipes a trace of blood away from her nose, and shifts to her knees.
The door to her bedroom creaks a little when it's opened, but Rion slips inside without waking Mackenna. She checks to make sure her sister is tucked in tight, hopefully having slept through the chaos outside their bedroom door. She toes off her trainers but keeps her jacket on when she rolls into her narrow bed. Her face pounds in time with her pulse.
The digital alarm clock reads out 2:07.
With one hand, Rion digs about in her end table drawer until she finds a loose paracetamol, and swallows it dry. It probably won't do much, but it's better than nothing. She drags the blankets over herself and curls her shoulders in.
She hopes Jamal made it home safe.
She hopes Eggsy isn't in too much trouble.
***
Eggsy just... disappears.
Rumour has it that he was taken up to the police station, then let go for reasons that no one can quite figure out, considering he ran a stolen vehicle point blank into a police car in front of the coppers.
And rumour has it that he was spotted at the Black Prince around noon with a posh bloke. It all gets a bit muddled in the storytelling, like someone's leaving out a few key details, but it sounds like Rottie and Poodle and the rest got their arses handed to them.
Rion can't imagine it was Eggsy. He's ballsy and daring but never quite stupid, and she can't imagine why this would've finally been his breaking point. Not after he held it together after his mum got pregnant, and not after he's been sticking around to keep things level enough for Daisy. Not after dealing with Dean every day for years.
And rumour has it that he threatened Dean, or something, and he's out of the flat for good.
Dean and his boys have been tearing up the estate in their rage all day long.
Rion learns most of this by text from Jamal, whose parents have essentially stopped trying to parent him in any way, and haven't even acknowledged that he was out joyriding last night. She swipes some concealer from her mum when she scrapes the bottom of her own tube, covers up the worst of the bruising, and sneaks over to Jamal's.
"Jesus," Jamal says when he gets a look at her, because she's gotten pretty good at covering up the dark blemishes, but Jamal still knows the signs. "Can I get you anything?"
"Painkillers, if you have them," Rion says, sinking onto his bed. Jamal disappears into the bathroom and comes back with a bottle, a few pills still rattling along in the bottom.
They compile the knowledge they've gathered, trying to form a whole picture of what happened after they ran from the scene. There's holes in the story, bits that no one seems to know. Who was the bloke in the pub? Where has Eggsy run off to? How the hell did he get himself out of jail?
They both try texting Eggsy, several times each, but hours go by and there's no response.
Days go by, and there's no response, until Rion's phone chirps one morning. Message undeliverable.