Bishop smiled as Kate told her side of life story and as her hand moved to pat the gun on her belt, his eyes followed. He'd already noticed it, every time he saw her she wore it. Regardless, guns did little to deter him, holstered or not; not that she was attempting to. He returned his gaze to Kate's and continued listening as Mercedes changed their drinks.

Quickly averting his attention to Mercedes before she walked off, "Lass, can I get a pint o' stout as well, if ya got any?"

With a smile to Mercedes, he turned his attention back to Kate as she finished up her story. With a laugh he chortled out, "Am Irish, lass. Don' ya know we love a good tale?"

The smile Kate gave, it was lackluster at best, but she obviously wasn't trying to make a big deal out of being in pain. Bishop wasn't sure -what- hurt, but like Mercedes, he knew something did.

Changing subjects, and keeping away from the pain Kate happened to be in, Bishop pulled a few bills out and sat them on the bar top. With his hand still on the small stack, he pushed it towards Mercedes, "Two shots o' tha best whiskey in tha house... Each."

He looked over to Kate and grinned, mischievously. "Yer drinkin' like one o' us tanight, Miss Logan... Am gonna make it me task ta make sure yer fluthered enough ta dance an' sing when I get that way meself. We both be rote of before tha night ends. Now..." he looked on as Mercedes set the two shots in front of him and the two shots in front of Kate.

"Rev up o' fock clean off, lass!" With that he lifted the first shot glass and held it high. With a raised voice, he called out, "SLAINTE!" As he slammed back the first shot, and followed with the second, a few other Irish patrons yelled in unison behind him, "SLAINTE CHUGAT!" They, too, all slammed their drinks and awaited refills.

Bishop looked at Kate and grinned, waiting...

If she joined, it was going to be a wild (albeit very lucrative) night for Mercedes and crew.

Kate picked up one of the shots and looked at the liquid. With a light behind it, it seemed to glow.

"I'll tell you what. I've done these two with you. But now I think I'll need to excuse myself for a bit. Would you promise to meet me back here in a couple days for a good old fashioned drinking contest?"

Her eyes flashed for a moment.

"What do you say, Bishop? Will you accept a short delay for this adventure you've proposed?"

"Bah!" he yelled, with a laugh following. "If ya insist lass. We can come back ta this another time." He gave Kate a pat on the up of her back, "Until then, keep yerself safe." He added to the stack of bills on the bar top and pushed them to Mercedes' side of the counter and slid off his stool. His feet planted firmly on the ground and he took just a second to make sure he was balanced as the alcohol readjusted in him and he felt the warmth flush over.

He turned and gave Kate and Mercedes both a wave, and moseyed over to one of the tables with the Irish lads at it, leaning in close and saying something to them. They gave a nod, and he left a small bit of cash on the table; enough to keep them drunk and happy.

Returning to the bar for just a quick second, he put an arm around Kate and leaned in close, "Na that I don' think ya be capable of takin' care o' yerself, but them lads over there got yer back fer me if anythin' -does- happen." Again he gave her back a pat and then he turned towards the coat rack and headed in the general direction of the door.

As he slipped into his coat and put his hat atop his head, he looked back at the group of lads and gave a nod which they returned. Satisfied, Bishop slipped out the door and into the world. He'd be back, for certain; long as he didn't catch a bullet between here and there.

Kate winced at Bishop patted her back multiple times.

"Thank you, Bishop. You're a good man and I look forward to meeting you back here."

As Bishop exited, Kate glanced over at Mercedes_Kompressor; she walked carefully over to the bar and dropped her voice to a murmur.

"Mercedes... I think the last time I was here you mentioned something about being able to speak to you- in private, clearing a room, that sort of thing? Would it be possible to take advantage of that opportunity now?"

Her language was formal, but her voice was a bit strained and there was something uncomfortable behind her eyes.

"Of course," Mercedes replies as she picks up a phone behind the bar and speaks a few words to the person on the other end of the line, too low to be overheard. Setting the handset back down, she turns and catches the attention of another bartender, signalling for him to take over.

"Just follow me," she says before entering the strip club proper, and then the drug den beyond it. All eyes are on the ladies on the stage, therefore no one pays two fully clothed women any heed as they pass through. Upon entering the den, however, they pass through a small throng of pissed off addicts who have been rousted from the room. Not sure of exactly how much privacy is needed, Mercedes tilts her head at the lone bartender, indicating that he should clear out as well. As the door closes, Mercedes steps behind the bar and fixes herself a double, which she knocks back before turning her attention to Kate. 

"I've got some catching up to do. Care for another, or should I roll you something a big stronger?" she asks with a half-smile.

"There's a medical kit back here, as well. How bad are you hurt?"

​​​​​

​​​​​​

Kate silently followed Mercedes as she walked through a couple different rooms. She did notice a group of people that seemed bothered- but she was starting to feel lightheaded and didn't pay much attention. Eventually, they hit a quiet room. Kate took a deep breath, focusing herself.

Wordlessly, Kate takes off her jacket, folds it, and tosses it on a couch. Movingly slowly, she removes her vest and places it on her jacket. Smirking slightly, Kate unbuttons her shirt and places that on the vest- leaving a tank top underneath. Wincing, Kate turns around and raises the back of her shirt to where the muscles of her shoulders are visible. 

Her skin, usually tanned, is a mess of dark purples and greens from her shoulderblades down to the top of her dreams. There are also a few small scrapes, but they don't seem to be bleeding too bad. Dropping the shirt carefully, Kate curses softly to herself and slides onto the couch, not resting her back against it. Her voice was steady, although she was obviously in pain.

"Got into a scrape, which is a long story. Don't think there's anything too broken internally, but I need something to dull the pain. Get me through tonight, at least. I also need a place to sleep. I trust a lot of people Downtown, but I don't want them to see me like this. And if this is worse than I thought, I need somebody to call a doctor or something, so I don't want to be alone. Not that I think it'll come to that. I was hoping I could come here and drink it away, but that didn't cut it."

"So. Can I hide out here tonight? And you listed a lot of stuff off before. What do you have that will make this pain go away, even for a little while? I haven't slept since...  Tuesday?"

Horrified by the rainbow of bruising on Kate's back, Mercedes instinctively reaches out to touch her, then stops when she realizes what she's doing. Anger starts to creep in as various scenarios race through her mind. Pulling a set of keys out, she unlocks a discreet cabinet behind the bar and begins skimming labels, eventually settling on two...a muscle relaxer and a painkiller. With hands full of booze, medical supplies, and pills, she circles the couch and sets each item on the coffee table. Turning her attention to Kate, she speaks.

"Of course you can stay here. You deserve something better, and my place isn't that far from here, but I'm not sure you'd make it without hurting yourself worse. 

"We can talk about it. Or we can ignore it. I'm here either way," she states as she pours another double.

She suspects she'll need to be pretty lit if Kate starts talking.

From her position seated on the couch, Kate watched Mercedes_Kompressor gather up a bunch of supplies.

"Do you live with anyone else?"

A dark look passes through Mercedes' eyes, and is gone again.

"No. Just me and four walls," she replies, and stops to think for a moment. Nodding to herself, she picks up another bar phone and has a more extended conversation with the person on the other end of the line. Within seconds, several of Mercedes' bodyguards quietly enter. Without being told what to do, they each task themselves with a job. One begins collecting the medical supplies into a case. Another scoops up narcotics. A third and fourth flank Kate as she rises from the couch. They aren't stupid enough to touch her or even acknowledge her weakened state, but they're there if she stumbles. As a synchronized pair, they indicate which direction she should go. Mercedes brings up the flank as a fifth bodyguard appears out of nowhere. 

"Car's running in the alley, Ma'am," he says as he holds open a fire door that had been hidden behind one of the decorative wall hangings. 

Kate moves carefully through the doorway, instinctively looking up and down the alley for a reason to pull the gun she's been resting her hand on. Seeing no immediate danger, she lowers herself painfully into the backseat. Once inside, Mercedes slides in next to her and one of the bodyguards closes the door. As the car speeds off down the alley, Mercedes begins to wonder if a doctor is in order.

Kate saw the car at the end of the alley before Mercedes' bodyguard did. She barely had time to cover her head in the back seat before the impact. Fortunately, their driver had managed to slam the brakes early enough so that the impact was merely jarring instead of fatal- but it nevertheless slammed Kate's back against the seat.

She cried out in pain. She couldn't help it. Damn it. Nearly blacking out, Kate forced herself to focus. With her eyes closed, she reached under her jacket and removed her revolver. There was only a single man moving towards their car and, as Kate suspected, his tall, muscular outline looked familiar. She could hear yelling from behind them. Bishop's boys? Mercedes' bodyguards? But a gunshot from the man walking toward the car sent them in the other direction.

The way the man walked, he obviously didn't suspect that anyone would be conscious in the car. Taking a deep breath, Kate moved fast. She pushed open the car door, using it for cover as she peered around it and took a couple shots. Unfortunately, the pain burning a hole on what felt like her entire back was affecting her aim. 

Focused on Kate during impact, Mercedes is rewarded with a double tap to the head as her right temple slams into the passenger headrest, and she then ricochets backwards where her left temple smacks into the rear headrest. Wishing to God she'd not drunk the equivalent of four shots in five minutes' time, her hand searches blindly for her gun at her back. Finding an empty holster, she begins to panic as her hand scrabbles along the leather seat. Her vision now doubling, she reaches between seat and door and finds her piece. Not following protocol because she can't even remember where she is at the moment, she opens the rear passenger door and collapses in an ungraceful heap on the pavement. Sounds come and go...a woman in pain...gunshots...

Mercedes could see a mountain of a man approaching the car from her vantage point. Which wasn't all that bad, actually. She had the door for cover and laying on the ground as she was, her hand was steady and braced. Pulling the trigger in rapid succession, she groups three shots into the behemoth's chest. As her hand falls to the pavement, footsteps can be heard running up the alley from the bar. Trusting that they were some of her people, she closes her eyes.

What seems like mere seconds pass and she opens her eyes to find herself back in the bar. She can see Kate being triaged on the couch opposite hers. One of her two closest men, Sy, peers down at her, examining her pupils. 

"Took a couple knocks to the head, Boss. No concussion. Not sure what to say about your friend there," he says, nodding towards Kate. "Might need to get her legitimate medical help. Looks internal.

"And then there's this little problem," he adds, straightening up and gesturing towards the huge dead man on the Den floor.

Kate started cursing and pushing the hands of the strange men away from her. She kicked one in the chest and pushed another with her hand before they backed off. As she sat up, she checked to make sure her revolver was in her holster. Groaning, she blinked a few times. Finally, she spoke.

"His name's Nico. He's the one who kicked me through the window. I was expecting to find him eventually, but not so soon. Maybe I shouldn't have made myself famous with this whole newspaper thing... but hey, nice work with him, Mercedes. He's not really connected, so I think that'll be the end of the matter."

One of Mercedes' bodyguards reached toward Kate and she slapped his hand away.

"I'm fine. I've been hurt enough to know when I need a doctor and when I don't."

She turned to Mercedes.

"If you can get your goon squad- no offense, boys- out of here with that big lump...

Kate waves dismissively at the body on the floor.

... I'd owe you a favor."

Mercedes tilts her head at Sy without breaking eye contact with Kate. As she studies her carefully, the men assembled each grab a limb and drag the now even heavier corpse back through the fire door and into a different car, this one pointing the other direction as a couple guys are still trying to clear the wreck out of the alley. As the door bangs shut, silence falls into the room. Mercedes breaks it with a question.

"What on earth compelled him to kick you through a window?"

"Well, I'd just... shot his friend. But that guy was going for his gun. So I can't really blame Nico for kicking me. Well, I can. But I understand why he did it."

Kate stood up, lifting the front of a tank top up 6 inches or so. Her flat, lean stomach was obscured on one side by a bruise vaguely in the shape of a foot, though not as bad as the one on her back.

"I was lucky there was a fire escape beneath the window. Although I fell farther than I'd ideally recommend, especially considering my landing. But I was lucky enough to avoid most of the glass. Speaking of... drugs? I think you said something about painkillers. Never tried them before, but I'm thinking now's the time."

Kate, gently, turned to look in the mirror behind the bar. A small red splotch had appeared near the center.

"Uh... and if you've got a bandage or whatever, I might have reopened something back here. And yes, I know you're worried. I know I look like shit, and I definitely feel like shit... but I'm pretty sure everything's still ticking okay inside, which makes me damn lucky. If I feel worse, I'll let you know."

Pursing her lips, Mercedes digs around in one of the cases that had been cast aside earlier by one of her men. She shakes capsules out of a pill bottle and moves to get a glass of water. Eyeing the whisky bottle by the sink, she snatches it up as well and heads over to Kate.

"Start with two. If you don't feel anything in fifteen minutes, you can take one more."

As Kate accepts the pills and knocks them back with the water, Mercedes moves behind her, staring at the bloodstain that continues to seep outward even as she watches. 

This was going to be awful.

Steeling herself with a slug of whisky straight from the source, Mercedes wordlessly places the bottle on the table beside them, close to Kate's hand.

After a quick inhale, she peels the tank top upwards, cringing at the sound of wet fabric parting from flesh. Kate somehow manages to stand motionless as Mercedes continues to pull the shirt up, finally revealing an ugly gash near the center of her spine. 

​​​​​​"No glass stuck in there. The shirt's about to be a loss, though," she says as she rounds the bar once again, searching for a paring knife. Finding a clean one, she returns to the job at hand. Carefully tearing the thin cotton away, she reaches down and digs around for an antiseptic and gauze. 

"Not gonna lie to you, this will hurt. Those pills doing anything for you yet? We can wait a few minutes....?"

Kate had been hurt enough to know that, at this moment, two things were absolutely true. The first was that she could handle this pain. She tried to embrace it as Mercedes_Kompressor started exploring her back. She froze her mouth in a grim smile and... just kind of left. She detached her mind from her body and watched what was happening like an impartial observer. Kate had already been through a lot in the last couple days- and she knew she could handle this as well.

The second truth was that she couldn't do this indefinitely. No one could tread water forever and Kate could feel the accumulated exhaustion and injuries slowing rising to the point where they'd soon take her under. What she wanted more than anything else in the world, was to sleep somewhere safe. Except "safe" was an illusion. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. She trusted Christian and Mavis with her life- and they would have brought half the hospital to try to help her. But how would they see her when she woke up? Would she still be Kate Logan to them? Or would they remember the woman they'd needed to save? The same was true her other connections in Detroit: Benny, Bishop, her associates in La Famiglia Gato and The Paragons. What if she woke up and they looked at her differently?  No, Mercedes had resources- and perhaps she'd understand Kate's reasons. 

Kate silently extended her hand for the third pill which, after a moment's hesitation, Mercedes dropped in her hand. 

"Mercedes, I'd like you to do whatever you've got to do to get this over with. Then I'd like you to take me over to that couch, lie me down on my stomach, preferably on something soft, and don't move me until I wake up. Because I'm going down hard- soon. I'd ask you to please let me sleep for as long as my body tells me I need to- and not to let anyone see me unless it's an emergency. A dire emergency."

Kate could feel Mercedes start to move her shirt and, as the pain filled the world, Kate, even in her state of mental detachment, had to either scream, cry, or laugh. So she laughed, loudly and wildly- although it was sometimes filled with rage or pain. When Mercedes was finished, Kate staggered slightly, sensing she only had about a minute until she blacked out.

"You'll... find any excuse... get my shirt off, eh? Better give me something to wear. Or I'll knock you out, too. Couch. Please."

Mercedes gripped Kate by the upper arm and guided her towards the nearest couch. Once she'd got her settled in, she started for the door with the intent of finding some fresh clothing. The girls here always had spares...they were pretty fastidious about their appearance once they were off the clock and had demanded that a washer and dryer be installed near the dressing rooms. Mercedes wasn't sure but she suspected that having hungry eyes on you all night made you feel particularly dirty.

As she reached for the doorknob, she looked back at Kate, completely defenseless and exposed. For whatever reason, she'd put her trust in Mercedes to make sure no harm came to her while she was compromised. 

Despite her conviction that no harm would come to Kate here, it just felt wrong to leave, even for a few minutes. Sighing, she reached yet again for the bar phone and asked one of her men on the other end to bring a loose fitting blouse, some blankets and pillows, and a spare weapon. When a knock sounded five minutes later, she intercepted the items at the threshold and double checked the locks on the doors before returning to Kate on the couch. Blouse in hand, she looked down at her friend. She was completely out. Noting the gentle rise and fall of her chest, Mercedes had to assume that Kate's system would let the drugs do what they needed to and that she hadn't overdosed her unintentionally. She dropped the blouse on the coffee table...no way was she going to attempt an awkward dressing simply for modesty's sake...and covered Kate with a blanket before retreating to the couch opposite. It was her intention to pull an all-nighter, but the adrenaline dump, whisky, and head banging took their toll.

Pistol on her lap, Mercedes fell asleep. 

 Kate snapped her eyes open, taking a few frantic moments to process where she was and what the hell happened. 

Her back, and her hip to a lesser degree, was in serious pain- although not as bad as the day before.

She was in a room, a bar, on a couch.

Mercedes was asleep on a couch across from her, holding a gun.

She wasn't wearing a shirt. 

Sitting up, Kate reached down gingerly and picked up the gunbelt on the ground next to her couch; she must have unbuckled it overnight. Moving silently, she slipped on the blouse next to her and fastened a couple buttons before refastening her belt. Walking on bare feet- had she kicked off her boots and socks as well?- she padded quietly over to a hallway, stopping at a bar to pick up and swallow two more painkillers. Inside the hallway it seemed like there were several mirrors... a dressing room? Hunting around, Kate found a shower. Cranking the faucet to a level that soon had steam filling the room, Kate slowly stripped and stepped into the shower, making sure that the stream of water hit only her chest and face, and not her wounded back.

The water is rising fast. Mercedes is immobilized. Screaming at her arms and legs to MOVE, they ignore her as the water quickly covers her calves, thighs, waist. She tries to scream but her vocal chords are betraying her as well. 

Higher now. The water is sloshing against her chest, pressing in, collapsing her lungs. 

With a Herculean effort, she lurches against the tide that is crushing her and breaks free...

To land with a thud on the Den floor. Pushing herself upwards, she looks around, momentarily disoriented.

She was in the Den. Kate was gone, but she could hear water running. She was in the showers.

​​​​​​After a moment's debate, she decides that isn't the worst idea. Gathering herself up and off the carpet, she makes a haphazard beeline towards the shower stalls herself, tossing clothes carelessly to the floor as she walks. 

Finding a stall a respectable distance from Kate's, she pulls the curtain closed. 

As she turns the faucet as hot as she can take it, several disjointed thoughts enter her mind from a hundred directions.

What time is it?

What DAY is it?

Crap, she'd forgotten her weapon.

Kate's ten feet away, and naked.

Kate wasn't sure how long she'd been in the shower. Sometimes you just feel so shitty that you can easily lose an hour in there. After a few minutes, she'd leaned forward with her arms stretched out to prop her up, enjoying the warm water hitting her face and rolling down her body. She tried to raise her head slightly, so that the smallest trickle of water could travel down her back. Better than the stream hitting her bruises directly.

As she heard another shower lurch to life she started moving for her gun automatically, cursing and wondering what her father would think, before she realized that she was in a secure location. Mercedes had locked the place down. So that other shower was either a stripper who'd passed out last night before everything went to hell- or Mercedes herself. Peering out from behind the shower curtain, Kate recognized Mercedes' clothes on the floor and smiled a wicked grin.

If only she wasn't injured.

Indulging her imagination, Kate winced as the shower directly hit one of her bruises. After a moment, she called out.

"Mercedes! I was wondering when you'd wake up. I'm feeling a little better. Think I'll be okay if I give it some time to heal. Uh- thanks. For last night."