T18: Toni

Toni came through the gateway firing- even though she wasn't entirely sure where the enemy were.

She'd wanted to be first. Even in the car on the way here, she'd wanted to be first. She knew the way the others looked at her, the way they whispered behind her back. She didn't talk like them, didn't dress like them, hadn't gone to an expensive private school or owned a fucking pony when she was a kid. Her dad hadn't driven a Mercedes or taken her to ballet lessons. She had tattoos, and a body she wasn't scared of flaunting.

She knew she had something to prove, or they'd never take her seriously.

So when she saw how scared they all were, hanging back from the entrance to the final courtyard like it was fucking haunted, she'd known exactly what she was going to do.

She'd laughed a contemptuous little laugh and stepped straight on in there, shooting as she came.

As the bullets, red-hot, ripped through her breast and her belly, robbing the strength from her legs and dropping her on her booted knees on the hard ground, she knew she'd fucked up bad.

The crack and pop of gunfire assaulted her ears as she lifted her flimsy top to look at the torn hole in her shiny new silk bra, lifted her hand to feel the swollen skin around the rim of the little black hole punched in her toned abs. All that work in the gym, just for a fucking bullet to punch clean through. She could feel the ticklish trickle of blood as it seeped out over her skin. Her eyes stung, tears suddenly welling in her eyes and choking her throat at the ridiculous unfairness of it. The others weren't even stopping for her- they didn't give a shit!

Faint, weak, she toppled back, her breath short in her throat and her vision swimming, ears ringing. Her body twitched, jerked, trying to move but lacking the strength. Tears swam in her eyes and blurred her narrowing, darkening vision.

The breath wouldn't come. She was choking- couldn't breathe- couldn't breathe at all.

She couldn't move- couldn't do anything- couldn't help herself.

Her vision became a mere blur of shape and colour, then blinked out, and there was nothing.