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Lua doesn’t expect Ladd to bring a new friend with him.
In fact, she barely notices the man he has with him at first, mainly because Ladd’s entrance is so eventful, and then Graham makes a fuss, and then she’s so busy taking in the man she hasn’t seen in three years that she really doesn’t notice anything else at all. Ladd Russo looks almost the same as she remembers him; it doesn’t look like he’s lost a lot of weight in prison, like she heard he might, and his face and his small are the same. The only difference is his left hand.
She supposes that under his sleeve, the metal of the prosthetic extends far up his arm. The damage he took three years ago was pretty extensive, after all, and it’s no surprise that he has a prosthetic now. Lua wonders how heavy it is, blushing ever so slightly as she imagines what he could do to her with just his prosthetic, if it turns out to be as heavy as she imagines.
Lua is so caught up in their reunion that she doesn’t notice the other man until Shaft points him out, and then, she is interested to see that he has a prosthetic as well. However, he is unconscious and he isn’t the one she’s been waiting to see all this time, so she promptly loses interest in him. She is happy to sit in the backseat with Ladd, and even when the man- Nader- wakes up, she is still more interested in her fiance. It’s not like it’s the first time Ladd has brought a new friend with him, and it gets hard to keep up with everyone.
The men make conversation that she just barely listens to, and she only really tunes in when Shaft mentions a familiar name. “Ricardo is still around,” he says, and this catches Lua’s attention.
“Oh, Ricardo? Ricardo, huh,” says Ladd, and looks to be reminiscing. “I remember him. Even as a damn kid, he had that look in his eyes like he didn’t care when he died. Not like Lua, though. Can’t really explain it.”
What Ladd says surprises her, particularly his comparison. Perhaps that’s what it was about Ricardo that she sensed, what it was that made her feel a sort of kinship with him. Even if their reasoning or feelings toward death were different, the simple fact that he didn’t care about his death or even wished for, and had since a young age, meant that there was something that they had in common. She’d told him, briefly, about Ladd’s promise to her, and now she wonders what he thinks of that, or if he’s still too young to really understand.
~X~
Ladd has a lot of plans for the day, and they end up going all over. First, they drop Nader off at a casino that Ladd wants to check out, claiming that one of his friends from prison manages it, and that he wants to introduce them all. However, Shaft convinces him to pay a visit to Who, who is apparently in town right now, so Ladd gives Nader some money to get started.
When Nader gets out of the car, Lua calls up to Graham, as she did earlier, asking him to get in the car, now that there’s a seat open for him. He could have crammed in the back with her and Ladd, but she appreciates his decision to give them some space, even if that decision led to something as risky and ridiculous as sitting on top of the car.
When Graham does as told, Ladd grins at Lua and says, “Glad to see you’ve got a handle on the kid.”
The four of them set off to visit Ladd’s old friend, only to discover that he’s not in at the hospital Shaft says he works at. Ladd insists that means it’s time to go gambling, and though Shaft tries to convince him not to go to that casino- and Lua takes an interest then, curious why Shaft is trying so hard to take control like this- and the four of them make their way back to where they dropped off Nader.
Ladd always did things like this in the past; whenever he took her out for something, they were often out all day, with several destinations in mind, and when he was just barely done with one thing, it was immediately on to the next. It’s exhausting, but she still missed it, and being packed in the car with him while he orders the driver all over the city makes her feel like no time has passed at all. Ladd was easily able to pick back up right where he left off.
When they arrive at the casino, it’s a scene of chaos. Lua is surprised at the familiar faces in the room, and it almost feels like a repeat of the incident at Nebula. Graham, who had charged in right away, is already engaged in a fight with Lua’s self-proclaimed best friend, and, when she sees Christopher, she immediately looks for Ricardo. The boy is there as well, and she’s glad to see that they made it to New York without any difficulty.
Besides them, the tattooed boy is here as well, though Ladd hasn’t noticed him yet, more focused on greeting his friend from prison, as well as Nader. Lua takes a good look at Firo, who looks younger and altogether softer than she would have expected one of Ladd’s fellow Alcatraz inmates to look, but there’s a harsh look in his eyes that indicates there might be more beneath the surface. The harsh look also indicates that he might not like Ladd nearly as much as Ladd seems to think he does, but that doesn’t surprise Lua at all.
Ladd goes down the stairs, further into the casino, while Lua hangs back, closer to the exit. There’s so much going on that she doesn’t want to get caught in the crossfire of some fight, so she observes everything from a safe distance. And then, while Ladd finally notices and begins to speak with the tattooed boy, Christopher decides to attack him just to see if he can get a rise out of Graham, and Ladd lays him out, rising to the challenge, while a variety of people try to stop the fight, for a variety of reasons.
Lua can barely keep up with everything happening in front of her, and so she finally descends the stairs, still doing what she can to avoid getting caught up in the commotion, just in time for another group of newcomers to join the scene. Ladd’s friend must be very popular, to have all these people showing up out of nowhere. She stays in the background, more like a member of the audience than someone actually present, just trying to keep up with everything going on, all the new faces and their conversations, and who is going to fight who.
Though she’s cautious throughout the entire outing, she is never really scared of anything. As long as she stays out of the way, she doesn’t think anyone will target her, and they do, she has Ladd here. Since he was initially only fighting Christopher, she was actually fairly confident that he wouldn’t try to hurt her to get at Ladd, and even as Ladd makes a new enemy, finding someone with the sort of personality that sets him off, Lua still isn’t afraid.
Until he enters the scene, that is.
The strange man attacks Ladd to protect Ladd’s new enemy, and Lua feels her blood go cold. It isn’t just that he doesn’t seem to struggle against Ladd; while that would be alarming on its own, there’s something else that has her concerned, something that she can’t place but that she feels like she has to place, before it’s too late. She thinks about getting Ladd’s attention and telling him to run, but she’s only ever urged him to do that once before, and that is when she begins to understand the fear in her heart.
Her cry catches in her throat, and then his disguise is removed and she recognizes him. The conductor from the train, the bloody man who-
He’s cleaned up now, but, just like Ladd, she isn’t able to forget him, and she doesn’t know what to do. The man, who calls himself Felix, looks between her and Ladd. “Oh, you’re still alive after all! And your girl looks well too. That’s good.” Lua flinches as he smiles at her. “Sorry for using you as a threat back then. But, I mean, you’re in love with this guy. I’m sure you’re expecting to run into some trouble, right?”
She is unable to respond and unable to move, even though every part of her is urging her to find some way to get Ladd out of there, to make sure that history is not repeated. Another man speaks up then, saying, “I don’t know the situation that well, but you probably did something horrible to this girl. You should apologize like a gentleman.”
While the two of them are talking, Ladd decides to act, much to Lua’s horror. She never used to have to worry about him, but ever since that night...all she could do was pray that they never met this man again and now, on their first day back together, he’s reappeared and she doesn’t know how to save Ladd. Ladd will not back down so easily, not when he’s lost before and feels like he has something to avenge. She won’t be able to talk him out of this fight, but she’s completely helpless to save him when things get serious.
And then, when the fight has barely had a chance to begin, salvation comes from the young man Ladd has just decided to hate. He calls Felix off like it’s nothing, and the terrifying man obeys him, ignoring Ladd’s protests. She feels a little bit grateful to Melvi, and even if Ladd hates him, right now she can’t bring herself to, if only because he’s done what she can’t do.
Felix informs Ladd that he has no interest in fighting him or anyone else right now, proudly proclaiming that he can’t be defeated. “If you have a problem with that, come at me whenever you like. Bring a friend, or even twenty. Try givin’ me a challenge for once.” He thinks for a moment before adding, “Since this is my friend’s casino, I don’t want to spill any blood. That’s all.”
Just what has Ladd gotten himself into, Lua wonders.
Her fiance laughs and shouts his challenges at Felix, still not ready to give it up. At the end of it all, he asks, “So...you don’t mind if we go now, do ya, Rail Tracer?”
Finally, Lua is able to open her mouth, ready to tell him to back off while he has the chance. She opens her mouth, forming the first word, before she freezes again, and can no longer speak at all. Melvi, whom she had just felt gratitude for, holds out a gun, pointing it directly at her. If he were to shoot, then she doubts she has any chance of survival.
Ladd turns his attention entirely to Melvi, who doesn’t seem afraid at all. “That’s a warning. You understand, don’t you? I said, let’s leave it at this for today.”
“I had two bastards I swore I was gonna kill once I got free,” Ladd says, his voice low and dark. “That red-haired freak, and Huey Laforet. Melvi, was it? You’re number three, you little fuck.”
Even in the face of that threat, Melvi remains unaffected, and finally, he leaves, taking Felix with him. Lua moves closer to Ladd, her legs barely able to support her after all the shock. If she were an ordinary woman, she likely would have blacked out by now.