7. Capiche?

Champ twisted his head around to look at her, jerking around, trying to break free. His face was swollen and bloody and there was a cloth gag in his mouth. Nicole walked around to the other side of him, noticing that he had no shirt on and his torso was bruised and scratched. She pulled her gun out and traced the barrel up and down his chest, kneeling down in between his legs. 

Nicole met his eyes, seeing the look of terror on his face. “Do you remember me, Champ?” she asked in a seducing tone. He shook his head, wide-eyed. “No? Oh. Haha, right . . . I knocked you out during your little adventure before you could take one look at me!” She pushed her gun into the middle of his collarbones and brought her face closer towards his, dropping her voice to a softer, teasing tone. “Ya know, men who hurt women where I come from are considered pussies. Are you a pussy, Champ?” Her face was so close to his, their noses were almost touching. He let out a muffled whine, and she stepped back, ripping the gag out of his mouth. 

“N-no, Ma’am, I’m not,” he stuttered out.

Nicole slowly walked around him and yanked his head back by his hair, and he let out a wince. “It’s Sheriff's Deputy Haught to you, Champ!” she shouted, looking down at his face. Her mouth slowly curved into an evil smirk. “Or . . . should I call you James?” She let him go and circled back around to the front of him, seeing that there was somehow even more fear on his face than there was before. “That’s right. I know all about you, Bud. I did my research.” She tapped him on the tip of the nose with the end of her gun. “How do you think these boys are gonna feel when I fill them in on that one . . . particular . . . event?” she asked, poking her gun into his chest, harder and harder with each word. “You know what I am talking about, right, James?” Doc and Dolls raised their eyebrows and walked up behind him, crossing their arms. 

Champ quickly shook his head. “No! Those charges were dropped! I didn’t do it, I swear!” 

Nicole growled and whacked him with the butt of her gun, watching the blood from his mouth drip down his chin. “You’re trying to tell me it’s just a coincidence you’ve been accused of sexual assault before?!” She raised her brows at him with a slow shake of her head. “That doesn’t sound very good for you. Especially ‘cause last time it was your ex-girlfriend that had just broken up with you!” Nicole glanced up at Doc and Dolls. “Sounds like a familiar story, doesn’t it, Boys?” 

Doc cracked his knuckles, and Dolls loaded his gun, both still standing behind Champ. Nicole looked back down at Champ with a smirk. “Oooh, they don’t look too happy about that.” She squatted down in front of him and tapped his stomach with the gun. “So. Why’d you do it, James? What is so special to you about hurting the girls you apparently loved? How is that going to make them want you back?”

“I-I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“What was that?” she asked, tilting his head up with her gun.

“I said I don't know,” he repeated, louder than the previous time.

“So it was just for fun? For laughs and giggles?” She grabbed his face with her free hand and yanked it forward, digging her nails into his bloody cheeks. “I don’t think Jessie or Waverly were laughing!” She gritted her teeth and dropped her hand back to her side as she stood.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff's Deputy Haught,” he mumbled.

“Sorry, my ass!” she shouted with a scoff, pushing her gun against his nose. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it again!”

Champ let out a loud huff. “Why do you people care so much! I didn’t even do anything to her! Nothing that I haven’t done before! We’ve fucked hundreds of times and she had no problem with it! What's so different now!?” 

He looked genuinely confused about why it was such a big deal, and it truly made Nicole’s blood boil.

She put her foot on the chair in between his legs and slowly started pushing forward, wagging her gun in his face as she spoke. “Did you not hear her screaming and crying for help? You had her pinned against the wall because she was trying to get away, for fuck’s sake! She obviously didn’t want you to be all up on her like that, and you know it!” His face was contorting from the gradual pressure she was adding onto his crotch. “Girls are not supposed to be scared shitless from a casual fuck, Hardy, and you know that, too, so do not give me that crybaby bullshit!”

Champ slowly shook his head, looking away from her for a moment. “I think I know what it is,” he muttered, leaning forward in the chair towards her despite the foot on his goods. “I think you’re jealous- Jealous that I can get in her pants and you can’t. You’re obviously a dyke.” He shook his head with a scoff. “Disgusting.”

“Is that right?” Nicole asked with a laugh to conceal her inner anger. 

He spat at her, and in one swift move, Nicole kicked him backwards in the chair by the crotch. She jumped over him and pressed the gun to his forehead, staring down into his bulging eyes. He was still trying to catch his breath when she began, “You do realize you are the one tied to the chair, right? Your feeble attempts at insulting me are just doing you more harm than good. I would suggest if you wanna walk out of here with the ability to produce children, you keep your mouth shut. Capiche?” Champ nodded his head rapidly. “Great.”  

Nicole pushed off of him, and Doc and Dolls lifted his chair back up and she stuck her gun back in her waistband. She pulled her sleeves up and threw her beanie on the ground. After running her fingers through her sweaty hair, she placed her hands on his knees as she leaned down towards his face. “I am gonna ask you this one final time. Do you, James Hardy, understand what you did wrong?”

“Yeah, sure, I understand,” he grumbled in a deadpan. “Can I leave now?” 

Nicole’s foot nailed his crotch again, and this time his chair toppled sideways with his screams of agony filling the barn. “I think I’m done here, enjoy prison, James, I’ve heard they love to beat up on your kind there.” She grabbed her hat off the ground and stepped over the chair. Nicole opened the barn door and stepped into the cool air outside, the two men following close behind her.

“Well, that was . . . something,” Doc said with a heavy breath.

“Sure was,” Dolls agreed.

“I could tell he doesn’t like it when a woman has power over him, so I kinda used that as an advantage.”

“You did a damn good job, Officer. He looked like a ghost there for a while,” Doc complimented.

“Eh, he deserves it. Neither of those girls deserved what he did . . . Y'all need to work on making him so terrified that he doesn’t mention what we did to him when he is in court for this. He could win the case if they find out.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult,” Doc sighed. “That boy’s dumber than a sack of bricks. He believes everything we tell ‘em.”

“When should we bring him to the station?” Dolls asked.

“I don't know, maybe tomorrow?” Nicole shrugged.

“Works for me,” Dolls said with a nod.

Nicole nodded with a sigh, pulling her phone out of her pocket to check the time. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow. I need to get home and get cleaned up."

The boys said their goodbyes and walked back into the barn. Nicole stepped in her car and pulled away. She was proud of herself for keeping it together, but was it that obvious she had a thing for Waverly? She didn’t know or care. She continued back home, trying to figure out what she should do next. Should she tell Wynonna and Waverly about that Jessie girl? She sighed with a shake of her head, for she really had no clue.

When Nicole pulled up to her house, her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw it was Wynonna. “Hey, what’s up?” she answered.

“Nicole,” Wynonna said quickly, out of breath it seemed.” I need your help, Dude. Get here as fast as you can.” Wynonna had hung up before Nicole could even get a word in.

Nicole made a mad dash inside and changed as quickly as she could. No matter how bad the situation was, she was not showing up there looking like that. She ran back out to her car while still pulling her shirt over her head and sped off, hoping she wouldn’t be too late to whatever was going down at the Homestead.