Marry or Kill

19

E L I A S

THERE'S SMOKE EVERYWHERE. Before I can duck my head, a firework flies past me with all possible haste and gushes into the sky. It nearly caresses the side of my head, leaving sparks of lavender in its wake.

My hands slap against my ears, covering the pounding of the fireworks. Purple flashes in Mina's glossed eyes and she blinks, dazed for a moment at the sight. Lots of footsteps shuffle, out of reach of the blazing fireworks.

Like a flash, Mina turns her eyes to mine with a twinkle of raw red determination and something else I can't quite put my finger on. I realise I'm supposed to be following her, but dots and sparkles cloud my vision and I can hear my own raw breath.

As Mina dashes out of the room and into the grey cloud of smoke, she raises her gun and fires thrice. Someone falls down in front of us, but all I feel is the blood subtly dripping from my ear from the clamorous noise.

My astray eyes drop to my wound then to my hand soaked with blood. I must have hit something to start bleeding a lot again, but I hadn't noticed. I wipe my bloody hand against my jacket in an attempt to rid it, but it doesn't disappear.

More blood perches on my hand.

I swallow thick saliva, but it stays at the back of my throat, choking me. I flip over my hand, letting the blood dribble all over the floor. It's like an endless stream. 

I feel someone's rough hand against my face, and a hot panting breath hitting my face. Sweat drips down my nose as I lift my eyes, looking through my thick eyelashes. "This is not the time to daydream." Noah curtly slaps my back and I stumble forward, shaking my head. "Jesus Christ, Elias."

There's no blood anymore. My hands are clean. "I... I don't know what happened," I say, sounding like soundpaper. I realise I can't breathe. Noah roughly slams his hand against my back again, and I reel forward, coughing at the thick smoke entering my lungs.

It crowds my nose. I can feel the burn entering my body, sending pinpricks of fire into my lungs.

Noah bends down with me. "Breathe."

"We need to get out of here," I rasp, placing my hands against my thighs to cough again. Locks of my hair fall in front of my face as I urgently look around.

Noah viciously pats my back to help me breathe whilst covering his mouth with his long sleeve. "Yeah, man. That was the plan until you dozed off."

"Where is she?" I ask, sounding as dry as chalk. I race my gaze around the smoke, looking for Mina's dark chocolate hair through my watery eyes. Panic races into my stomach when I realise she's gone. "Fuck."

BANG.

The sound hits me first.

A bullet fastly soars past my head. Noah snaps his gaze in the same direction as me, searching through the waves of thick smoke. I can't see the shooter. He must have come from inside the building. I briefly see the lighting flash of the second bullet sour through the smoke.

I swing myself toward Noah, yanking his arm toward me and begin to shoot in the direction of the bullet. I don't hear the thump of a body against the ground or a groan. I've missed him. Quick on our feet, we start toward the craters of rifles and drop down.

"How are we going to kill him if we can't see shit?" Noah mutters with a heavy sigh. He angles his head from the side of the crater, looking for our guy.

I wince at the smoke hitting my eyes. "We wait for him to attack first."

Noah exhales, then his eyes drag to the door. Or doorframe. The actual door had been blasted with fireworks. "Or we just run out of the exit. We're sitting here like easy pickings."

The door is a couple metres away from us, but it's a narrow space, easy to get hit. "And risk ourselves of being shot?"

Noah looks at me, speaking through his bared teeth. "Anywhere we go here, we run the chance of getting shot," he hisses. "We will suffocate to death if we stay any longer because of the damned smoke."

Restlessly, I sink against the crater, he's right, although I hate to admit it. We might as well take our chances and run. I give him a brief nod, and his expression lightens.

Just as I'm about to run, a bullet pieces the crater, making my bones lock. Noah sends me an unsettled look. The shooter knows where we are. I need to hurry. I take a large breath and begin to sprint through the doorway.

In the distance, I hear a cough. I freeze through the doorway, swaying my body toward the noise. I know where he is now, and I won't let this chance slide. I'm standing as the light hits my back, as indiscreet as I could possibly be. Delightfully, I lift my gun up and dish out bullets in the direction of the noise.

"What are you doing?" Noah urgently shouts, leaping on his feet. Like music to my ears, I hear the sound of a body slumping to the ground. I sigh out, swiping the sweat off my forehead as Noah rushes up to me. "You have to be suicidal!"

"I have to find her," I say, racing out into the smog. I grimace at the bloodshed everywhere. Wordlessly, Noah follows, keeping his eyes from behind me. There's still fireworks erupting, crackling with different colours everywhere.

My eyes slowly burn and I feel the gloss disorientating my vision. We turn around the edge of a building. Without clocking it, I shoot a West in the forehead before he can lunge out to attack. His body falls mid-way through the air.

I've dealt with every encounter and every attack possible.

Noah drops his gun to his side and spares me an appalled look. "Jesus, you're quick."

My eyes scurry around me, trying to locate Mina in the smoke. Then I find the doors to our building wide open. Inside there's blood drooling from the walls and running through the carpets. Mina leaves my mind and my head clouds with my mother.

Where is she?

I don't see my father anywhere either. I freeze when a cold realisation sets my body to ice. My father has always wished for my death. In every circumstance I've thought of, he's set up my death. Including when he made me kill The West leader's son.

The bounty on my head is because of him, I've known that from the start. But now I know that it was intentional because he wanted my death to be inevitable.

Bullets fire all around me. I think about Mina. My father had arranged the marriage with Mina, but I had left her to think it was me. If he had made me marry Mina, then he wants to bring as much pain as possible. The only thing my father could hold against me was my own mother, but now he can hold Mina, too.

I need to find her.

Fresh bullets lodge in the walls and we continue running. I fire behind me, hoping to stop a few from shooting at us.

"They're at the diner room," Noah rasps, blood dripping from the side of his face.

I send him a brief nod.

My vision sharpens and I quickly shoot at the men coming through the diner doorway. We begin to run through, catching our breaths. There's not as much smoke in the building, but still to make it hard to run long distances.

Inside, I see Mina. There's blood on her cheeks, on her legs, everywhere. But then my eyes drop to the floor and my mother is lying there, deathly pale. I can only remember dropping my rifle to the ground and leaping onto the floor to hold her.