The Blonde Bowstring: Steelgray's Story

15

Nicole's magnetic sheath kept every variation of her arrows in place as she raced up the stairwell. She pulled along the railing to propel her further up the stairs, letting her skip a few steps. Rush's debriefing of Alino plus the glint she saw on the building placed the sniper on the tenth floor from the top.

She kicked down the doors that lead to rooms facing the skyscraper ballroom. Her expression was angry with every grunt and she waved her bow in every doorway every single time.

Finally, she was met with a silenced gunshot. The woman quickly turned her back to the doorframe. So he was still here? Interesting. Another bullet sped through the air beside her. Alino shot again, and this time Nicole was able to count the intervals. Three seconds between each shot. She allowed him to try once more and counted in her head. The archer pulled back her wooden compound bow and shot blindly into the darkened room, her only reference was the new bullet holes on the wall in front of her.

Three, she thought and moved out of the way. No bullet came. So the woman ran into the empty, spacious room. She kept her eyes on the door she'd come through. She nocked an arrow and aimed at the doorknob, letting her arrow fly into the lock, hoping that would jam it. Now, where was that sad excuse for a soldier?

"So, you want to be a hero," Nicole yelled in her deep, mostly menacing voice.

"Hero? no, I'm not a hero; I'm a hitman, and I know it."

She could only describe the voice as whiny. It came from her right. Nicole sucked in a deep breath before slowly walking toward it, arrow poised and ready to fly out.

"That's the difference between the two of us," the voice said. "Saw you in the paper today. A whole getup, huh? You heroes really do like your costumes."

Funny, since Nicole would never think of herself as a hero. The voice became louder with every step she took. "You bad guys like your names,"

"So you know who I am? Famous already? I only just got here," he said cockily.

Nicole's jaw clenched as she finally approached the cement pillar Trickshot was hiding behind. "You won't be staying long, Trickshot," Nicole said. She abruptly turned the corner and let the arrow fly. Instead of taking down a man with a rifle, Nicole had cut right through a rope.

The cassette stereo fell straight to the ground and shattered on impact. The man was insane. He just had to hear the latest pop hits during his night shift of assassinating people.

The initial shock delayed Nicole's reaction, but eventually, the archer took the cassette stereo's place, pressing against the cement pillar. If she'd done it a second later, she would've caught the string of bullets Alino had just sent her way.

"So you want to do this the hard way," she said. "That's fine. I got all night."

"Or you can just come out and show that pretty little face of yours."

Nicole could pinpoint his location and spun out from behind the pillar, shooting an arrow right at the man. He was quick enough to fire off a few shots at the same time, disorienting Nicole and causing her to duck behind the pillar, obviously affecting her aim.

"Alright. A little target practice never hurt anybody," she said. Then she heard the kick-down of a door and looked around. Alino was making a run for it.

This whole favor for Rush thing was getting a little bit tiresome. She ran after him, following him down the stairs into a hallway. That's when she crashed right into him. She wasn't sure why he'd stopped, but Nicole was already getting back on her feet. That's when she saw Rush standing at the other end with his gun drawn out.