MESSIAH

Thriving

Chapter 25

"You can't dodge this one, Sam," Rodrigo says with a smirk.

Blood trickles down the side of his face from the place Nathan's knife collided with his cheek, missing his eye. The sun reflects the colour of his eye and almost blinds me.

How can an eye so beautiful not perceive the world as a masterpiece? Why does he want to make it look ugly?

But, dear God, I wish I could dodge this one.

I analyze the situation. Nathan is standing before me, being one handedly suffocated by Rodrigo. Once I realize he is being suffocated and not cut, I realize that Rodrigo dropped the knife.

The gun is no more than a feet away from me. Every way I look at this, I get shot or Nathan does. Either way, I'd rather be taken away than one of us being dead.

Police might not save us because the town thinks the officers protecting the outside work with the Prime Minister. No one can possibly known of his death, unless he has surveillance cameras in in his private rooms, which I highly doubt.

Nathan lets out a small whimper and I can see it in his eyes that he is tired, tired of everything. I feel tears tickling my airway as it reaches my eyelids, but I don't let them fall.

My heart beat is so fast, I'm afraid I'll die from a heart attack. My palms sweat from the exercise I'm putting in the clenching of my fists. I need to stay strong. I need to take the risk.

I know he isn't going to kill me, for some reason, he wants me. I need to do something to change places with Nathan. Make Rodrigo believe he has reached his goal, for now I hope.

His finger stays around the trigger. Nathan's eyes keep going from the gun to me to the knife. I look at him directly. He nods and I know this is when all hell is going to break loose.

He elbows Rodrigo in the groin and takes hold of the momentum to push Rodrigo's arm, holding the gun, in the air, avoiding his target, that was my body. I throw myself on the ground to get the knife.

Once he regains balance, he tries to aim again, but I throw the knife out in front of me.

I stand shocked, my mouth left agape, in front of him. The knife hit him in the stomach. It looks like it went deep. Rodrigo looks at the knife, deeply placed inside him before he gets up.

He pulls the knife out, which was a stupid move because he'll bleed out even faster, and looks at me with his lifeless eyes.

I know he isn't going to kill me. I just hope Nathan didn't forget that he is the one Rodrigo wants dead.

So when he starts walking toward me, I keep my eye on the gun which he slowly starts aiming toward his left where Nathan is standing.

"NATHAN, NO."

I jump on Rodrigo making us both crash to the ground. At that very moment, the sound of choppers surround the Peace Tower.

Finally, I hope, some help.

Something burns my shoulder, but I don't care enough to look. Maybe, I'm just afraid of the reason.

I keep Rodrigo down until Nathan comes to help as well. I kneel on his chest and Nathan on his thighs.

It doesn't take long before FBI agents and the real RCMP soldiers show up.

They storm up the restricted stairs, only used for emergencies, and start surrounding us, guns held high.

The sound from everyone's booming voices answering the messages coming through their ear pieces cloud my hearing and distract me from any other rational thought.