A Sore End (Hard Time Sequel)

Seven

Damian was slow but adrenaline pumped through my veins. I don't think Damian got what the stakes were. He didn't realize that there were so many worse things that could happen to us if we stuck around. He knew what his mother was capable of and yet he didn't scramble and run as fast as he could like I did. I bolted from shadow to shadow, eyes darting around at every little thing.

We were in a fortress on a mountain crawling with assassins all under Talia's rule.  This was about the survival of the fittest. We didn't have the luxury of taking a break.

We were sneaking around for an hour trying to find a way out when someone sounded the alarm.

"They know." Damian tells me like I'm an idiot.

"I know." I reply.

We hug to a corner as an assassin goes running by.

I throw my spinner and it swacks against the man's head.

The assassin fell and I caught him before dragging him to the dark corner we were in.

Damian took the man's weapons while I tie him up and shove him in a crack in the building.

"We need to escape and find Batman." I say.

"We need to destroy this place." Damian grunted but he swayed unsteadily.

I look over at him and raise an eyebrow while quirking my head. "Sure, right after we escape we'll come back and blow it up."

Damian scowled. "No! We can't go yet. We need to destroy this place so they know we're a threat!"

I scoff into a short laugh "Look around you short stop!" I gesture at the blaring alarms and marching ninjas. "I think they get we're a threat!"

Damian crossed his arms defiantly which made him flinch in pain. "I'm not leaving until-"  He stopped talking and looked surprised. Damian looks behind himself and scowls. "Son of a-" He starts before his eyes roll back and he collapses.

My eyes widened when I saw the blow dart in his leg. I look up and see a ninja glaring at me. I toss my Spinner at him and he avoids it just for it to come back around and knock him in the head, knocking him out cold. 

I crouch down over Damian and shake him violently. "Get up." I hissed. "There's no way in Mars I'm dragging you the whole way!" Damian let out a quiet groan and I glare at him like he got shot on purpose. "You will not be the reason I'm caught again!" I snarl. I feel guilt though as soon as I say it. Damian was just a kid. A kid with problems and anger issues but just  a defenseless kid when he was asleep. He never had anyone to protect him, not really and because of that he was a rude little snot bucket. 

I roll my eyes to the sky and come up with an idea. 

A minute later I'm tying Damian onto my back with him in his assassin suit that I stole off the guy who shot him. I was in one as well from the guy who we took down initially. Obviously we would be noticeable with Damian on my back but at least we wouldn't immediately stick out like a sore thumb. 

With a sharp inhale I head off, wishing I was the one who got to sleep through the entire thing instead of trudging with Damian on my back. Sneaking around was almost impossible but luckily it was dusking and the shadows just grew larger but as time went on the assassins got more desperate to find us. 

So far everything was good and I came up with an idea, take a speed boat and get out of here. I had made it to the edge of the mountain but there wasn't exactly a bunch of stairs, just a lot of cords that held the walls up and traveled over the forest below and onto the shore where a dock with a few speed boats lay waiting like a beam of hope. My legs shook from carrying my own weight and the weight of the kid. No matter how light he was he was definitely a burden on my exhausted knees. 

When I finally came up with an idea I put it into action immediately. I dropped Damian a started to tie the rope around his torso then around the curd that traveled to the beach. I tied it taught and perched him on top of the wall, looking down at the huge canyon I was about to send him flying over. I started to have second thoughts before I had been spotted from below. 

"They're there!!" A man yelled and all eyes were on us.

Damian started to groan and his eyes opened a little. His immune system must have been better than I gave him credit for. "What's happening?" He asked. 

"Sorry about this, don't scream." I say before I crabbed the cord and used both my feet to kick him hard off the edge of the wall and send him zip lining down the cord. Right before the assassins could reach me I pulled out my Spinner, held it over the cord with both hands and jumped off the wall. MY arms screamed at me as my body weight relied on them with their life. Wind slapped my face so viciously my eyes were watering ads I soared over the forest after Damian. My thumb got too close to the chord as I traveled at fifty miles an hour. My palm scraped against the chord and skin was burned off. I almost scream but hold on for life as I near the beach where Damian landed with a stumble. 

My grip started to loosen and I scream "Move!!!!" 

Damian turned around right as I let go and smashed into him hard. We rolled on the dock for a moment but I didn't waste any time. I jump up immediately, cut Damian free and throw him in a boat. I turn to see the assassins zip lining after us and my heart sped up. I turn to the other speed boats and unhooked them, turned their engines on so they drove off in all sorts of directions. I then lept into our boat and turned the engine on, revving it hard as we took off so fast we almost went toppling out of the boat. 

"What are you doing? You're running away! We have to go back and take them down you coward!" Damian yelled as he lunged for the steering wheel. I wasn't going to take any of this  bull crap heroism though. I kicked him back and his head hit against a crate in the boat, knocking him out cold. 

"Shut up, I'm trying to live right now!" I yell at him. I finally look back and see the assassins at the coast and know that this wouldn't be the end of it. They were coming after us and we weren't done yet. As soon as our boots hit the shore we would be on the run again. and just like last time, we would be hunted by everyone that saw us. I did it last time but can I do it with Damian? We clashed so much and had such different ideas with each other. How in the world were we going to make it? 

I close my eyes tightly and feel a heavy wave of exhaustion come over me. Almost immediately I snap my eyes open again as a stinging pain attacked my body, forming in my palm where skin had been scorched off, left behind on the chords I zip lined down. I look at Damian, see his injuries and the pounding headache and dizziness he would have when he woke up again. We were off to a crappy start. When I did this last time I didn't have as many injuries this soon. But now, I was already tired, I didn't have the same rage at Batman anymore that would keep the fire going, and I had a moody kid pulling at my every string in disagreement. This was the type of mission someone would start off with with better supplies, better training, and maybe a missile launcher and map. What we had was Spinners and a sword with two very exhausted teens. 

I look up at the night sky and scream out "WHY ME?!?!?!?!" 

Sorry for the long wait guys. To be honest, I forgot about this story and had to basically reread both books to remember where I was going with this. Don't worry, I figured it out.