A Little Death

XXI

I take out my machete. Behind me, Skyler takes out her butterfly knife. And we run.

5 men are coming towards us. I decide to take on the one who looks the hardest to take down first. I pretend to run towards the man next to him, but instead I slit his neck deep. He grabs his neck and falls to the floor, when I run past him towards the other men, he grabs my leg and I crash to the floor. I get up with blood running down my nose. I stab him in the chest and he stops moving. 

A woman attacks me from behind. She puts a crowbar around my neck. I push my head back, hitting her on the face, and slip under the crowbar. Skyler climbs her and she falls to the ground. 

Another man attacks me, I run in the opposite direction. He laughs and chases me. Idiot. 

From the corner of my eye, I see Tomer run away and crash into a wall thrice. I look away for a second, and he's already gone.

That little bitch.

I stop right before I crash into the floor-to-ceiling glass window, and the man does too. But I stab him from the back and he hits the window. The glass shatters and a few pieces fly everywhere. I barely dodge one of them. Skyler is standing next to the body of another man she killed. There are gashes all over his body. 

The last man looks at me, then at her. He runs towards the corner and presses a big, red button.

Shit.

Sirens wail everywhere and he runs out of the room, leaving a door flying open. We run after him. 

That was not a good decision.

From what I can tell, there are about a hundred people in this room, all armed. There is no way we can take down all of them. I know I'm not coming out of this room alive. 

The sounds of gunshots originate from the middle of the crowd and people run to the corners. There are a few people dead and more holding guns. 

Before we can do anything, they start fighting amongst themselves. I stand and watch the chaos, dodging a man that lunges at me and punch him in the guts. 

In a few chaotic minutes, there is only half the population there was earlier in the room. About 40 or 50 people. They're talking to each other, cleaning the blood off of them. 

Skyler goes up to a some of them standing in a group, she talks to them and comes back to me. 'These people are my dad's friends. They have a whole bunch more, and they already have a plan. We don't need to worry about the overthrowing, we couldn't deal with that alone anyway. Kristin alerted them we were coming and they had everything in place, they knew this was gonna happen, apparently.' 

She looks down at the floor with sadness in her eyes. 'A lot changed after I left. There were people who didn't like Dad before, but I never thought this much would happen. Anyways, they had a plan in place already for this situation. The only problem is, only Tomer has access to open wherever Dad is being held captive. And his rats aren't tattling about Dad's location. These people are gonna handle the other members who stood with him.' 

A man walks towards us, probably in his mid-50s. He stretches out a hand for me to shake. There in another guy, about my age too. He smiles, giving me a head nod.

The middle aged man starts speaking. 'My name is Allon. This is Elijah,' he points at the person behind him, then to the entire crowd. 'These are my friends.' He has a thick Russian accent. He points his hand to the people behind him. They look up and give me a head nod. Some stare. 

'Joshua.' I shake his hand. He smiles at me.

'You are- ehh, her boyfriend I assume?' He raises an eyebrow at me. Skyler sucks her teeth. 

'Allon, let's discuss the further plans, huh?' 

'Right.' He says, looking at Skyler but side-eyeing me like he expects me to jump at him and demand his kidneys. 'We plan to assault all the men who stood with that cheeky piece of expired string cheese, Tomer. There are a lot of them, but there are more of us. We will be giving them one minute to change sides, if they don't, we boom-boom them with the new machine guns we ordered.' He smiles, showing off his teeth, that are alternatively made of silver. Elijah shakes my hand, while Allon tells us the plan. 

Skyler smiles and nods. 'You always got me, Allon. So, what do WE do?'

'Yes, about that. We need you to try to find your Dad's location. We have his fingerprint,' he takes out a single severed thumb, blood-coated from his pocket, 'the place doesn't need an eye scan, well, because you stabbed his eyes. They look like balloon knots now, if you know what I mean.' He wrinkles up his nose bridge and shakes his head slowly. 'He's been walking around wearing those sunglasses-' He sighs.

'We need to track down Dad, got it. Thanks Allon, you're really helpful. Good luck.' 

'We have no leads yet, unfortunately. I'll send you a message when we get any at all. Good luck, Skyler.' They do a fist bump and I leave with Skyler. 

Skyler's POV

5 HOURS LATER

'A right from here.' I tell him. He turns the car. 

'Skyler, what's going on?' I sigh.

'What?'  

'We'll find him, I promise. It's gonna be fine. Isn't you father a mafia boss? You think he can't survive a simple kidnapping?'

'No, I know he can. I'm just worried. There's only five or six places left to search, if he's not here...'

'Then, he's probably escaped. You're worried for no reason.'

'Yeah, I guess.' He stops the car. We get out and walk to the 23rd shady building we've visited. This better be it or I'll flip. I throw a rock at the glass door, that is the entrance, and it shatters. We walk in carefully. 

Gunshots.

'Bingo, bitch.' Joshua smirks.

We run for cover behind the cement wall. The gunshots don't stop. We move slowly, crouched to the next wall, to get closer. Joshua takes out his pistol and shoots the hand of the figure. Blood flies and hits the wall. There's a scream. 

I hear the sound of a blade cutting through the air. Joshua grabs my arm and moves to the open centre of the layout. It's like a verandah, but instead of plants and beige walls, it's surrounded by grey cement, peeling off and some splotches of blood around. There are a dozen men standing around a heavy door. This has to be it.

Everyone comes at us all at once. I fight the three men and two women who come at me. They grab my limbs and pull me to the floor. I lash my leg out from underneath someone's hand and kick them in the face. Another woman holds me down to the floor. I push my head up, hitting her in the stomach, she falls back, clenching her stomach. I grab a shard of glass on the floor with a free hand, and stab someone in the stomach, leaving my other hand free. I push the people off of me. A man grabs me by the hair.

Oh no, he didn't. I drive my elbow into his stomach and he spits blood out on the floor.

I feel a surging pain in my thigh. There's a gash, blood spilling out. My leg gives in, but I get up moving as fast as I can while limping towards the man holding a gun. He's still clenching his bleeding arm. Weakling.  

I drive my leg into his back and he falls to the floor, another man attacks me from the back, I take the support of a bar running along the wall and use my functioning leg to kick him. I hit his neck and he starts coughing aggressively. Blood trickles down from his mouth as he stands, gaping.

I look around the room, there's no one healthy enough to fight anymore. Joshua is in a corner, his cheek bleeding. 

Then, a man dressed in all black holds a gun to his forehead, before I can do anything, I feel an arm wrap around my neck and a blade to my neck.

Yeah, we're fucked.