Zayden ducked instinctively, and I lunged for his jacket, guiding him and the semi-conscious Brock behind the corner of a concrete building as bullets riddled the alleyway. The figure, a burly man who had been closing in on us from a rival gang, didn't even have time to turn. A single shot from somewhere down the road rang out, and he crumpled into the broken pavement. Gang members scattered; shouts of confusion and a different kind of panic drowned out the fight that had consumed us just moments before.
"Is that..?" I leaned out, my eyes stinging from the sudden smell of cordite.
I squinted at the new figures swarming the street. They wore similar clothing to each other, but it was the insignia on their shoulders that stopped my heart. A flash of white and blue. A stylized lightning strike.
"Cassie!"
A violent jerk on my collar sent me slamming back against the brick wall. Zayden's face was inches from mine, his eyes wilder than I had ever seen them. "What is wrong with you? You keep your head back or you'll lose it."
"It's the cops, Zayden." I pressed my back harder against the rugged concrete, my voice barely audible over the gunfire. "Cops from RL."
Zayden looked at me with the same confused expression I had sported only a moment ago. That jacket, with the white and blue logo in the shape of a lightning bolt, had only presented itself twice in my life. The first time was during those precious moments after my father was murdered, and the second time was when a classmate had set my middle school library on fire. That wasn't the first or last time some rebellious student had lit up a part of that school; I was just lucky enough to have been absent all the other times.
Seeing the Range Lake police not only patrolling the area but actively engaging in a gang fight was almost inspiring, considering how famously absent they were from the city. How many street fights had gone down in these alleyways? Rowdy people hollering on the streets betting on the winning fighter, women and children harassed by drunken men. Kidnappings, revenge killings, robberies. I could still hear my mother's voice, worried but stern, warning us to stay inside once it started to get dark. She knew what I was seeing now; the police seemed to only show up to count the bodies, not to save them.
They didn't normally patrol these alleys. They didn't risk their lives for street rats, much less engage with one of the biggest gang showdowns in the history of the city.
For them to show up here, in the middle of a very public gang fight, seemingly prepared and armed for war... was unsettling and suspicious. Based on the mass gunfire being blasted in the street at this moment, it didn't exactly seem like a rescue. It sounded much more like an execution.
One glance at Brock told me that he wouldn't be able to run, at least not fast enough to get away from the RLPD on the other side of this building. If they caught us, there would be no «statement». There would be a cell, or death.
Oh God. I glanced at Zayden as he crouched down to check on his friend's wound. He helped Brock tie a piece of clothing around the bleeding area, with little effect. My breath caught for a moment and my stomach twisted uncomfortably. I couldn't lose him too.
I thought of Celine, waiting at home, blissfully unaware that her sister was currently a target in a state-sanctioned hunt. If I disappeared into the system, who would keep the world from swallowing her whole? I couldn't be one more person who abandoned her.
The nausea rose in my throat, acidic. I scanned our surroundings. We had one building in front of us and one behind us. There were no entrances to either building on this side, only rugged slabs of concrete about four stories high. We would have to go left, around the corner, to enter; right into the line of fire for the RLPD. Even if we did get a chance to enter a building right now, it would only corner us into a smaller space. We would be sitting ducks.
The alley we were in was a tomb with these buildings surrounding us. But to the right-
A brick wall, eight feet of weathered red stone, stood between us and, if the memory from my childhood served me righ, the labyrinth of the back docks. If not, then hopefully not too far away from them.
"The police," Brock croaked out suddenly. "Julian said they passed him... A whole unit. I can't go to jail, Zay. Not like this. I can't..."
I didn't let him finish his rambling. I turned to the rusted industrial dumpster pushed against the opposite wall, overflowing with trash that smelled like hell. God knows when it was last emptied.
I shot Zayden a last glance before reluctantly grabbing one side of the stained metal container.
"Well, then we have to get out of here, and quickly. Zayden—"
Zayden, always one step ahead, was already on the other side of the industrial dumpster.
"Let's move this over to the wall. Brock, you'll have to get up. We're going over."
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A/N
This is only half of the chapter - working on the second half which will be up by the end of next week x
YOU ARE READING
The Mystery Fighter III
RomanceAfter getting into college, Cassie has no intentions of going back to her old habit of street fighting- but as the streets of her hometown would have it, her combat days are far from over. ...
