We Only Have The Night (Completed)

Facing Her Own Darkness

Hi dear readers! Sorry for the first update, it was updated sooner than expected by accident, but now you have the proper chapter 22 :) Hope you like it! *.* 

José

Domingos slashed open easily the truck's door and the police officers authoritarian screams echoed frightfully for all the truck, first Artur, then António and finally Domingos climbing the truck easily with guns in their hands looking inside for any signs of hostality.

While all the scene formed in front of them, José and Diego tried as gently and fast as possible to place Night in the truck's metal floor behind the officers and at their feet.

Diego and José's job will be done at the moment they close the back door of the truck. But for a brief second José looks to the bag where the love of his life keeps inside and hardly could see that the zipper of the bag is being pulled open as fast as possible while he sees by his perypheral vision that the three officers already located the three silent but no less scared by the sunlight gangsters with their guns. Usually Night screams in agony but the guards were programmed to suffer in silence and don't give themselves away by reacting, which is really weird.

The filthy guards are trying desperately to locate the assaulters to shoot at them though, while at least ten or twelve girls are tied by their arms behind their back and tied in their ankles, gagged tightly with some cloth in their mouths and completely unconscious on the floor, while three of them, also unconscious, are serving as shields to the guards while they grabbed the girls roughly and painfully by their hair. Now José knows why all the truck was so silent.

Before the guards could think of start shooting the girls heads, José starts to close the door of the truck until a fine line of light was the only source of lighting inside of the truck. But not before he sees Night standing up at her left knee while the right thigh helps to rest her crossbow fiercely stretched out behind her with the arrow pointed to the middle of the truck behind the tall frame of António's body and between his huge legs.

Where she is pointing out the arrow, a huge guard is standing, hidden cowardly behind a skinny little girl no more than seventeen years old, uncounscious and a messy curly brown hair, with her arms and legs limbing helplessly with the movements of the guard. Her body is not obviously enough to obstruct his huge one, but the girl's chest is enough to protect his head including his neck.

Wisely and unhumanly fast, Night points out to his right elbow where his hand is holding the girl's hair. José has no doubt that she can reach her target flawlessly. The last thing José hears when he starts to close the door is a loud gun shot and then soon after, a lot of other loud gun shots could be heard.

The first primal instinct of José and Diego is to back off stumbling in the ground while the door starts to open again helplessly by the force of the bullets colliding to it, opening it even more instead of let it closed.

But his panic easily kicks in, thinking of Night could be possibly dead right now, with several bullets in her chest and head.

His fear is enough to cloud his thoughts and his vision is a complete blur right now, while tears of panic and pain slide from his eyes his face in complete shock, wide opened eyes and tight lips locked to one another in a fine line, his nostrils showing his heavy breath from muted rage. 

Not long after he finds his voice, projecting that same panic and the immense wave of revenge consuming him, completely forgetting his safety and wanting to burst into the back of the truck to see Night, expecting to see her lying down on the floor covered in bullets and blood, which makes his chest weighing painfully.

- NIGHT! NIGHT!

Diego is more practical and less emotional and try to prevent José to go inside to check on Night. Even Diego's much smaller, his effort is enough to unbalance José but only gets him more angry and frustrated.

- Larga-me! Night está lá dentro! Tenho de tirá-la de lá! Deixa-me meu!

(- Let me go! Night is inside! I need to take her out of there! Get off me man!)

José and Diego fight for a few seconds until some muffled screams can be heard inside of the truck. The girls start to wake up, but no signal of Night which get José even more anxious than ever.

-Calma meu! Ela é rápida o suficiente e esperta o suficiente para não se deixar apanhar pelas balas.

(- Calm down man! She is fast enough and smart enough to not get herself caught by the bullets.)

José tried his best to calm down but then he thinks better and starts to panic again and screaming loudly to Diego.

- Ela nunca esteve numa situação destas! E se...

(- She did never be in this kind of situation man! What if...)

José stops screaming suddenly, because the door finally opens grabbing José's attention. Domingos, Artur and António silently get out of the truck, each one with an unconscious guard on their shoulders full of blood meaning maybe they will not be able to survive the injuries, even though José couldn't care less. Their expressions are unreadable which gets José anxious again and he waste no time to get inside of the truck to see Night with his own eyes.

The moment he gets inside he sees a safe and sound Night trying to free the girls that slowly are waking up on their own or with the help of her soft voice and movements.

- Can you help me please?

She's with her back turned to him so he can't see her face, but he can sense her weak voice when Night asked him for help.

- Are you ok Night? I barely hear your voice.

She nods but doesn't say nothing and instead of do what Night asked him to do, José goes to her side and he finally sees a mark of a bullet that almost got inside of her arm, but only crossed some skin and muscle.

- I'm ok, please help me. They are waking up and they are completely scared.

José doesn't say nothing and helps the girls best he can, speaking to them gently telling them that they will be ok now and they will be in home soon enough with their families.

Some of the girls immediately recognize José and start to cry, grabbing him to their chest in a tight and desperate embrace of hope.

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"Please you need to see that injury Night."

José is too worried but Night keeps strongly stubborn helping the paramedics and therapists that came to the local. She choses to ignore him again. She is facing her own darkness right now.

One of the guards died imediately and the other two were severelly injured. They are in a critical situation and the paramedics struggle to understand why they convulse violently when they try to stop the bleeding and when they applyed the I.V. serum, but José knows better why that is happening to the guards, since the same happened to Night, and the memory is still painful in his mind.

Night keeps her glasses while the sun goes down giving place to what seems a cloudless night sky. It's visible that all the people and noises are disturbing Night but she just can't move away from the victims. She can't live them alone until they are all in the ambulances to the hospital. 

Her eternal unreadable expression can't hide this time her guilt, everytime she faces every kidnapped girl that finally were freed from their nightmare.