A Little Bit Ninja

31: Inhibitions Aside

A/N: This is dedicated to MiZzYx1991, who is joint writing a new story with me! It's called Superstitious and I've put up the trailer she made for it, and the cover I made in the side bars for a little teaser. First chapter is now up on MiZzYx1991 's profile!

“We’re good,” I said in a raspy voice and then broke into a coughing fit, “We’re fine. Could you move please?”  I asked a robust woman with her hair in a shower cap.

I tried squeezing past her, wincing when Anton stepped on my shoes.

“Where do…are we go Jadie?” Ant asked in a childlike voice, resting his cheek on the top of my head as we—I— fought through the space between her rump and the cowboy next to her.

Good question. Ant was the one who made the plans, and all information in his head that would have been useful in our current situation seemed to have been knocked loose. I might have freaked out more about Ant’s memory loss, and the probability of him sustaining permanent brain injury, but right now I needed to focus on getting away from the mad men that would shortly be on our tail.

 All three of our lives would end very, very soon if we didn’t get out of here.

Chapter 31: Inhibitions Aside

That’s when the first group of black suited men rounded the side of the building, searching the vicinity around the flaming window.  I let out a grunt and shoved the voluptuous lady out of the way, pushing her into the two people behind her.

“Hey!” all three shouted, but I barely heard it as I cleared a path with my one bony elbow that wasn’t occupied supporting Anton’s weight.

Pausing at the edge of the pool I looked toward the mobsters, another group of four had joined them and both teams had turned their attention to the horde of people that we hid among.

If I were on my own, I might have gotten lost in the crowd easily. Yet another benefit of being short, although I’d never thought of its usefulness in hiding from eight unfriendlies, who were gunning for you and your friends, as a plus until now. It never came up.

But Anton and Abe were two of the tallest people here, meaning, camouflage was not in their cards. I doubted Anton would even be able to focus long enough to remember what camouflage meant anyway.

And then I had a sudden idea. I snatched Anton’s phone from his pocket.

He’d been texting somebody just before he gave the go ahead to set off the alarm. I gambled our lives on the hope that the recipient of his text was whoever would be manning the getaway car. One of the few things Ant had told me was that we would need a non-mob car because they all have OnStar. Too easy to track down.       

“I’ll take a look at this guy first,” someone said, just behind me.

My head whipped around to see the speaker, ready to face down the mob once again, but it was just that doctor. He sure was dedicated to helping people, and at if we weren’t fleeing for our lives, I would have really admired that.

I groaned.

“We’re fine. We have an important appointment to keep,” I said as I edged between the throng of onlookers and the pool.

But the doctor ignored me and caught hold of Anton’s left arm, commencing a tug of war with me. I didn’t know if our head wound victim understood what was going on, but it was no mystery who he wanted to win this little battle.

Yes, the guy had been wobbling around with the stability of an unbalanced dreidel, but there was nothing wrong with his ability to maintain a death grip on my shoulder. And Ant clutched tighter with every yank our friendly Ph. D gave.