New Beginnings

6. Carmilla

No filters, no barriers for her eyes today she had wanted. Well you get what you ask for she supposed, a fantastic view of a man's head and face disappearing into a cloud of red mist. Pisano, sans head, lay in front of them very much dead. The noise was almost deafening, gunfire whipping all around them, panicked market goers ran in all directions but mostly towards the archways closest to them in a bid for safety. The Mercato Delle Puci was definitely not the place to be right now.

Carmilla desperately covered as much as Laura's body as she could despite the logical part of her brain telling her the act was, in practical terms, meaningless. Bullets had a tendency of going through things, exhibit A: Pisano over there. Luckily the mess of stalls and running people seemed to be making it difficult for their attackers to get a good shot at them but she knew that would not be the state of affairs forever, she had to get them out of here and fast. She remembered the coffee stand, small and shoddily built it could give them some visual cover at least. Shaking Laura gently she told her.

"We're going to get up and get behind the stand okay, you're going to get up with me and we're getting there together, okay? Let's go."

She felt rather than heard Laura give her an affirmative, Laura wasn't a person comfortable with violence but Carmilla had seen in the past that she didn't freeze up in the face of it. At being told what was happening she immediately followed Carmilla's instructions. They got up together, ran together and made it together to the other side of the coffee stand. Step one complete. What was next?

The market was quickly emptying and the gunmen, however many there were likely to be charging through the stalls as fast as they could. Their chances of escape were lowering by the second. Carmilla looked around her, including a peek around the left side of the stand and received the sensation of a bullet whizzing past her face in response. Finally she spotted something useful, right behind them was one of the many archway exits and behind that something she hoped would help them get out of here. But how to get there without being torn to shreds?

She noticed Laura's backpack, the faded decade old image of Princess Buttercup on its back looking even worse for wear than it had before. She started pulling it off Laura's back.

"Need to borrow this for a second."

"What? why?"

Once it was off her back Carmilla threw it to their right. Immediately a large number of bullets slammed into it, ripping the backpack into tiny pieces in mid air.

"Buttercup! No!" Laura cried.

"Don't worry Laura she's only mostly dead."

Plan now fully formed in her mind she pointed to Laura's front pouch.

"Ok, now your fanny pack."

"Excuse me, my what?"

"Your stupid ass pouch, Laura!"

"Oh." Laura quickly opened the pouch and pulled out the new cell phone and pocketing it. She gave the pouch to Carmilla, who readied to throw it to their left.

"Okay as soon as I throw this we run straight behind us through the archway, you stay with me. Now!"

She threw the pouch and charged with Laura towards the archway, she heard shots destroy the pouch as thoroughly as they did the backpack. They reached the archway and passed through it.

And immediately bumped into another gunman to her left.

He obviously was looking to flank them, either getting a shot at them from the other side of the coffee stand or merely cutting off their escape. Luckily he seemed as surprised to physically bump into her as she. Clearly he hadn't thought they'd have reached the archway yet.