How to Keep a Secret

Chapter 15- Pain

I woke up to the sound of gunfire in the distance. My surroundings quickly came back into focus as I remembered where I was and why. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and went to stand up when I felt the cold barrel of a revolver pressed to the side of my head.

I ducked as fast as I could and tried to turn my hand around to shoot whoever was behind me, but to no avail; my gun was snatched from my hand and I felt the revolver return to my temple as a strong arm wrapped around me, pressing me to my attackers chest.

"I'd prefer not to shoot you again. Your partner took mine out, so I need a new ally," I heard Roger say from behind me. Wait, Roger?

I was suddenly much more aware of the fact that I was pressed up against him, his arm holding me like a vice, his face a mere centimeter away from mine.

"Wait, you shot me the first time?"

"Of course I did. If I would have tried to talk to you while you were aiming a gun at me, I would have gotten no where."

My thoughts wandered to Aliana, who instead of attacking me to convince me to be her ally threw down her weapons in submission. Obviously Roger chose to take a more aggressive approach.

"Fair enough."

"Now, ally or not? My old partner will wake up in one minute and twenty seconds, but you're a much better shot anyways."

I blushed, and for once was thankful for the dim lighting around us. "Deal. Now let go of me."

Roger released me and handed me my gun back. I peeked into the room across from ours as I followed Roger down the stairs and saw Aliana and Piere sprawled across the floor.

"I thought you would have been with Derrick."

"We thought about it, but didn't want to beat you all that quickly. Besides, it's more fun for us, knowing we have an actual challenge hiding somewhere out there," he said as he walked out of the building, constantly checking his surroundings.

We ran across a field to the tallest building in the town, a four story tavern of sorts. Roger quickly scanned the windows and perimeter, taking out two people in the process.

"What type of ammo do you have?" I asked him quietly as we entered the building. He didn't answer me, or rather, he didn't have time; as soon as we walked towards the stairwell someone had popped their head around the corner in front of us and fired, missing both of us, and was promptly shot in the forehead by Roger.

Whoever it was fell to their knees with a scream, their body writhing in pain on the floor. Roger stepped over the body nonchalantly and began walking up the stairs as I stared down at the squirming person on the floor.

"Are you coming or what?" Roger said, quickly poking his head out from behind the wall to see what was taking me so long.

"Y-yeah. Was that-?"

"The special dart, yeah. Try not to get in my line of fire, because those ones hurt like hell. Now, are you coming?"

I nodded and stepped over the person on the floor. He had stopped writhing in pain, but was twitching slightly, his wide eyes aimed towards the ceiling, seeing nothing.

We made it up the next three floors to the top with no problem, tranqing people as we went. Turns out the ammo I had picked up was regular tranq ammo-- stronger than the five minute knock out one, but not as painful as the special one that Roger had.