Truth Stealers (Thief's Signal: Book 1)

22

Nimio could hear something rustling in the bushes. He had run at a pace that would have ripped apart the muscles of a normal human. And yet something had gotten to his parents home before him.

Nimio waited in the undergrowth, observing the patch of bush that continued to move. It was large enough contain at least three men. But Nimio was a meta type now; he could take them.

He launched himself into the bush, kicking down mid air to where he knew the men must be hidden. He felt contact, and a small squeak cut short from underneath him. He felt around for more bodies, but his hands moved only through leaves and twigs. What had he hit then?

Nimio looked under his shoe, to find a small squirrel squashed from underneath. He grimaced. At least this meant that he had arrived there before Drigs' men, but that meant that now they were the ones with the element of surprise. So he only had this small window to warn his parents.

Nimio raced down the hill into the suburban lane, straight to the semi-detached house where he knew his parents would be.

The entrance was dominated by a small metal fence, which lay in front of two flower patches either side of the door. Nimio rushed past and pressed the doorbell. He could immediately hear someone talking inside. No one moved to the door.

"Hello? Mr, Blakeman, please let me inside it's an emergency. Mrs. Blakeman?" Nimio was panicking now.

Alright, calm down, if they didn't want to answer, then he wasn't going to change their minds. Nimio stopped and listened. His ears twitched, wait was he tuning his ears? They twitched again, and suddenly Nimio could hear the deep voices of men giving orders on the other side of the wall.

Shit. They had gotten there before him. But they could be keeping his parents inside. That meant that the only way to get to them was to take down Drigs' men. How many could there be? Nimio reckoned there were at least seven distinct voices in there. But how many of them were a meta type? Fuck them.

Nimio kicked the door down, sending splinters everywhere. The soldiers fumbled with their guns, whilst he advanced, too quick for them to fire at. Nimio grabbed the throat of the closest man and ripped it open. Then he caught his gun in the same swift movement. One bullet, another man down. Nimio leapt behind a sofa, whilst a barrage of fire was sprayed at where he just was.

They stopped firing. He had no where to go, of course. So he flipped the sofa. Four men went flying with it, guns knocked out of their hands. Nimio picked up the guns whilst they were still stunned for the moment, and quickly finished them off, with a bullet to the head each.

Two plus four. Six down, one to go. Nimio twitched his ears again, searching for sounds. Floorboards creaked in the attic. He twitched his ears again, and they tuned into an even higher frequency. He picked up the signals within a moment: someone was sending a radio transmission.

Nimio sprinted up the stairs, and heard frantic footsteps above. He pushed his legs harder, and finally pulled the latch to the attic down. A sentry gun began firing lasers straight down at him, and he slid to the side. Then he took the gun he had taken from the soldier, and began firing up round the corner. An explosion ruptured the attic floor, and the sentry fell down with the wooden splinters in a small fire.

Nimio jumped up onto the newly made ledge, and found a frightened man standing opposite him with a rifle in his arms. Nimio threw a stake from the debris of wood, and then ran at the man. The stake entered the man's chest only a moment before Nimio came down and slapped it in, rupturing the soldier's lungs.

The stake came out the other end of the man's chest, and he stood there, frozen, looking down at the hole in him. He began to cough up blood, before his eyes rolled back into his head, and he flopped onto the floor. Nimio picked up his com piece, but it was too late; back up was already arriving.

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