Gwendolyn,Get Your Gun🚬

Chapter 12- The Reawakening

The world slowed, the sounds hummed, her vision blurred, her heart pulsated, her eyes closed and blood unrestrainedly flowed down her head. The haziness clung to her like a leech, threatening to devour her consciousness.

A piercing scream broke through it all.

"Gwendolyn! Gwendolyn, run! "

There was a tempest in her mind, muddling her senses, muffling her saneness.

"Gwendolyn!! Gwendolyn,wake up! Gwendolyn! "

Her eyes parted slowly. She fought through the mindstorm. Allowed light to flood through her eyes, to awaken her perspicacity.

"GWENDOLYN !!"

Her entire system was shocked into attention.

Asunción.

Her state of suspended animation fizzled out instantly and she shot to her feet. She looked around hastily, wave after wave of shock-filled perturbation and agita hit her.

Glass crunched under her feet.

Her white dress was stained with blood.

Her mouth was slightly agape, an involuntary action. The physiological responses to an attack are the same : rapid heartbeat and respiration, cortisol surges, heavy permeating perspiration and consummate confusion. Gwendolyn was feeling all the effects in mind-numbing amounts.

Her left arm trembling, she turned around slowly.

Never had she seen exhibited a more singular instance of havoc and wreckage in just a few seconds. Everything was in disarray. The showglasses had tumbled to the floor ladening it with a million thousand shards of broken glass. The store windows had been shattered to bits. The sunlight falling on the destruction created a disturbing cacophony of harmonic rainbows and spilled blood.

She gasped.

The boys.

Malachi.

He was the first person she sighted. He was badly injured. He was laying painfully on his back, a large shard of glass sticking from his right thigh, blood dripping and clotting around his laceration. Heart lurching violently, she ran to him, crouched by his side and gingerly raised him to sit upright.

He winced and clutched his leg. His eyes watered and Gwendolyn knew at once that he must be in hell at that moment.

"Gwen, "he said through gritted teeth. "Gwen, my brother. Zechariah.. Gwen..my brother. Find my-"

The bullet rammed into his chest before he could complete his statement and Gwendolyn retreated back in stupefaction. She looked quickly at the direction the bullet had come from and gasped at the sight her eyes fell upon.

Right outside the store, adjacent to her position, Asunción, her head bloodied and her arms in the grips of two men in black on each side of her, was calling her name with fevered anxiety, her eyes wide and stained heavily with fear and worry.

Slowly, Gwen rose to her feet, feeling Malachi's dead body grow increasingly cold at her feet.

Another man stepped in through the broken store window, his shoes mashing the glass to the ground. In his grasp was a long black firearm. It was then Gwendolyn's brain calculated and pieced together the hasty events that had taken place.

The bullets had been fired by the man, shattering the glass doors and windows to nought and sending such an alarming rate of panic through the girls that they'd both slipped on glass and hit the ground before they even knew what was happening. And while she'd slowly emerged from her dizziness, they'd grabbed Asunción, whose screams had jerked into action.

And still did.

"RUN!"

She spun and sped out the second shattered window. She landed on the walkway. Looked behind her and saw Asunción, her beautiful face streaked with tears, her forearms gripped tight as she struggled tirelessly.
The two men holding her were stable, though. Unmoving. They simply looked on at Gwendolyn without feeling. It was as though they were veritably assured that no matter what she did next, things would still go according to their plan.

The man with the gun was heading towards her now. Gwendolyn frowned deeply.

Run or save Asunción?

My life or hers?

Her eyes were struck by the sun. Everything began to go in slow motion again. She was beginning to see things in twos now. Asunción had doubled, the men quadrupled. There were now two gunmen heading towards her.

"Gwendolyn! Run! Run, girl, what are you doing? Get out of here!"

Gwendolyn looked up at her, her eyes filled with tears. She could not leave her. She could not.

One of the men reached his hand to the back of his breeches.

Gwendolyn's heart lurched. No.

The gun was out faster than lightning and aimed at Asunción's head.

The realization of what was about to happen washed over Gwendolyn like white-hot lava, burning her, scalding her, until her body felt as though it were on fire.

Someone started screaming long and hard. The screams made her head pound so vigorously, it was as if blood cells were bursting in her brain.

It took a while for her to realize that she was the one screaming.

She lunged forward for Asunción, but was pulled back so forcefully that she hit the pavement with a hard thud.

That did not derail her. She raised her head and jerked her body upward but it was slammed down by a knee to her back.

A large hand pinned her neck to the ground. Her red hair spilled all over her face.

"No!"

She craned her neck, ignoring the immense pain it caused, to look at Asunción.

"No! No, please! Asunción!"

A gun pressed to the back of her head.

"Shut up, little girl!" a gruff voice replied behind her.

"Please don't hurt her, "Gwendolyn croaked weakly. "Please."

The gun pressed harder to her skull.

Gwendolyn locked eyes with Asunción.

The gunman on top of her gave the man holding Asunción the go ahead, nodding his head in affirmation.

"Asunción!"

The gun was fired.