Archeia's Atheneum (The First Shift)

Episode Thirteen: Blood and Tobacco

55 AA3

The shock starts wearing off, so the pain starts coming on; and the kid yells in agony. I push the fat fuck off me and hobble over to the kid. 'I'm alive,' that's what I'm telling myself--I'm reminded how visceral my fight or flight response was programed. I know I'm getting too old for this stuff, but I always end up jumping in. If not for my augmentations, I'm certain I'd already be dead; so really, I should quit while I'm ahead.

***

They're forcing the girls to do things--stuff that isn't in their job description. One forced to dance sexy (awkwardly, fearfully), the other forced to give Colton head. First bouncer walked up, thought he was going to gently escort me out. When I grabbed hold of the guy's palm, I twisted his hand around so fast the wrist snapped, and everything stopped at the sound his shriek. Then--my grip still tightly closed on the appendage--I sharply yanked him toward me, driving my fist into the shoulder joint. Dislocating it with a pop.

***

The knife firmly pinned him to the hard wood counter, and he was crying and wheezing like the little bitch he is. The bartender's gone, left his cigarette in the ashtray on the counter. I decide to help myself. I look over at the girls; none of which fit Olivia's description. Nodding over at the exit was their que to high tail it, and they did.

Colton seems bewildered. "How aren't you dead--AH FUCK!" I cut him short, resting my weight on knife's pummel by hand.

I say to him, "I really wanted to do this easy, honestly--but you had to bring those girls in," I wasn't lying, I just needed a little info on this Mammon character. Yeah, I was going to rough him up a bit, but that would've been better than the current outcome.

***

Bouncer number two reached to draw his pistol, but I had already grabbed his friend's. With my right arm supporting my human shield, my weaker left hand raised my newfound weapon. The bouncer fired two shots into his friend--I fired one shot through his face. His last twitch was so violent that he sent himself reeling head first into the floor, with a loud crack. Then hell broke loose.

***

"You're gonna die! You get me?! YOU'RE GONNA FUCKIN DIE!" you know, he's just screaming. All the while I'm searching for the hammer his friend attacked me with. "Stupid FUCKIN cunt! You don't know who you're fuckin with," on and on...as I find the hammer. "MY BOYS ARE GONNA FUCK YOU UP BITCH!"

So I walked over to tell him, "Your boys are dead." He up looks up at me, then down at the hammer.

"What are you doin?" he asks. I start hammering the knife further into the counter, 'cause fuck this guy. He's a rapist and a molester, and he was never going to get time, so fuck it, he ain't gettin away unscathed--why should he? Anyway, he's wailing so I sock him in the nose to shut him up.

***

Colton surrounded himself with his dad's friends, whenever the patriarch himself was away. These guys were the second wave. I punched one in the nose, broke the jaw of the other, then heel kicked him in the sternum, swung my knee into the first one's face breaking the nose this time, then finally lifted the other by his chin and tripped the goon with such force that he stumbled over a nearby table. Before the third wave came, I finished the Second with a heavy sidekick. With his jaw already broken, the force was enough to kill him. I turned to the last and most of them--at least three guys, comprised of Colton and his buddies. Goddamn kids.

***

"What do you think your dad's gonna do when he finds out you squealed? What's he gonna think of his boy? Couldn't hold his own against a woman."