RIM OF THE WORLD | Gabriel

chapter seven

"Thank you, Baby Jesus!" Dariush exclaimed in relief, bending forward and taking a deep breath, "Thank you, God!" He yelled.

"Lou!" Alex kept repeating. I exchanged looks with Gabriel just tightened his grip around me. "Hold on, you know this guy?" He asked. One could tell by the tone of his voice that he wasn't happy. "No. No, no, no, no." One of the armed him repeated, pointing his gun at Gabriel when he went forward, letting me go and pushing me behind him.

I yanked him back, not wanting to see him hurt. "Do we know him? Hell, yeah we know him!" Dariush said a wide smile on his face. "Yes! Yes!" Alex agreed, obviously still at a loss for words. "We go way back. Lou, my negro! Lou, you know me. We're like this! I wanted to free... Alex was the one who was like, "Leave him in there," and I was like, "Dude, let's free him. He's a human." Dariush spouted nonsense, the constant rambling was enough for me to figure out that it was all a lie.

Dariush paused, gesturing to the armed men around us, "do you mind, if you could just tell these handsome men, the ones... pointing the shotguns at our face, too, you know... not... not do that?"

"Please?" I heard ZhenZhen mutter quietly. I thickly swallowed when I noticed the terrified look on her face. 'Lou' eyed each of us one by one. I watched as his eyes widened slightly when he saw me and Gabriel's hands.

Lou looked to his left, nodding at the man. "I don't think anyone needs to get hurt tonight. Too much young love in the air." He said, looking at Gabriel and I then glancing at ZhenZhen who was moving towards Alex in a protective manner.

"But Alex..." Lou started, his eyes narrowing on the ginger. "If you'd be so kind as to give me that?" Alex looked down at the key hanging around his neck. I gripped Gabriel's hand as Alex hesitated. "This?" Alex asked, grasping the key.

Lou nodded his head, "yeah."  My eyes widened, "whoa, whoa, whoa, this is our only shot at defeating the aliens." I interrupted. Lou's eye flickered to me, making me shift uncomfortably under his gaze. Gabriel moved in front of me once again, blocking Lou's view from me and vice-versa.

"That means someone will pay a lot of money for it." I gripped the back of Gabriel's jacket tightly and it went silent.

"Give me... the key."

I looked over at Alex who looked betrayed, "I can't," he finally said, putting the key under his shirt. I couldn't see past Gabriel and I was honestly fine with it. "I made a promise," Alex said again.

"Alex. Alex, give him the key. Enough. Okay?" Dariush, reaching out towards Alex. "You can give me the key and just walk away-" I peaked past Gabriel and watched as Lou pulled out a knife, "-or I can cut your head off and take the key from the stump."

"That took a dark turn," I muttered as we all began to back up once again. Gabriel looked at me and glared, obviously trying to tell me to shut up before it was me Lou would come after. "I trusted you." Alex choked out.

"Well, Alex, this is why you never trust a man you find in a jail cell." I snapped, Dariush nodding his had frantically in agreement. "Kayla..." Gabriel said warningly as Lou stepped closer, making us all take a step back. "The cemeteries are full of people who trusted me." He stated, his eyes twinkling with a monstrous glint.

"Oh, shit!" Dariush breathed out as we all stumbled backward. But before Lou could do anything, a horrified scream rips through the air. The alien that we had been running from killed the man in a split second, not even fazed at the bullets that were piercing its body from the guns.

Gunshots echoed as we all stood still, frozen in fear. "Run!" ZhenZhen screamed, breaking out into a sprint as the alien killed the second man. I broke out into a cold sweat as I dragged Gabriel will me until he stopped.