Soft Hearts Hold Secrets

His Nightmare

Gunshots rolled in like the thunderstorm still lingering outside of the windows. Gunshots of thunder and flashes of lightning from the barrels of the guns as they fired. They were outnumbered. There were too many of them on all sides, and the only cover that they had was an overturned table. Bullets rained down on them, spritzing the walls behind them and the table they were ducked behind. Reinforced, as Lucio had promised, having warned the two of them that there would be the risk of a shootout. He'd told them which tables they should use for cover, promised them that provided they used the right ones they would be safe.

That step had been easy. It had been civil when they'd entered and stood by the tables that had the little goat head in the corner, the one that indicated that Lucio had interfered or that Lucio's men were meant to be there. He'd stood behind it, fully prepared, with his apprentice at his side.

Asra had been the one to start the meeting as civilly as possible. He'd been the one to begin the discussions, to talk about how Lucio wasn't interested in participating with these other groups, these smaller mafias, any longer. He'd been the one to break the news to them that Lucio was, unfortunately, going to have to terminate their contracts.

And that Lucio was going to have to terminate them to prevent future discussions from being an option.

So Asra had been the first one to shoot. The first to take the gun from his holster and fire. Appra, stood to his left, had been the second to draw their gun and fire. They both had earplugs in, having been preparing for this for hours before this happened. Hence the guns being easy to draw and the excess magazines they carried for reloads.

Asra could still feel the Browning Hi Power in his hand. The balanced weight, the heaviness in his hand and the smoothness of the trigger each time he pulled it. They'd been tasked with only bringing handguns, ones that Lucio had issued, as anything bigger would have aroused suspicions sooner. Since Appra was only recently integrating into the mafia, they were armed with the Colt Model 1911. It was a 7+1 round gun, magazine-fed and semi-automatic, similar to Asra's though his was 13+1 round and single-action.

Due to his higher level in the mafia, Lucio had given him one of the better guns with the same goat mark on the hilt. A dull reminder of where his duty lay, he supposed. Appra's gun didn't have that mark on it, since the Colt models were usually the ones used for dangerous jobs and tossed out after so they couldn't be tied to anything.

Something about Appra having no clear ties to the mafia made him nervous. It made his stomach twist in his chest with some level of guilt that he didn't even process. He should have thought about it for just a few seconds longer. He should have paused and wondered why Lucio was giving Appra a gun that left them with no ties to the mafia. He should have stopped and swapped their guns.

But he didn't. He didn't stop to think. He didn't swap their guns. He didn't do anything, he just let it happen, feeling the same optimism as usual for a job.

With five bullets fired and four people shot, Asra had overturned the table and ducked behind it, watching Appra do the same and get beside him. He couldn't remember what words they shared. He couldn't recall anything- he just remembered seeing the smile on their lips, the excitement in their eyes.

He could vaguely recall telling Appra to conjure a shield when they stood again, like it was a distant memory that only lingered in the back of his mind- either having been repressed or just becoming a background detail. All he knew was that he stood and waved his hand, a full body shield appearing before him, glowing purple. He remembered pulling the trigger, counting each of his remaining eight shots before he'd need to reload.

He remembered shooting seven times, five bullets being lucky. He could see from the corner of his eye as Appra fired. They only had seven bullets, having reloaded once they ducked down, and they emptied their magazine rapidly. Their hand was shaking, though, and it wasn't until they shouted for him that Asra realised where the panic was coming from.