||Series Removed|| OTB

2 - Dead Or Alive

2

Every face in the entire bar was drawn towards Tomás and myself, each one warily hostile as though we had bombs strapped to our chests that could blow at any moment.

It was a fitting comparison... after all, they'd been told that we were the terrorists who had deployed a deadly virus across the globe for some messed-up reason.

The man who held our 'wanted' poster stepped forward, posing the question that we had all been asking Telos ever since our group discovered their true nature.

"...Why?! Why did you sick fucks do it?!" His teeth clenched painfully, the raw emotion was unexpected from such a brawny individual. Figuring that we at least had to try and make a stand, the musician shuffled forwards and attempted to wave it off.

"T-That wasn't us! You're getting it all wrong, it was Telos!! They're putting everyone against each other, trying to cover it all up! You have..." Glancing around at the crowd, even the strippers had stopped dancing to stare in awe at the convergence.

Telling the truth about Telos would get us nowhere... Everyone in America trusted them, willingly hopping into their blood testing camps with the belief that they were being evacuated.

To them, we looked like insane conspiracy theorists or simply just liars. We'd have an easier time convincing them that we were British royalty before they'd accept that we weren't terrorists.

The two burly men simply looked at each other, then exhaled. The one holding the poster locked eyes with me, almost trying to taste how black my karma was.

"So, you're not going to tell us... Apollyon, was the world not enough?! You need your life as well, partying it up like you don't care... like you haven't made us nearly fucking extinct?!"

Hands grabbed at us from all sides, ensuring that we wouldn't make a break for the exit. Everyone around us was screaming at this point, either running outside in fear or brandishing guns in our faces. They were genuinely terrified, all because of what was printed on a single sheet of paper.

My hand rested on the Colt tucked away in my pocket, but I knew in my gut that it didn't feel right. Pulling out a gun against people who thought I was the bad guy, it wouldn't do anything but rile them up.

The best chance we had was to escape the bar as discreetly as possible, but the many bystanders watching us made that impossible.

Just as I was about to give up hope that we would even take one more step on our journey across the states, a lone gunshot fired itself into the ceiling and every pair of eyes turned towards the stage.

Tomás was as surprised as I was; his manager, the grumpy old man whom had been perving on our lap dance was now standing where the underage strippers used to be, clutching a massive double-barrel with an unamused scowl.

"Listen up, scum-fucks. This is my-here bar, and I won't tolerate any brawling bullshit if none of you have the funds to cover the damages. That boy there is my trusted employee, many here today have used his services... Look at him. Does he seem like a damn destroyer of worlds?"

A couple of faces in the sea of ravers turned to observe Tomás, no doubt remembering their time together in the private room. It was true, the Hispanic boy's innocently-startled appearance didn't exactly scream 'big bad corporation', at least not any more than the next guy. If he was really that infamous, Telos would've bothered to spell his name right instead of 'Thomas' anyway.

"If anyone's still got a problem with Triple-D, y'all has a problem with me. Is that fucking understood...? Now, let's get the mood back to what it was before, eh?"