Love's bullet

Part 6

Over the next three months Mikey and Carol, she had let him use her nickname "Cherry", got much closer and Cherry was close to moving in with him even though he only had seven months left until his expiration date. It was safe to say he had fallen in love.
Another month had passed by, it was date night for Mikey and Cherry, they had gone to their normal place, Gustavo's, Cherry looked absolutely beautiful, as always, but Mikey noticed a small lump on her right ankle, but he didn't say anything, they sat down in their usual seat by the window next to the door he had finally decided to let her in on his plan to leave whatever he got himself into. He had explained everything to Cherry, all the way down to the smallest detail on how they were going to go to Canada and then on to Russia, but at the exact time he finished he thought he saw the figure in a black robe from way back when he had first been initiated through the window on the opposite side of the street, he snapped his head over to look but when he did, it was gone, there wasn't anything or anybody there. He then noticed that he and Cherry were the only ones in the restaurant. He left the money for their meal and snatched Em's hand and ran out of the restaurant to his car trying to sign what had caused his sudden paranoia and sense of urgency when they were in the car he asked Cherry if she needed anything from home, she said she mainly moved around from motel to motel and didn't have much so they sped to Mikey's apartment. On the way there he could've sworn to have seen at least nine more hooded people all seeming to be walking in the direction of his house, neither of them had any kind of cell phone and the police station was across town, so they were on their own. When they arrived he checked around his place to make sure nothing had been tampered with and to make sure they were the only ones there. When he finished he told her to come in, he locked the door and pulled the couch up to it to act as a temporary barricade. He was digging through his entire place to find a good bag or suitcase and then there was a knock at the door, both of them paused, Mikey quietly ran over to the peephole in the door and saw three red-robed men, he backed up went over to the back window, looked out and saw more, many more. He faced the door and signed to Cherry, "stay behind me". (alt ending begins here)The men started wailing at the door at an almost rhythmic rate. The door came crashing down then Mikey heard a loud bang and turned around to see a straight-faced and cold-eyed Cherry staring into his eyes with a gun, he looked down and saw a large stain of blood on his shirt, he then felt weak and his legs gave out on him, as he tumbled down into a pool of his own blood, Cherry spoke softly, "Shouldn't have tried to leave." Behind her was the figure in the black robe and that was the last thing he saw before he blacked out