Me Llamo Tokio (My Name Is Tokyo) - A Money Heist Prequel

Chapter 19 - No Escape

I'm trying so hard to figure out where Juan is, but I can't. No one turned on the light yet. There's an amalgam of screams and I hear how he is probably trying to oppose our unknown attackers without making them pull the trigger and make my brain purée.
I don't move. The gun's cold muzzle is pressed way too hard on my temple. I'm not even sure if my head hurts from that or from the entire thing that just happened. I don't know.
"Silene!" he screams, and I think I can locate him in the dark.
And here's the part where the chaos is being unleashed.
Gunshots, screams, the sound of the dozens of porcelains from the cabinet breaking.
I move my head in the exact same time when the guy who was holding me pulled the trigger. I think that if the lights would've been on, I could've seen the bullet flying across my eyes.
Something hard hits my thigh. I can't control the scream that goes out of my throat while my body is filled with an unimaginable amount of pain. It's too much to be able to keep my balance, and I let myself fall on the hard wooden floor.
He screams too, and what follows is the continus sound of the guns. Firing bullet after bullet until I hear the click that indicates it's over.
I close my eyes and bite my lips, trying hard not to scream again while the pain was devouring me.
He turns on the lights and I look at him worried. I know what happened but I don't want to voice it.
"Silene, your leg." there's fear in his voice.
I look down. The short skirt was pulled out, uncovering the red mess. Blood is pouring down my right leg fast, spreading on the floor, forming small puddles. As I felt, the bullet was probably in the thigh.
He comes to me, his arms wrap around my body, trying to support me.
"Don't look." he says worried. "Don't look, please."
And I listen to him, only I thought that I shouldn't look at my wounded leg, but as I turned my head, I realized where I shouldn't have looked.
There are two men on the floor. Their bodies actually, filled with bullets, with blood still running freely out of their veins.
Your death can be such a relief for others. I think about Sancho too, in the moment when I took his life. These guys feel the same. Like their death is a party.
"Silene, Silene?" Juan is really worried.
It takes me a few seconds to focus and find him as my head feels really heavy.
"Yes." I whisper, realizing how bad my voice sounded.
I feel how he's tying something above my wound. I take a quick look and see it's his belt.
"Stay here, just a few moments. Promise me you won't let yourself fall asleep. Okay?" Juan almost implores me. "I'll get you something for the pain."
"Yes. I won't sleep." I say even if my vision was getting blurry. "I'm staying here."
His hand gently caresses my cheek and he kisses the top of my head before he gets up and runs to the living room.
I hear him swearing while looking for something through his backpack.
The entire floor is covered in blood. Theirs and mine. I haven't seen Juan having any wound and I'm glad.
A groan escapes my lips, even if I was biting them hard with my teeth. I think Juan heard me too, because he says:
"Just a second, I have to find that goddamn..."
"Juan." I interrupt him. "Who are these guys?"
I'm trying really hard to keep my mind occupied with something so that I can remain awake as I promised him.
"They work for El Zorro." he's really angry.
I sigh. This means problems. Really big ones.
"How the fuck did they find us?" I voice my confusion.
"I'm not sure, but we'll have to go." he replies. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" I ask.
He returns to the hallway with a silver box in his hand and leans down to examine my wound again.
"For ruining our vacation." Juan's voice is filled with sadness. "For you getting shot."
"No, no." I stop him. "Don't go there now. It's not your fault. You saved me, Juan. That guy was holding a gun to my head."
"I risked your life. I was barely seeing what's going on." he says.
"No." is all I can say.
I have to save my energy and an argument with him now would've costed me too much, so I prefer to shut up and postpone what I want to tell him for later.
"Alright." he concludes after looking at my wound. "I'll give you something for the pain."
He's trying to sound as calm as possible, like I just scratched my ankle, and I know this is a sign that it's bad.
"Juan, look at me." I say trying to sound as okay as possible. "Tell me, what is it?"
His eyes meet mine and all I can see there is panic combined with a lot of fear.
"Why you don't take it out?" I ask him.
"Silene, I can't." his voice sounds like he just lost one of the biggest battles of his life.
"You taught me how to do it. You know." I try to encourage him.
"It hit your vein. I can't take it out alone. You need a surgeon to remove it or anyway someone who knows how to do it." he says resignedly. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." I say and now I'm the one who's comforting him. "We'll find a doctor. We still have the fake papers, right?"
He looks at me and all I can see is sadness, like I just hit him in the face.
"No one in their right mind would do this without alerting the authorities. This is a bullet hole, Silene, it's not an accident in the kitchen. With fake papers or not, they'll call the police. Plus, if El Zorro's men were in our apartment, they're all over Lisbon by now."
"I understand." I say trying to sound calm, but the fear was already invading my mind.
He opens the box, unveiling a small collection of vials filled with unknown liquids stashed among other medical items like bandages, syringes, even a scalpel.
Three vials are being taken out, their content being quickly injected in my leg, around the wound. Then, a cotton ball is pushed in the bullet hole and my leg is being tied with a lot of bandages. He's not taking the belt off, and I guess it's for the best. In a few minutes I can't feel my leg at all.
"I'll go get our stuff. We have to leave as soon as possible."
I nod, unable to say something intelligible. Even if the pain wasn't that bad anymore, my head hurts like shit and I feel a terrible need to sleep.

I still feel sleepy when Juan closes the door to the place that holds so many beautiful memories of us. I'm pretty sure we won't go back here anymore and a huge feeling of melancholy hits me while he walks down the stairs, carrying me in his arms.
"Stop!" a voice screams from the hallway.
I hear Juan's gun and the other guy's gun. If you're not involved and listen carefully, this entire thing sounds like a symphony, like the guns are having a casual conversation about weather.
"Shit!" I hear Juan whispering.
Another burst of bullets is coming from downstairs and we take cover under the statue of our old friend Himeros. I hear a piece of marble falling. I guess he just took a bullet for us.
"I have to let you down for a second, okay?" Juan whispers.
"Yes." I reply and I feel the cold marble on my back, as he hides me behind the statue.
I have no idea who's the guy from downstairs, but he has some good skills, because the time is passing and Juan hasn't hit him yet. All they do is just this constant exchange of fire.
"Maybe we should go back to the apartment." I say to him as loud as possible, trying to cover the sound of their guns.
"No, we can't go back there." he says while firing another round.
Instead of hearing the other guy's gun, we hear some muffled swearings.
"Are you the fucking tourists?" the guy from downstairs screams.
"Who the fuck asks?" Juan replies.
"The man whose apartment you've just destroyed." he laughs. "Come down, you don't have much time."
Juan takes me in his arms and runs down the stairs. The only thing that I see is that Himeros has lost one of his wings.
"You're Rodrigo's friends, right?" the man asks.
I can't see him clearly as he stays hidden behind some columns.
"Yes." Juan says.
"I was out looking for you the entire night. I wanted to find you and tell you that you've been discovered, but I guess you figured that yourself."
"Thank you." Juan says. "Yes, we did."
"Rodrigo told me to give you this." the man says.
He hands Juan what looks like an old mobile phone.
"It's secured. Call in case you're in great danger." he adds.
For a second I see him, and I understand why he never wanted to meet his guests. Besides the fact that he's wearing an eyepatch, half of his face is burnt while the other half is filled with scars, the skin looking like it's about to fall.
A deafening noise fills the room, and Juan holds me tightly while pieces of plaster are falling in the same time with some paintings that were hanged on the staircase.
"Oh, you just didn't." the man is really angry. "Go, get your car and leave. I'll try to keep them occupied as much as possible."
"Thank you." Juan says.
"Take care." the man replies tapping him on the shoulder.
As much as he was trying to keep them, El Zorro's mercenaries were still coming. The garden was filled with them too.
Juan puts a gun in my hand and I realize it's the one he gave me while we were in the hotel room, before meeting Rodrigo.
"In case you see one, you don't wait, you shoot." he says. "I have to go clear the way."
And he disappears in the garden. I can see our car and how bad I parked it when we arrived here. I never imagined that we'll have to leave like this.
No one showed up. Apparently, Juan was doing an amazing job killing them one by one before reaching my hideout from between two giant vases.
"Silene, it's me." he says. "Don't shoot."
I feel like an eternity has passed since he appeared, but I'm glad to know that he's fine and we're ready to go. The wound in my leg started to bother me for a while, and I think I'll need more painkillers soon.
"It hurts." I tell him.
"I know." he says. "I'm sorry. I'll give you something when we get to the car."
I see how his eyes are filled with sadness, making me regret what I just said.
He lifts me up and carries me to the car, careful not to move me too much and provoke me ever more pain.
"I know where to take you. You're gonna be okay. I promise." he's trying to sound optimistic. "We'll be safe there for a while."
"Juan." I say looking right in the direction of the sniper who was hiding in a tree.
"Yes." he says smiling.
I don't get to tell him anything. The bullet enters my body and I feel how it piercers my flesh and breaks into something.
The cascade of pain invades my veins. The blood is gushing out of my mouth and all I feel is its metallic taste of death.
The last things I see are Juan's smiling face turning into a grotesque image of fear and despair, and the sunrise above his head that quickly metamorphosed into a painful night.