Something passed across Mary’s face but it was too quick to catch. The two stared hard at each other, unblinkingly. Kevin’s palms felt sweaty and his heart pounded in his chest. With every second that passed he grew more certain Mary would kill him. He knew that she was heartless and had killed dozens of people before; all it took was one pull of the trigger and his brains would splatter the ground. He would cease to exist instantaneously.

After a while though Mary slowly lowered her gun. Kevin looked at her questioningly, his brows furrowed in confusion. He was sure she was going to shoot him.

“All right,” Mary said eventually. She avoided his gaze, looking down at the ground. “I’ll take ya to the factory.”

***

The two of them stealthily crept towards the factory, Mary leading the way. There was a huge dumpster next to the entrance of the factory and they were slowly making their way towards it in order to hide behind it.

With each step they got closer to the factory, and the stronger the aroma of perchloryl fluoride became. By the time they got to the dumpster and ducked behind it the stench was overpowering. The smell tickled Kevin’s throat and he struggled not to cough again, lest he reveal his and Mary’s location to the Brats.

As Mary reloaded her gun Kevin peeked over the side of the dumpster and looked up at the factory. It was a huge, enormous building, gray and intimidating. The factory had countless rows upon rows of windows and the sky was the blackest right above the factory due to the smokestack.

As Kevin stared up at the windows he felt a shiver go down his spine. He wondered how many of those “Brats” were in the factory. He knew that they were dangerous and that Mary and he were planning to sneak into the factory to find his stepdad. What would happen if they were caught?

“Hey,” Mary suddenly said and Kevin snapped out of his thoughts. He turned to look at her. “We’re ‘bout to enter a war zone,” she said, her brown eyes boring into his. “I’m prob’ly gonna hafta kill some of ‘em in order for us to get in. So I’m gonna need ya to not burst inta tears when I hafta defend ourselves.”

Kevin felt his cheeks turn hot. But before he could say anything to defend himself Mary raised her hand to silence him. “They’re here,” she whispered, and Kevin’s heart thudded in his chest.

He peeked over the side of the dumpster cautiously. He could hear voices but he couldn’t make out any figures from the angle he was looking from. Mary leaned over his shoulder and Kevin looked at her curiously.

“There,” she said, nodding her head. “There’s only two of ‘em.”

Kevin looked over again and was stunned at what he saw. “But they’re only…” he trailed off. Several yards away from them, standing in front of the factory doors conversing, were two kids. Neither of them looked older than twelve.

“Good, this’ll be easy,” Mary murmured, and Kevin frantically turned to her. She stood up slowly, her eyes trained on the kids, and Kevin looked up at her anxiously.

He could feel all the blood drain from his face. “What are you gonna do?” he asked nervously.

She stared down at him, a bored look on her face. “Get rid of ‘em obviously,” she said bluntly, and then she was gone.