My body is pressing so hard against this concrete column that I can't tell where it ends and I begin. I only have one bullet, one single fucking bullet, and I don't even know where my enemy is.
I only know that he's not the only one, unlike my single bullet.
I angrily move away from my face a lock of hair that had escaped my rubber band. Tears threw me a bullet box just a few minutes ago, but I missed it. And damn that broken grate, which was exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time! But then I think that it's all a matter of point of views, it's always a matter of point of view in life. Take my enemy for example, for him that hole in the ground where my bullets fell was exactly in the right place at the right...
I roll on my side, I hit my right shoulder against an old rusty bin, and I get behind another column. The hail of bullets that rains down on me, hits the floor and takes off pieces of cement close to me. And I cuss.
How do I manage to distract myself with my own thoughts?
I groan and try to recover all my courage.
It's do or die, that's what Tears always says.
Tears, where the fuck are you now? I hope you're around here because otherwise you'll soon have to ask the Confederation for another partner.
I come out from behind the column and shoot my last bullet.
I don't think about anything, and that's hard for me. Right now I just feel my heart pushing against my rib cage trying to get out.
The guy with the machine gun who shot a hail of bullets at me earlier falls on his knees in front of me. There's a wound on his side. Behind him, squinting his eyes, another refugee falls, shot in his forehead.
I turn around. The gun in Tears' hands is still smoking.
- Did you shoot him? - I stammers.
He doesn't even look at me and shoots again. I don't need to look to know that the wounded refugee is now dead too. Then, Tears finally sheathes his gun and turns to me.
- No, I only do crochet. - And the look in his eyes has already changed.
When he shoots, his eyes are ice cold, as if they were made of glass.
By the Gods, the image of glass eyes is horrible, but I wouldn't know how else to say it. He's serious, but without the usual tinge of arrogance and boorishness. I'll be honest, when he shoots, the look in his eyes scares me. It's like a part of him was detached from what he's doing. There's no viciousness nor amusement in him. He's just gotta do what he's gotta do.
He approaches the refugees and searches them, as usual.
The note is in the second refugee's pocket. He reads it quickly and shoves it in his own pocket as he mutters a few words I don't understand. I don't know how many notes he's collected since I started working with him and, frankly, I don't even know what the hell they are. All I know is that we always find one after every attack organized by Sin. I lost count of how many there have been so far, and I haven't got the faintest idea of what they say.
Obviously, asking about them always leads to nothing but a string of insults towards me, my family, my age or my manhood.
Therefore I stopped asking.
- How many did you gun down? - He asks as he lights a cigarette. It's already dawning in the distance, on the industrial area of Busto Arsizio.
I quickly do my math. - Four. Five with this one. -
He nods and throws me another ammo box. - Okay. I gunned down another seven, so we've got them all. -
This time I catch the box while I'm still thinking about my counting. - No wait, I think I gunned two down and this was the third one. -
He freezes. - Count them again. Math is not an opinion, as they say. -
I gather my thoughts. Meanwhile he's counting on his fingers. - Three on the roof, two in the courtyard and other two in the main hangar, which makes seven. When we got here, we saw a dozen of them, you must have hit five. -
I shake my head. - I remember the two behind the... -
Tonight there's no way to finish a sentence, neither spoken nor in my thoughts. A Ford just came around the corner at 80 mph and is heading towards us.
I scream and run away, which is what I do better.
Tears cusses, which together with shooting, is what he does better.
A second later the cars become two. They whiz less than an inch away from where we were a moment ago, before we jumped behind a low wall. Tears screams in my face, his breath ruffling my hair.
- KNOW YOUR MATH! - He shouts.
- Your car? - I ask.
- It's down there! - He points with his open hand in the general direction of his car, which must be somewhere beyond the hangar we're in. - It's too far, there are too many obstacles and... -
This time I'm the one who doesn't let him finish his sentence. - Keep them busy! - I jump over the wall and I lunge forward, crossing the hangar.
****
I'm dumbfounded, there's no other way to describe it.
I didn't even finish the sentence that he jumped over the wall like a cat. Now he's skipping among columns, down old rusty stairs and over old overturned trash bins. He reminds me of those bouncy balls you get for a quarter at the vending machines, get the picture?
- WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING? - I bark at him, and then I spring up and almost take a caliber 12 lead shower. I squat back behind the wall, I reload and I swear. - The hell keep them busy! -
They turn their vehicles and come back. Holy shit, they are two on two cars and they're headed towards me, and I'm only one. Yes, I've seen even worse, but that doesn't mean that I am pleased right now.
I have no idea how he did it, maybe he teleported, but I doubt he could with the Confederation bracelet on, however I hear my car's engine purr, and there he is, right behind the wall.
- GET IN! -
He's glued to the steering wheel in order not to get shot by the hail of bullets raining on us. I get up, I shoot a couple of times, then I jump on the hood, I slither over it and land on the passenger side. When I close the door, it takes me a second to realize that I'm sitting on the wrong side. I'm not holding the steering wheel.
– You don't have a driver's license! - I scream as I link together two notions: “him being seventeen" and “me sitting on the passenger's side".
Yet he starts and leaves a good amount of tread on the hangar floor. I snort and hope at least not to die in a car accident. It wouldn't look good on my résumé.
We barely have time to turn, almost tipping over, into the street that divides the two hangars, that the two Fords immediately get behind us from two different sides. The rookie is at full throttle.
When I turn and shoot the first time through the rear window, I hear him scream.
- WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SCREAMING? -
He bites on the steering wheel but he's still hugging the road. I shoot another couple of times, I miss once, but the second time I manage to hit off a mirror from the first car. In response we get hit again by a caliber 12 rain.
The thing is that if I shoot one car, the other one attacks me. They are two and I'm alone because the rookie is already concentrating on staying on the road, I can't ask him to shoot too. I suspect he also forgot to breathe as his neurons are all conveyed on the task of driving.
I sit up right, more or less. - Okay, – I tell him. - Now get ready. -
- For what!? - He's hysterical.
I lower my window, while the one on the driver's side is already down, I grab his gun and pull the handbrake.
****
He pulled the handbrake and I find myself facing the barrel of his gun.
Before he pulls the trigger I remember that he's Sin's twin brother, therefore totally deranged. What is it, either we win or we both die?
He shoots.
****
As expected, when we pull up short, the two cars come to our sides and, before they realize what's going on, both drivers collapse on the steering wheels, both hit in their temples by a bullet. The cars move on for a few yards and then stop.
We already stopped.
I glance to check both drivers, then I look at the rookie. - Hey, are you okay? -
He sits back up and he's like the face of dread. - I thought you wanted to kill me! -
I snort. - Fuck off. - Then I see him, he's bleeding. Shit, I must have brushed him.
- What is it? - He asks.
- I hit you in the face, – I murmur. - IF YOU ONLY KEPT STILL FOR A CHANGE! - I bark at him.
He checks his face in the rear view mirror and looks at the small wound on his cheek.
– Damn it Tears, you shoot me in the face and you want me to keep still? -
– Well, if you hadn't moved I wouldn't have hit you in the first place! - I lash back.
He waves a hand. - Yeah, yeah, whatever. It doesn't seem serious, just stitch me up. -
– There's no way I'm giving you stitches! The only thing you'll get from me is a slap in the face. If I stitch you up and you end up scarred, I will never heard the fucking end of it. –
- So what now? I stay with a hole in my face? -
- No, move over. I'll drive and we'll both go to the Confederation where you'll be taken care of.-
****
So now I'm here, in the doctor's waiting room at the Confederation, with a gauze stuck on my cheek. I've never been here before. It's usually Tears who patches me up. He dumped me here, and then he went upstairs. He said he was going to say hi to Nakiri. Every time I wonder how is it possible that he and Nakiri are friends. Perhaps the right question would be 'how is it possible that General Shelv has friends?'.
Or Tears. Well, both of them.
I look up from the floor when I hear a discreet clack and the door opens. A guy with a huge scar on his face and his arm in a cast comes out. I absentmindedly stroke the gauze on my right cheek. I don't want to come out like him, I'd rather use super glue instead.
- Next one! - I hear from inside the office. It's a female voice inviting me to come in, and I enter. As I usually do every time I enter a room, I do a quick scan of it: furniture, objects, knick-knacks, people, everything in it. It comes natural to me. If you leave me in this room for ten seconds and then send me away and ask me to describe in details how each and every object is arranged, I will be able to answer you without missing a thing. I believe it's a natural gift, together with my ability to move quietly and quickly.
And that's it. That's all I can do. The rest of me is a mess.
The woman who called me inside is busy putting away strange looking bottles in a cabinet with glass shutters. She's got dreadlocks falling down to her shoulder blades. I love dreadlocks and sooner or later I'll wear them too. And mom is not even here to shave my head off (although I'm pretty sure that she would come all the way down here with a huge razor just to personally shave my head if she knew). The woman's dreadlocks are black and fuchsia and have knotted ribbons in them. All in all it's a fantastic hair-do.
She's almost as tall as me, she's wearing a white coat over a long burgundy velvet dress and has a beautiful tattoo that stands out black on the milky skin of her right arm. It reminds me of black lace. I think I already saw that dress at a craft fair in this dimension. I remember it well because that style is unmistakable and, above all, because at the stand where they were selling it, there were tons of hot chicks.
She turns around. She has black eyes and delicate features and she's wearing a light silver diadem on her forehead. Holy cow, she's beautiful as fuck. Maybe she works at fair stands in her spare time too?
I instantly fall in love with her. I don't know who I am, where I am and why I am here anymore.
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