Barney slammed the case against the man holding it, rendering him unconscious.
"Send the rappellers!" Pelham ordered.
As the mercenaries opened fire on Pelham's lap dogs, Jess managed to break hold of the man restraining her. Once she moved out of the way, someone fired at him. He dropped to the ground and Jess turned around to find Barney smiling at her. She smirked back at him but then frowned when the skylights above him broke.
As glass shattered over them, more men rappelled down and shot at the mercenaries. Jess sprinted behind the SUV for cover and got behind one of Pelham's guards. She took him out with a strike to the clavicle and proceeded to grab her blade. She held it at Pelham's throat, threatening to slice it once the rappellers touched the ground. They all had their sights on her as the life of their boss was in her hands. She couldn't suppress a smile. Oh, how the tables had turned on the bastards, and it was noticed by everyone in the warehouse.
Distracted, countless bullets pierced Pelham's men from behind by the mercenaries who only minutes ago had held her captive. The main doors of the warehouse blew open behind the Expendables. In came more of Pelham's henchmen, too many to even count.
"Shit, they must have called for backup!" She knocked Pelham out with a blunt force strike to his temple and reached for a dead body's pistol.
"They're gonna corner us, spread out!" Barney ordered.
The mercenaries split up into pairs and took cover behind the vehicles conveniently nearby. Jess didn't react as fast as the Expendables did in finding cover; she was more obsessively worried about Pelham getting away, even if he was unconscious at the moment.
Barney noticed her standing in the middle of the place with no time to take cover, so he yelled for someone to throw a smoke grenade between the two sides to buy her some time.
Once she saw a dark gray cloud of fog, she immediately sprinted and landed into a roll to the nearest cover she could find, right beside Barney.
"You know how to use that thing, right?" He popped out of cover to pick off the advancing enemy soldiers.
"Don't think a girl like me can handle it?" She challenged, taking down a few men with the pistol. She was grateful that the cuffs didn't mess up with her line of sight, though they did provide some discomfort.
"Just sayin', we're in deep shit here," he replied and reloaded.
Both sides exchanged fire back and forth across the room, neither side getting an advantage.
"I'm goin' in!" Yelled the Brit from her right.
"Got you covered!" She yelled back, struggling with her cuffs a little as she got in position.
He ran diagonally across the room and dropped two or three grenades and found some cover behind a few large shipment boxes.
The explosion was intensified when it combined with the power of a fuel tank that was nearby. The roof of the warehouse was lit up in flames and eradicated most of Pelham's guards. Only a few remained alive, outnumbered by the Expendables.
"Advancing!" Barney announced and got up from cover, moving ahead towards the heat and blaze.
"Covering!" Jess replied and distracted the men nearest to him as he ran.
"I'm goin in!" The dark skinned mercenary yelled to Yang.
"Run, Caesar!" He acknowledged his partner's statement.
The three men disappeared behind the flames as they crossed the room. For a moment, Jess was scared the fire would eat them up too. The remaining Expendables and Jess heard a few gunshots on the other side. Ten seconds later, Barney, Lee, and Caesar emerged from the sea of heat that had now consumed half of the warehouse. The three were covered head to toe in a combination of blood, sweat, and burns. Still, they were alive and well, loosely clutching their rifles as they returned to their team.
Once they all regrouped, the Expendables turned to Jess, who stood over Pelham. She nodded at them as they respectively lowered their weapons away from her.
"So what are we gonna do about him?" Asked Lee.
She shrugged and lowered her weapon to her side. "Told you you weren't getting your money," she smiled at them. "I know this bastard all too-"
She was cut off by a knife to her leg; Pelham had pulled it out of his cane as she spoke.
"Oh, you sonovabitch!" She collapsed to the floor with him, dropping the pistol and clutching her leg.
The Expendables raised their guns at him so he couldn't harm her more, but they were too slow. Propping herself on her elbow, she quickly dug her own knife into his throat, before any of them could pull the trigger.
"Fuck you..." She groaned. Her breath was becoming slowly uneven.
"Search the place. Meet us back here." Barney ordered his team. They all nodded and rushed to the left, where behind a red door seemed to be a storage room of sorts.
"And someone find a MedKit," he added as he walked over to Jess. "Alright, nice 'n easy," he lifted her from the ground and leaned her against the car.
"Lemme see that," he removed his sunglasses. Setting his gun down, he gently ripped away the part of her jeans penetrated by the blade to get a better look at the wound.
She took a few brief seconds to study him so she could at least try to ignore the intense pain in her leg: he had deep brown eyes, darker than Lee's, and his hair was a black, short, tousled mess. His hardened face displayed years of experience in combat...not the typical thing to notice in a merc; usually mercenaries were violent people who were a bit mentally insane and craved money. Most had 4 years of battle experience, tops. This guy had seen some deep shit-his attitude said it all.
She winced in response to his fingers prodding, albeit gently, at her wound.
"Doesn't look too deep. If he was aiming to make you bleed to death, he missed," He assured her.
"Still hurts like hell," she gasped.
He stood up, setting his gun on the hood of the SUV. She moved her cuffed hands towards him, wanting to be released. He winked at her when he pulled out a small key and unlocked the handcuffs. "You'll be alright," he concluded and handed the pistol to her.
"Would you like to do the final honors?" He motioned to an almost dead Pelham choking on his own crimson blood spurting from his neck wound, courtesy of Jess.
"Absolutely," she smiled and fired. His blood had formed a puddle and even more splattered after she pulled the trigger. That gunshot resounded throughout her eardrums, and it was pure music to her. All that pent up anger from years ago traveled from her very soul to the bullet and out the gun, into his heart. She even sighed in contentment, causing Barney to chuckle beside her.
They heard several footsteps approaching and saw that Lee and the team returning, each one carrying a black bag across his back. Yang also carried a first aid kit in his hands. He immediately patched her up. After that, the men revealed to her what was in the bags: money. And lots of it.
"Well, looks like you guys hit the jackpot." Jess said, still giddy about killing Pelham. After a moment of silence from admiring the money, Barney said, "Let's pack up."
With that, the money bags were zipped shut and ready to be loaded onto the plane. Jess limped into the SUV and was ready to drive off into town.
"Aren't you coming?" Barney asked. She raised one eyebrow at him, confused.
"Well you didn't expect me to leave you here after doing us a favor like that, did you?" he smiled. She chuckled, noticing he had put his sunglasses back on.
"Well, mercenaries aren't exactly the nicest of people, am I right?"
"Spot-on," he responded. "Let's go," he held out his hand for her.
She hesitated for a second, looking at him, then his hand, then back at him.
"Just like that?" She was incredulous. He simply nodded in response.
"You're giving me a free ride home...?"
"Hurry up before the offer expires," he said with a hint of impatience.
"No catch?"
"Didn't we just go over this?" He sounded annoyed now.
She narrowed her eyes at him and took his hand. "Screw me over, and you're dead," she warned.
He chuckled at her threat and slung her arm over his shoulder so she wouldn't limp as much. Making their way back to the plane, the rest of the team was already waiting. They all gave Jess and their leader odd looks. Given the sudden turn of events, there was bound to be some confusion.
"We're heading to Salcedo, boys. Our new friend here needs a ride home." He told them.
"What do we look like, a taxi service?" The one with funny ears rudely asked.
"If it wasn't for me you wouldn't even be alive to ask that question," she narrowed her eyes and smiled.
"Cool it, Toll Road," Lee calmly told him. Barney nodded in thanks.
"So, it's settled. Let's go, we're burning daylight," the tallest one said.
They nodded at him and made way for Jess to limp into her seat. After making sure everyone was settled, Lee and Barney once again took control of the plane. Everyone else, including Jess, got to work during the trip. There were cuts to patch up, burns to soothe, guns to reload, and equipment to store away, most importantly the money. Along the way, the Expendables got acquainted with Jess.
They learned that she used to serve in the US Air Force as a pilot, before her family was caught up with Mexican drug cartels. She took matters into her own hands and formed Los Pistoleros to free Mexico from as many gangs as possible. When their places of operation were getting too hot, they were forced to live back in the States, where they did several contract jobs. After some time, they became notorious in the United States as well, so they moved to Canada, though with little success. For a while, they laid low, doing as much honest work as they could; nevertheless, they were open to doing dirty work if the price was right.
Los Pistoleros recently decided to move back to Mexico since the cartels were ruining the country with their violence. However, they weren't welcomed so nicely by Cinco Reyes, a gang that had claimed parts of Salcedo when they arrived.
Los Pistoleros stuck to the unoccupied half of the city and were eventually allied with the general public. Cinco Reyes was a different story. The tension started off with threats here and there, a rise in the city's crime rate, and destroying public property from each territory. Now, war between them was inevitable. And that was when the Expendables showed up.
After some more chatting, Jess got to know each member. Hale Caesar was a tall, dark skinned man with a shaved head and was best friends with Yang, the small Asian mercenary who patched up her knife wound. Both men both dark colored eyes and Yang had perfectly short black hair and no facial hair, which made him look very young.
Toll Road was mouthy, rude, and stubborn, like her. He was also the one with the funny looking ears, who ended up telling her the story of aforementioned ears. It seemed like the rest of the mercenaries had heard this story more than once and were not pleased about having to hear it again. Jess laughed at their complaints but Toll Road seemed to not have a care.
Gunnar was the tallest member with long and shaggy dirty blonde hair. His voice was as deep as Barney's, if not more. He was pretty cynical though good humored and had a sick imagination, also much like Jess.
Lee was Barney's second-in-command, the one with the British accent. He had light brown short cut hair and hazel eyes. Somehow, the stubble on his chin both softened up the look and made him look rugged at the same time.
Lastly was Barney, though she had already gotten to study him a bit more than the rest; by now, she knew how to tell them all apart.
After a few hours of conversation, the concept of sleep seemed to be on everyone's minds. Rest was much needed after what went down at the warehouse. Jess woke up minutes before landing.
The first time the mercenaries arrived, they touched ground on a landing strip owned by Los Pistoleros. This was the same case again; getting to the base was just a few minutes of walking towards the center of the city.