Disclaimer: Don't own Firefly. Blah.
Chapter Four—
Zoë joined them behind the cart of fruit, panting.
"What'd you leave me out there for, sir? There's too many." she crouched beside Mal, who was shooting over a stack of tomatoes with Jayne, and started to quickly reload her rifle.
"Kaylin's goin' to distract em,' get ready..." she finished loading and nodded to him. Kaylin was under the cart, loosening the breaks that held it from pummeling down the usually crowded market street.
"Mal, you ready--" she yelled, only to be cut off by Jayne's body, which fell heavily on her legs that were still sticking out from under the cart.
"Wǒde mā!" Jayne cried when he crashed down, clutching his shoulder. "Been shot!"
"Get off, we gotta move!" Kaylin used her knees to move him off her, back scraping roughly against the dirt ground as she slid out from under the cart. "C'mon, can you shoot?" she grabbed his hand and moved it from the wound on his right shoulder. He clutched Vera with the other hand, nodding.
"What are you gonna do? Those Liumang-goons are comin too quick!" Mal warned, wiping the dust from his eyes before cocking the gun and firing again.
"You just run once we're off," Kaylin bolted on top of the cart, shoving some apples from her path. Jayne looked up incredulously before she reached down and tugged his shirt, making him follow her up. "Lean forward."
"What?"
"Just do it, and hold onto somethin' while you're at it." She scooted to the centre of the cart, a few oranges falling on Mal and Zoë, while Jayne followed suit, looking around warily. "Forward, gorramit!" Nothing happened. "Mal, could you give us a push?"
He ran behind the cart and pushed his shoulders against the heavy wooden cart. It creaked and jerked forward. "Wǒde tiān…" he breathed as the cart moved forward to the downhill slope. Gaining speed, it plunged down the road, apples flying from the back, smacking men in the head and jaws. Jayne clung to the side bar, the quickly moving road beneath him making him dizzy.
"You're as goddamn crazy as your sister!" he shot blindly at the figures that whizzed past, trying to ignore the throbbing bullet in his shoulder. Kaylin smiled down at him. She was actually standing on the cart, boots hooked under the wooden bar. Surfing, she shot with her right hand and picked up fruit with her left, flinging massive grapefruits at the men in the street.
--
Zoë stood watching the cart plow through the men.
"We gotta move, lìkè!" Mal stood and pushed past her, and they sprinted down the hill after the cart, pushing through the commotion. The men all around them didn't even notice. Some were on the ground, while others were bustling after their fruit-wielding assailants and shouting. They moved like shadows, quickly stepping out of people's way before they saw them, never stopping until they reached the crossroads.
"She said go left, right?"
"Right, sir."
"Right?" he panted, confused.
"No, go left. That's correct." Zoë said quickly.
"Right then." They ran to the left, ducking between two buildings while some men ran past. Mal peeked out and then motioned to Zoë to follow him. They kept going straight, scanning the houses and holding their guns in front of them. Most of the dwellings were made of brown concrete with neatly-cut square holes for windows and doors draped in ragged-looking cloth. Each house they passed was completely closed up.
"Looks t'me like a ghost town, sir…" Zoë glanced around. "Don't see anymore of those men either. I think we're getting close—"
"I think you're right, but you may want t'take that part about seein' nobody back."
"Sir?"
"Look there," he motioned to the right down the street. There was a single house before a sharp turn and there were at least six men standing in front of it.
"Must be where she is. They always guard the boss."
"Right. Let's see if there's not a back door." Glancing around, his eyes found an alleyway that should have been obvious to him before. It was dark and narrow, being squeezed between the sides of tall houses from one street, and the backs of others from this one. Silently, they crept into the opening, warily stepping over a stream of filthy black water on the floor of the alley that wasn't exactly giving off a fresh scent.
"I can see why this isn't occupied," he said and looked down at his boots, hoping they were as waterproof as they used to be. "This lājī water is probably sewage…" Zoë made a disgusted face at him and kept moving.
"Did you count how many down this house was, sir?"
"No, it was standin' alone. Remember?"
"Yeah, then that must be it up there. I see a break in the wall, some light comin' through."
Sure enough, the break in the alley was the gap between the joint houses and the one that stood alone. When Mal and Zoë reached the end house, they surveyed the area in front of them, noting that there weren't any guards in the alley, but there was a wooden door on the back wall.
They stood still for the first time in minutes, looking at the shabby wooden door.
"Plan, sir?" Zoë asked.
"I'll kick it down—"
"But sir, how can you be sure it's really hers?"
"Can't." he shrugged. "Cover me."
"Right." She followed him quickly past the gap in houses, boots splashing noisily in the water. Biting back a curse, she refused to look down at her pant legs.
He looked at her and counted to three with his fingers. "One… two…" he mouthed, raising his dripping boot, "three!" he kicked it down with a crash and they charged inside. The room was small with two other doorways, the walls, a bare concrete and the floor covered in a battered straw mat. There were crates on the left side of the room and a few chairs. From the other room, he heard a small "clink" on the floor and then shuffling, followed by Moira bursting in unsteadily.
"I'd appreciate if you'd kindly hand over my cash and my doctor, ma'am." He said calmly, both he and Zoë pointing their guns at her. She had just been reaching for her belt, but stopped in mid-motion, defeated, raising her hands in surrender.
"Mal!" Simon's voice shouted from the other room. "Hey I'm in here!" Mal looked at to the doorway and then turned to Zoë.
"Don't let her out of your sight, dǒngma?" Zoë nodded as Mal pushed past a sour-faced Moira and went into the other room.
--
"I'm gonna be ruttin' sick!" Jayne tried to take a normal breath atop the zooming cart but his lungs couldn't grab enough air at their high speed. His only choice was to keep shooting and not look ahead or down. Kaylin was too preoccupied to hear his complaint. She kept flinging fruit at whoever she saw in the street that was lucky enough to have escaped the cart's wheels.
"Our ride's comin' to an end, Jayne!" she called to him shakily, feeling sick herself. Standing on top of a rickety cart pummeling down a hill was one thing, but shooting people with one hand and throwing with the other had left her dazed. About thirty feet ahead was a turn in the steep road—they were heading straight for the side of a large wooden house.
"What?!" he looked over the side, eyes enormous. "We're gonna die, dammit! We gotta jump!"
"No, don't! Just brace—" she was cut off by the front of the cart colliding with the side of the house. The speed at which they were traveling had been so great that at impact the cart broke into pieces, crashing through the upper part of the wall but shattering against the concrete cornerstone. Jayne, who had been bracing against the wooden bar of the cart, was tossed into the empty house, followed closely by Kaylin, who had not sat down in time. He had managed to land and roll to a stop on the floor, unharmed for the most part. Her body, however, had been tossed through the field of airborne wood fragments and various fruits like a rag doll, smacking against the ceiling of the dwelling and falling headlong into a cheap wooden table that crashed beneath her weight.
"Shit!" Jayne peered through the cloud of dust, coughing, and moving wood from his path as he crawled toward Kaylin. Each time he put weight on his right arm, he winced, white light in his eyes from the shot-wound that he had almost forgotten. "Hey," he found Kaylin face down on the floor so he moved to a sitting position and turned her over gently. There were scratches all over he face and arms, while her bottom lip was turning a nasty shade of purple. She was unconscious.
Jayne looked around in a panic. There could be people coming after them, he needed to get out. Feeling on his belt, he realized that he must have dropped his gun, while Vera was on his other side, but out of ammo. However, his hand had found his walkie-talkie, which, in all the excitement, he had forgotten. Grasping it but then stopping, he let it stay on his belt and tried to lift Kaylin instead. As soon as he had a firm grasp and pulled upwards, a searing pain shot through his shoulder and he cried out, letting her fall back onto the floor as he crashed down beside her.
"Gorramit…" he sighed, pulling out the walkie-talkie. "Mal?" his voice was hoarse. "Hey, you there or what?" For a silent minute there was no response, but then static crackled over the speaker.
"Jayne? Where are you? We got the money back and Simon."
"Some house that our cart crashed into… Kaylin and I. She's out cold, Mal, and I think I will be soon too. All this blood-losin is going t'my head." It was true, ever since they had ridden on the cart his head had felt light and his stomach, sick. He's thought it was just from the cartride, but the blood still flowing from his shoulder suggested otherwise.
"Is it down the hill? The house you're in?"
"Yeah, right where there was a turn at the bottom of the hill."
"Makes sense. We'll fly over."
"Wait, ya found Wash?"
"Yeah, he contacted me a few minutes ago—had to take off 'cause of Moira's bandits comin out to investigate the ship. He didn't want no trouble."
"Well hurry it up, all this gorram blood is makin me Fong luh…." He trailed off, feeling a stab of nausea and seeing the dirt-covered room in front of him go black.