Chapter 14
The world seemed so different, not that he hadn't been pierced by a bullet before, but this time he had something to lose. He felt Kinana's shaking stop, her terrified movements suddenly becoming concrete-solid movements brimmed with confidence. He could feel Kinana's hands covered in cloth pressing into his wounds in an attempting to stop the bleeding. Her eyes were determined and fierce, forwards with their anger that radiated in her beauty.
"Where's Dimitri?" He tasted blood on every vowel he spoke, and with that sentence that couldn't be good. Kinana looked a crossed the field examining the people who had arrived to make the deal, "is he there?" Cobra choked out.
Before Kinana could open her mouth, her fingers tightened around the cloth, irate screaming raged from the other side of the deal, people hustled to quiet the person that was losing their mind. Cobra let his head lean onto the sidewalk, yup he was there. "Hey, if we-"
He glanced at her knowing that she wasn't going to finish that sentence and blow the whole operation. "Yeah, I'll be fine." He smiled, doing his best not to lunge for the person who roughly dragged her away, doing his best to pretend that he was down-and-out due to the gunshot.
"If I don't treat that he'll die!" Kinana snapped, her voice sounding angrier than it needed to be.
The group laughed, "You heard the girl, let the man suffer." a force was thrown onto his side as Cobra attempted not to let out a groan, hands shuffling a crossed his form, as he unhooked his gun.
Cobra opened his eyes to see Dimitri bloodied hands unclipping the gun, "Don't you touch her." He fired a warning shot, Cobra glanced towards the flare in the boy's eyes glowing with the rage of a wildfire.
"I told you to break his hands! Who didn't break his hands before sending him back?"
Cobra glanced towards Dimitri's hands, slight traces of purple running up them, he had at least one or two broken fingers alright. They weren't moving, but Dimitri must've swelling from the adrenaline with the ability to move the fingers that weren't broken. He had placed the one's he could move in such a pattern so that the other half of the field couldn't see his inability to move those fingers.
Cobra felt a smile creep up his face, the things they never thought they'd be capable of to survive. Besides, it likely wasn't the first time that Dimitri had to fight for his life with a couple broken bones. He surrounded Dimitri's wrist, "Run kid."
"Be quiet, and keep that cloth on your wound."
Cobra let his head rest against the pavement, listening to the steady gunfire as the chaos ensued around them, he hoped that Leader would be able to keep up with this nonsense. On the other hand, he hadn't remembered Kinana bringing this cloth with her, he really couldn't tell what kind of fabric this was. Surely, she hadn't. He removed the cloth staring at the colors, she had tore some of her clothing to stop the bleeding. He hadn't even heard or seen her movements. "Put that back and start pressuring it." Dimitri scolded him, grabbing him by the shoulders as he dragged the both of them out of the cross fire that had started amongst the gang.
"What's happening?"
"I can't tell too well, there seems to be a rebellion? Or a confusion? They think some from our gang managed to somehow get into their gang."
"I hope so." Cobra leaned his head against the wall near the window, he could hear the firing at the racket that echoed into the abandoned house that Dimitri had barged into.
"Stop that and put pressure on it."
"It's not as bad as it looks."
"Until we can get the bullet out it is. Besides, I need time to do patch work. Take off your shirt." Dimitri pulled a needle and some thread from his pants pocket, beginning to measure the amount of thread he would need with his teeth.
"I am not letting you touch me with that dirty needle."
"It's fresh I haven't even used it once, put that cloth back on your wound. Dang it Cobra listen." Dimitri muttered.
"If you don't clean that needle we're going to have more problems than me not listening to you, some baby-stitches, and a few broken fingers."
A darkened look crossed Dimitri's face, "I have these broken fingers because I tried to escape on my own and gave several of their wounded infections on purpose."
Cobra let his head hit the wall behind him, if it hadn't been for the fact that Kinana was out in the chaos he could hear ensure behind him surely pleased laughter would've escaped his lips. Dumb Asses. If they knew anything about Dimitri, much more the desperate, they would've never demanded the man to help with their wounded and sickly. "Anyone in there that might be able to decipher what's on Kinana's back?"
"Likely, yes, but the lot seemed to be filled with incompetent fools. That's the only way I got several infections a crossed, managed to confuse the heck out of everyone. Likely, they were hiding someone in the back who already knew better and I can't count for people that weren't already at the home base." Cobra nodded watching as Dimitri searched the house for any form of running water so that he could begin making the stitches. The pocket-watch making steady beats against Dimitri's leg.
"Get rid of that thing already." Cobra coughed, hoping that it was only spit that he had just flung to the floor.
"I'm attached to it." Dimitri muttered coming back with the needle and beginning to get to work, "You just keep getting lucky man, we can probably call this a graze and go rescue Kinana." Cobra did his best to ignore the sensation of Dimitri working on the stitches. "You better have a plan or I'm going to get a fist full of these stitches and yank."
Cobra felt the cool-air radiate off of the concrete he rested his head against as he watched the group gather around Kinana before drawing back away from the cross fire. Oh, they had a plan, but it was taking every last bit of composure and self-control that he had built up not to jump through the broken window and destroy their plan. "If it weren't for those stitches the plan would be in shatters right now." Cobra attempted to hold back a groan of discontent, a mixture of wanting to jump onto the battlefield and holding himself back from letting Dimitri know how much the stitches plus the bullet wound hurt. He was this gang's rock, the venom that kept them alive, he had to keep pushing forwards. There was no way he could let someone see him break over something so little, especially since it the man they had just rescued from another gang who was doing his stitches with one broken hand.
"Hey, are you doing alright?" Cobra glanced towards Dimitri, the kid nodded, his hand shaking and sweat running down his forehead likely running a fever. Great, just another thing he needed to be added to his plate to worry about right now.
Dimitri paused searching his pockets for more of the string he used to stitches, "What is..." He paused struggling to a breath confirming Cobra's suspicions, "the plan."
"Leader's going to take care of the hard part and once they're distracted I'm going to swoop in snatch Kinana and run."
"Great, how can I help?"
"You're retreating, when Desmond gets here you're going back to the house with him."
"You do understand that Leader is blind now correct? Why can't I-?"
"Leader has always been capable no matter what the situation and your hand is broken, you're going back, begin packing everyone's things and planning an escape. This is important to and I need you to do this."
Dimitri paused taking a breath as he glanced down towards his broken hand, "They missed, they were aiming for the whole hand. You know halfway through I remembered begging whatever forces are out there knowing that they wouldn't stop them don't let it be a gun and then bam they pull out a hammer, and I just sat there wondering if it'd quicker if it was a gun." Dimitri pulled bandages from his pocket beginning to wrap, "And now, I hope you don't hold me in a high standard as I like to think you do because I am not above revenge." He paused glancing towards Cobra meeting his gaze, "And your woman out there, you should see that flare in her eyes, neither is she. That wasn't the face of a woman who just crossed into enemy territory to be rescued, it was one that is going to reek havoc."
Cobra felt a smile push its way onto his face, that was the way it ought to be. Havoc was in his nature, it was what he was drawn to, it ran through the essence of his being, was sewn into his very soul. But the image that greeted him when he returned his gaze to outside coursed shock and adrenaline through each of those things. Kinana had gotten her hands on a grenade and rolled it part of the gang. She threw her hands over her ears as Cobra attempted to reach for Dimitri pushing him below the window. Within seconds fire blazed through the window, explosions, and panic coursed through the voices outside. Kinana was the last person anyone expected to be holding an explosive device.
"Cobra! Cobra! Hold still! Cobra, I'm losing the stitches! Cobra! Cobra! Dang it! Eric!"
It was as though a roller-coasted slammed him back into his senses, "Did you just?"
"I did, now sit still. I'm just doing a patch job, if you get into heavy-hand-to-hand combat then they're definitely going to come out and you're going to need me."
"I don't plan to get that close to any of them."
"You never plan anything you do, but remember that explosion last week? You didn't plan to do it, but you went and did it." Dimitri muttered measuring out more string.
"You need to wrap those fingers."
"A few hours with them being out of place isn't going to hurt, resetting them properly is what's going to hurt. And I'd rather be in a safe location to do that." Dimitri muttered as he tied the stitches into a knot, "If I were a competent doctor I would tell you what you're about to do is stupid and refuse to treat your reopened stitches when you get back."
Cobra shot him a smile, "Good luck with that degree, Doctor Dimitri the Incompetent."
Dimitri glanced through what he had left over in his arsenal, "Look, I prepared for you to be slightly-less-insane than usual, but at least try not to rip the stitches out."
"Got it." Cobra smiled snatching the gun off the floor flying out the door towards Kinana's location as she wrestled weaponry out of another's hands. He found himself compelled towards the woman at a faster rate, the chaos in the area enhancing. Cobra found himself instinctively ducking as gun the gun Kinana was wrestling out of the enemy gang member's hands fired. She removed it from his hands slamming it against their head.
A person slammed him a side out of the straight path towards Kinana, they weren't going to be conscious long enough to regret that decision. Cobra felt his head tilt displaying his teeth as he looked towards the perpetrator that had pushed him aside scrambling for their gun. Unconscious on the battlefield was not a fun situation to be in.
Kinana's voice boomed into his ears as Cobra glanced towards her, his hands slipping on the victim underneath his feet. Raised high in the air above her head was a tiny circle which could've been mistaken for a bouncy ball, "so unless you want radiation poison with the equivalent of two nuclear bombs, everyone stay where you are."
Cobra felt the chaos that ran through his veins substituted with panic, that thing in her hands wasn't an ordinary bomb that she had found on a body lying on the battlefield. That thing was a slightly larger version of what he had been holding earlier in the week. He had whistled while he watched the damage. He had shot a prototype of what was in her hand. He knew the damage that it would do first-hand. His brain struggled to comprehend what he was processing, there was no way she just picked it up off of the ground. There was no way that this gang had spares of that was no way that she knew exactly what a random explosive on the battlefields extra side effects were. That thing's ingredients were engraved into her back.