"He's gone, I'm sorry." I pound my fists into his flesh, but his skin is already cold and slick beneath my touch. I drop his hand from where I'd laid it against my stomach. An inhuman howl rips, bone deep from my lips. My fingers numbly trace the weal-lined symbols gashed into his chest and I silently vow revenge on the scattered remainders of the gang.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I fling myself out of the makeshift shelter and into the magnetized storm raging outside. The gutted palm trees offer little shelter as I dash between them, and the palm fronds which I'd ironically found pretty when I arrived on the island slash into my skin as I run leaving small welts and thin trails of blood on my arms and legs. A brilliant flash of lightning illumines the dark blue sky and I fling myself to the ground lest my pursuers catch sight of me. A small chunk of palm tree trunk disappears in front of me, splintered and eaten away, a small dart embedded in the bark. My last coherent thought as I battle the encroaching darkness is that they must have some kind of air propellant to make the darts go so far.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
My feet tread silently across the rusted metal gratings of the catwalk. Feline DNA, catwalk, I start to giggle and then realize that the situation isn't entirely appropriate to humor. I stop exactly four feet from the window and press my back against the rough brick wall of the supposedly abandoned apartment building. Pressing my ear against the wall I make out the sounds of deep breathing and shallow snoring. At least eight men, maybe as many as twelve slumbering in the room beyond.
Sliding my hand cautiously into the lower cargo pocket of my black pants I pull out the high powered penlight and flash it twelve times in rapid succession towards the darkened alley down below. It's better to be safe than sorry in my experience. I wait tensely for a few moments until another pencil thin beam of light hits the wall beside me and pauses before flashing four times. Four perimeter guards watching the lower floor of the building and another dozen of them in the second floor apartment, presumably keeping an eye on the hostages. That makes for a total of sixteen men and that's assuming that there aren't any more waiting in other rooms in the house, not very good odds for two lone rebels, even if they happen to be revved-up.
A small metallic ringing sounds behind me and I turn around in time to grab Max's hand and pull her up onto the catwalk beside me. She lands almost silently on her feet and I almost break into a fit of laughter as I watch her face pause and then crinkle up as she gets the obvious joke. "Catwalk?" She snickers silently in response. I roll my eyes softly and pull out the glock which has been strapped like a newborn baby to my back in a clever little holster since the beginning of this trip. Her doe eyes widen softly.
"Killing them?" She mouths the words in perfect silence. I can sense within her the basic moral dilemma which has plagued her ever since her escape. The men inside of the apartment are hardened criminals, and if they're the same bastards that worked for the cult five years ago, then they're capable of some pretty heinous acts of butchery. Her eyes are still resting on me wide as the moon though and I remind myself that she has never seen the results of their work up close and personal, she's never held one of her teammate's lifeless bodies in her arms and as a result she can still afford charity.
"Only if I have to." Maybe I'm growing soft in my old age or maybe we don't have time for this discussion and I'm only trying to placate her. Whatever my reasons are, she accepts them with a nod of her head and motions me off to one side. The little hellcat wants to storm the castle first. Knew there was a reason I love her so damn much. "Ladies first." Her teeth show perfect fluoride white in the midnight darkness and she pulls a truncheon baton out of nowhere. There are of course other reasons to love the girl, she has some fairly outré skills hidden up her sleeve.
Grinning like a maniac at Christmas she smashes through the window and rolls catlike to her haunches. I jump in behind her and fire once at the bare light bulb in the center of the ceiling plunging the room into darkness. Through the glories of my night vision I can make out eleven men lounging around the room in various sartorial states. Two of them who were most likely lounging on the bed asleep before our grand entrance aren't wearing anything but a pair of moth-eaten tightie whities and I have to stifle the urge not to run over and cover Max's eyes.
"I thought you said there were twelve of these morons?"
"What I'm not perfect you know." Maybe it's Maxie calling them morons that finally does it, but they all snap out of their torpid state of shock and start scrabbling for guns and knives of all sorts. I incapacitate the nearest man with a bullet to the wrist and another to the leg before holstering the gun again and diving into the fight with fists and feet.
In a blur of motion Max surges forward and takes out two men twice her size with a well placed uppercut and a brutal kick to the kneecap, one snapped jaw and one broken leg. I bury my left fist into the soft flesh of the stomach of the rather overweight man behind me. Using his own momentum as his head jerks downward I sweep my right leg out and knock both of his feet out from under him. His own weight does the rest, carrying him to the floor and knocking him out cold. I look up in time to see Max dancing out of reach of the six inch blade of a dagger. She catches my eye from across the room and winks wickedly at me. In a well choreographed movement she leaps through the air and I run to catch her, swinging her body around so that her feet smash full force into the back of the man's head. Daintily she catches the knife before it has time to hit the ground and she buries it in the forearm of the man who's just run over to take his fallen comrades place.
Trusting her to take care of the remaining to men I run out of the room and head down the hall following the directions that Felipe had sworn on his life were completely accurate. Bursting through the first door on the left I find a skinny brunette with thick glasses and a permanently worn expression sitting morosely on a cot, her hands cuffed to the radiator behind her. "Senator McKlellan I presume?" Fear turns to hope on her washed out face at the sound of her name.
"Are you the rescue party? If you are I hope to hell you brought reinforcements." Reaching behind her I take the chains in both my hands and yank them apart. Before she has time to question my amazing feat of athletics the sounds of running footsteps brings the glock back out of its holster and into my hands. The light, even footsteps have to belong to Max so I untense and pull the senator to her feet, preparing to make a break for the next hostage.
"Felipe…bastard…there are more men…in basement, coming upstairs now…too many of them." I know instinctively not to question Max's definition of too many; she's willing to take on an army with one hand tied behind her back. Without warning I toss the senator to my shoulder, fireman style and make a beeline for the staircase. The reassuring sound of Max's footsteps echo behind me as I pound down the staircase. Using the senator's feet as a battering ram I smash into the first two of the guards before spinning around and clipping the other two in uncomfortable places. I'd promised Max that I wouldn't kill them but it's debatable which fate is worse.
The fresh night air meets my exertion flushed face like a blessed relief. I turn around and toss Max a small cellophane wrapped package. As I cover a little more distance with my body sized burden, Max drops in a crouch next to the jeep parked in front of the door and smacks the thumb sized sticker onto the bottom of the car. Rising steadily to her feet she joins me in carrying our prize off towards the city.