Have a Heart
Alexnandru Van Gordon
I'm sorry if I was gone again for so long. School just got a bit more complicated and last week I had a major exam in seven of my nine subjects. And to add to that, apparently freedom of religion is being neglected in the school system…for some reason, the last religion celebration we had for remembrance day was "against their law"…What the hell is the world coming to? I go to a Catholic school for goodness sake!
Sorry…I need to vent ever once in a while or I blow it big time with some poor innocent by-stander…
BTW: IMPORTANT: All of you people who are reading the stories from Darla's competition (or at least a couple of them), have to send her an e-mail telling her, in order, the best story to the…least interesting story in the challenge. It would be much appreciated and if you do, I'll give you a cookie.
CHAPTER SIX: …Another catch
When he got back to America, he was going to have a long talk with Dr. Church. Mad scientist? That was alright—he was something of one himself—but experimenting on small infants was…a little inhumane, even in the eyes of someone like Slade. At least when he himself set out for experimentation, he got something out of it and knew he was volunteering for something painful. A child is a child and a child can't make the right decisions. That's something that had to come with age…
Stepping over the unconscious cook, he reached out to open the back door and regretted that decision the moment he stepped outside. A gunshot echoed in the night and pain erupted in his neck on the left side where the bullet entered and on the right where it left. Raising both hands to slow the blood, he tried to say something, or at least mutter a curse, but his vision blacked-out again. Then he was falling…
Couldn't have been Eric…
-M-
Maybe now he'd stay down…but deep inside she knew he would be up and after them some time soon. That was probably why her conscience didn't fell as heavy as it did the first time she shot the man. And hey! She didn't lose her lunch either…
Klaus tugged at her shirt sleeve urgently and she handed him the gun. H nearly dropped it out of surprised, but caught it properly and ran back to Eric's car as Muriel made her way forward. Looking around quickly to make sure nobody saw her, Muriel knelt down beside his body and loosened the utility belt from his waist, opening a few of the compartments in search of keys to Eric's cuffs. But then curiosity set in…
Leaning forward slightly, she tilted her head to see his neck wounds properly. The bleeding…had stopped…and the skin was healing, almost seaming together with invisible thread.
Panicking, she stood and spun around, sprinting back toward Eric's car as fast as she could manage.
-E-
"She shot him again?" He muttered to himself. "I can't believe that woman…"
Then again, she was pregnant. Major mood swings tended to make women do odd things, and Muriel was an extremist already on her own…
Open looking up into the rear-view mirror, he saw Muriel running in his direction, sliding to a halt on his side of the car and throwing the door open with a look of surprise and panic spread across her face. Whatever had her spooked…really had her spooked and he was too sure he wanted to find out why.
"You look like you saw that living dead."
She glared. "Close enough! Have you seen that guy heal himself? It's…it's as though dying is nothing more than a small setback to him! I thought it would take longer than this…he was down for so long on the ground back at the apartments…"
"Quite possibly, he could have been back on his feet after we left the apartments." He sighed. "That would explain how he tracked us down so fast…But perhaps that's how his body works. If he's killed once, whatever healing powers he possessed go on hold just in case he dies again sometime soon. He could be up in five minutes for all we know."
Muriel wasn't really listening to what he was saying, fumbling with the keys as she undid his cuffs, but she appeared to hear the last sentence. Whimpering in fear, she waved to someone across the parking lot and jumped over Eric into the driver's seat of the car. Then Klaus came, sprinting across the lot and slipping into the back seat.
"…Am I missing something here?"
Muriel smiled politely at Eric. "Hey…do you know how to hotwire a car?"
He paused to think about that…Yes, he did, but did he really think this was the best idea? He'd rather get to America as a prisoner and end his feud with his father once and for all than take his friends along for a never-ending chase.
Muriel wasn't the kind of girl who took no for an answer.
Kneeing the glove compartment hard enough, it sprang open and revealed a small pack of various working tools. These were used for his "notorious" part-time job, but they came in handy for the little fixing tasks every once in a while.
"Move over a little. I need to see the steering wheel." He said as he grabbed the package and undid the seatbelt. "Just relax and…"
BANG!
The car shook violently and the indent on the roof curved inward just an inch or so short of Muriel's head.
"Damn…that guy just doesn't know when to stay down, eh, Mur?"
She nodded meekly…
-S-
He was beyond annoyed. He was beyond furious! If that woman shot him one more time, he would make sure she was in a wheel chair for the remainder of her pregnancy. He was kind enough to let her go at the airport, and he even suspected she would follow anyway. But killing him first?
That woman had no morals whatsoever.
Pulling his right fist from the dent he made on top of the car, Slade paused momentarily to listen to their conversation. Eric gave Muriel a few quick an easy instructions (for what, he didn't know) before the passenger's seat door slammed open and Eric himself stepped outside the car. The young man reached down toward his right shoe and—
Slade flipped off the car just in time, avoiding his second bullet of the night. Muriel had one gun, but…then where did Eric get this one…Unless, of course, she jacked it off one of the two hitmen at the airport while Eric held onto the original one Muriel shot him with earlier.
This could be easy…all he had to do was wait from him to run out of bullets.
"The woman has better shot than you." Slade mocked, moving around the car to see Eric. "And to think…you used to be a thief. Have you ever actually killed someone before?"
Eric paled at his words and his shoulders slouched visibly. Perhaps…he had.
Then the young man frowned. "What does it matter what I did in the past? And who the hell said I was aiming for you?"
Huh?
There was shouting from behind him, followed by another bang and the sound of something colliding with the ground. Upon turning around, he came face to face with a disaster zone. Apparently Eric hit the large glowing letters above the diner, causing them to fall and alert anyone inside of what was going on in the parking lot.
Well, they should have heard the first gunshot, but maybe they didn't really care about that…
A couple of men and one of the woman servers had stepped outside to stand on the front porch and stare at the scene. Then someone noticed him and Eric…
"You're only going to make this harder for yourself." Slade muttered, turning to face Eric. "These men won't put up a good enough fight."
"No, they might not even fight you at all…but at least they can tell the police who they'll be chasing down…"
Hmmm…the police would prove to be a hindrance. If they were searching for him then they might block up the highways. That wouldn't be too hard to get past, but it would slow him down considerably if he was planning on taking a couple of hostages.
"Funny." He muttered.
Then the engine started up, the tail lights turning on. Whatever Muriel was told to do, it concerned the car and now she herself could get away.
He really did hate wasting his weapons on amateurs…
Reaching to his belt before Muriel could change gears and back up into them; Slade took a small silver sphere into his hand and threw it hard at the ground. Dark gray smoke erupted immediately and bellowed around the two men, moving past the car to consume it and any other nearby vehicles into the haze. Now he had cover.
Eric, blind and suffocating, didn't move anywhere and was hit by Slade in the side of the head. As the man fell unconscious, Slade caught him and dragged him to the side of the car.
"Be gracious I don't throw you in the trunk." He growled. Really…all this trouble for just one man…
He'd better find out why the young man was so important. If this was a trivial mission of little importance, heads were going to roll…
-A-
Okay…so I know he wasn't as nice as he should have been in this chapter, but you will see, by the end of the story, a major good deed—and you get to see the Titans! Just…not in Germany. And I'm sorry if my story is so boring…I found out that I'm in last place so far…Oh well, I like it. And I wish I could vote for whose I like…there's a good tie in my mind between Shara Shima and DLsky. Anyways—I have a test to get too! ARGH! SO MUCH WORK!...See you around…