This chapter continues from Chapter 16: Sleep of The Vigilante - Day 6 Part II of Feral . . .
Saturday, August 2nd, 2014
D'Amico Penthouse, New York City
11:21 P.M.
Then, it all went wrong.
Talk about Deja-vu; same room, same shit.
The moment Hit Girl entered the room, she felt the MP7 ripped out of her hand; the strap was cut, and the weapon was thrown across the room. Shadow was shot four times in the chest and she collapsed to the floor, out in the corridor. A fist then struck Hit Girl's left arm as she brought it up to fend off the blow that had been aimed at her head. D'Amico was right there, barely a foot away from her. Hit Girl kicked out and sent him flying backwards, but the bastard seemed to have skills like his brother and he caught himself. Hit Girl nodded to Feral, who tried to bring his MP7 up, but not before he was shot in the chest by the other man in the room. The other man was large and obviously a bodyguard.
The bullet that had hit Feral, square in the chest, had pushed him back against the wall, but it had given him time to raise his weapon and he sent a three-round burst into the bodyguard's chest.
..._...
Hit Girl grabbed for a pistol; D'Amico was incensed.
"You have ruined my plans for the last time, Hit Girl!" he yelled, throwing the young vigilante to one side and raising a pistol of his own.
Hit Girl landed against the desk which sent pain shooting through her right thigh and she dropped the pistol. Instead she flipped a throwing knife in D'Amico's direction which dug deep into the bastard's left shoulder. D'Amico yelled obscenities as he ran out of the study and he turned towards the kitchen. As he ran, Hit Girl noticed that the bastard was strapping on a small 'reserve' parachute. Fuck! The bastard was going to escape by base-jumping. That was clever, Hit Girl thought, she had not considered that as an option for escape. Devious bastard! She had to stop him.
Hit Girl ran out of the door, followed by Feral. Shadow had scrambled up off the floor; the bullets to her chest had just stunned her. Shadow caught up with D'Amico and she pulled her pistol on him, but not before D'Amico had smacked Shadow hard, across the face, and she fell to the floor, dropping her pistol, and she did not move. D'Amico then span around, kicking Hit Girl hard in her left side. The veteran vigilante screamed as she fell off to one side, crashing into the kitchen counter. Hit Girl tried to get up, but she slipped on a watchdog's blood. She kicked out and caught D'Amico's left leg, making him stagger, but he kept his footing as he moved towards the shattered window. He turned and fired two rounds from his Glock, both of which struck Hit Girl in the back, knocking her down to the floor; the pain was excruciating. D'Amico flung the, now empty, pistol to the floor and then he took two steps and grabbed up Shadow's discarded FN Five-seveN, before he started towards the window again.
Then he stopped and laughed.
11:22 P.M.
Ralph D'Amico turned, and he fired several shots towards the prone form of Shadow with Shadow's own pistol.
Hit Girl caught sight of a blur, from one side, and then she saw Feral as he dived in front of Shadow, knowing that the bullets would kill her. Four bullets hit Feral, three passing through him, two of which hit Shadow causing her to scream out as they burrowed into her right shoulder, just as she was trying to push herself up from the floor. Feral fell, without a sound, hitting the wooden floor of the kitchen and lying still in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. Hit Girl scrambled to her feet, pulling her other pistol, and she fired several rounds at Ralph D'Amico, just as he dived over the parapet. Hit Girl was sure that she had hit him, nevertheless she still ran after him.
"The fucking bastard has escaped!" she screamed in horror as she watched the parachute canopy blossom, dozens of feet beneath her.
Shadow got up and she screamed out, running over to Feral.
"NO!"
11:26 P.M.
Shadow fell down beside Feral and she rolled the boy onto his back.
Feral was still alive, but blood was everywhere . . . Feral's blood. Shadow was beside herself and she was trying desperately to stem the bleeding with her gauntlets. Hit Girl ran over, unfastened Feral's vest and she started applying field dressings to his wounds.
"You didn't have to do this to impress me," Shadow said, holding Feral's hand as she sobbed.
"So, what do you think? You think a vigilante and a guy like me . . .?" Feral replied, before he passed out from the blood loss.
"I love you Josh," Shadow said as she gave him a kiss on the lips.
There was just too much blood, far too much. The boy was not dead yet, but he had given his life to save Chloe. Hit Girl could see a lot of blood on Shadow's shoulder; she was wounded too. Josh had slowed down the high-velocity rounds just enough, so that she had only been injured and not killed. Damn, she had misjudged that boy.
'God help me, I wish I could have had a chance to fix that,' Hit Girl thought. 'Chloe was now losing the boy for a second time. How the hell, could anybody cope with losing the same person twice for fuck's sake!'
The pool of blood was steadily increasing, and Hit Girl became aware of people appearing from the direction of the elevator; one was Marcus, his arm in a sling. Behind him came a police officer and two paramedics. The paramedics ran down the corridor, directly towards Hit Girl and Shadow. That leg, blocking the elevator, must have worked itself loose, a part of Hit Girl's mind told her. She dragged Chloe away from Feral, so that the paramedics could try to save him, but she could not hold out much hope; the injuries were so severe. Shadow was screaming for the boy and it took all of Hit Girl's strength to hold her away from him, despite her own injuries and blood loss. The paramedics cut off Feral's clothes and they started dressing his wounds so that they could move him. Marcus helped Hit Girl to restrain Chloe so that the paramedics could get the boy onto a stretcher and then down to an ambulance. They had come so fucking close to getting the bastard. At least he was on the run, and the penthouse was destroyed.
However, they were about to somebody and they might also lose Chloe over it; she may not come back from it, at least not as the Chloe, which they knew and loved.
11:34 P.M.
Joshua was gone.
Shadow was inconsolable.
Marcus was coordinating the NYPD and paramedics for the injured watchdogs. A paramedic was tending to Shadow's shoulder and struggling as the girl would not keep still and she had had to remove an arm from the top of her combat suit, so the Paramedic could get access to her shoulder. Hit Girl looked up at Marcus.
"How did you know to come?" she asked.
"An explosion was reported at the D'Amico penthouse; it could only be one thing . . . or rather one person," Marcus replied.
Hit Girl pulled out her cell, her hands were shaking as she dialled and called Dave.
"Mindy?" Dave asked, and he had to repeat himself as Mindy could not speak. "Mindy?"
"The bastard escaped."
"I'm so sorry. Are you all okay?"
"I'm bruised and battered, but okay. Shadow has bullet wounds, to her right shoulder, as well as a lot of cuts and bruises. But. . ." she faltered.
"What?" Dave asked, cautiously.
"Josh – the boy . . . he took four bullets, fired by that fucking asshole D'Amico . . . they were meant for Shadow, but. . ."
"Oh God, I'm so sorry, Mindy," Dave replied. "I assume Shadow is not taking this well."
"How the fuck can someone cope, losing the same fucking person twice, for fuck's sake!" she exclaimed as she killed the call and started to sob.
Oh, God, it was there again. She needed Dave, but he was over eight-hundred miles away.
She could not do it alone; she needed Dave.
11:50 P.M.
Hit Girl dragged Shadow downstairs and they climbed onto the Ducati.
They felt drained; Hit Girl just hoped that she could ride in a vaguely straight line!
You are advised to read Chapter 63: Sleep of The Vigilante - Day 6 of Forsaken next . . .
Updated: March 2018