New York
Friday
We moved away from the dead bodies and headed in the direction indicated by a sign that pointed towards a convenient fire exit.
I had been impressed by how well Brooke had stood up to being groped, almost raped, not to mention seeing the men killed by Dave and me. Maybe there was more to her than met the eye; she had figured Dave and me out quicker than expected; but then nobody ever said that Brooke was stupid!
After a couple of minutes, we reached the fire exit and immense relief seemed to flood over the three of us; we were safe. I shoved open the door and was about to step through when bullets pounded into the door and surrounding wall. The gunfire was suppressed and not easily heard as I dived off to one side, pulling Brooke with me and slamming the door closed.
..._...
Bullets pinged off the steel-lined fire door as I looked at Dave.
"I think somebody wants us to stay inside..." He said calmly.
"Yeah, a potentially painful cloud of bullets does tend to be quite convincing!"
"I cannot believe that you two can be so goddamn calm about this fucking shit!" Brooke cried out. "I'm about to have a fucking nervous breakdown and you two are cracking jokes!"
"Look, Queen Bee, you know who we are, right?" Dave asked.
"Yeah, you're Kick-Ass and Hit Girl..."
"Could you be in better hands?" Dave continued.
"Probably not..."
"So stop ya yappin' and start thinkin'!" I growled in annoyance.
"I always did like your bitchiness!" Brooke added with a weak smile.
Twenty minutes later, we had moved to the far end of the warehouse and I was able to look through some locked double doors into what appeared to be a branch of fucking IKEA or something very similar!
"We're in a goddamn furniture type store!" I growled to Dave.
"Cool!" He replied. "A bed would be good, right about now."
I just glared.
"I'm tired!" He elaborated as he passed over his Beretta while keeping hold of his seized SIG Sauer P226 pistol.
"Wait, why do I get the girl gun?" I demanded.
"Are you kidding me?" Dave asked incredulously, passing over the SIG.
"Nah, just fuckin' with ya!" I said taking the Beretta and blowing out the bolts that held the doors closed.
Dave and I went through the doors into the darkened store. We found ourselves in the kitchen department, which was just plain weird. We saw nobody and then I saw a sign above that made me smile.
"What?" Dave asked.
I pointed upwards: 'Outdoor Sports'.
We ran over and I felt like it was fucking Christmas!
I grabbed various items as I came across them, as did Dave. Within eight minutes, we all had on a ballistic vest and I had found Brooke some proper shoes to wear. We all wore a pair of gloves and I had loaded my vest with some throwing knives and a cool survival axe among other things. Dave had grabbed a pair of wicked tactical knives and machete.
There was no way to get at the firearms or the ammunition the store held, but we would improvise. I tried a phone on a service desk but not surprisingly, it was dead. The final act for Brooke and me was to put our hair up and out of the way. I gave Brooke instructions on keeping under cover and away from the action.
Now we waited.
I heard movement and indicated the fact silently to Dave via a hand signal.
Our intention was to use stealth and reserve our pistols for the last resort. The footsteps came closer and closer. The first thing we saw was the muzzle of a Heckler & Koch G36K assault rifle. Dave swung his arm out to where the head should be and we heard a satisfying crunch. I followed up with a tactical knife into the man's stomach as Dave lowered the man down to the ground with a hand over his mouth.
One down!
Dave pulled off the man's assault rifle, which was fitted with a suppressor. Dave also grabbed the two spare magazines from the man's body armour, sticking them into pouches on his own vest. Dave indicated further movement and we moved to the right, into the 'tools' section of the store.
We moved behind the displays.
I came up behind two more men, both facing away from me and moving slowly away.
I was about to drop them with the G36K when something caught my eye. I seized hold of a pair of two-foot long adjustable wrenches and killed both men with a swinging hit to each head. Both men went down; however, one body caught a portable floodlight stand, which I managed to intercept before it crashed to the floor.
I smirked at Mindy as she gave me a look that said, 'Dickhead!'
Two more down!
I helped himself to two more G36 Magazines and passed over, a G36C to Mindy, along with two spare magazines. The G36C was similarly equipped with a suppressor. The men were well equipped in fairly anonymous, black, combat gear. We now had extra pistols, however we could not carry two much weight, especially Mindy.
We did, however cache what weapons we had, but could not carry for possible later use.
I heard a door opening, somewhere over by 'soft furnishings'.
Dave slid to the floor and hid behind a reception counter while I did likewise, close by. The approaching team was professional, using hand signals to communicate. I saw an opportunity and drew four throwing knives.
Two men appeared around a display carousel and both went down hard with knives in their foreheads. I saw Dave move to intercept a third man; behind him was a fourth with his assault rifle raised.
I threw my remaining two knives.
"Oh, fuck!" I muttered
Oh my God!
Mindy had just thrown two knives, which had taken down two of the attackers, then she had thrown two more knives; only for one of the knives, a smallish one, to end up embedded in Dave's right thigh! He glanced down at the knife, then looked back up and glared at Mindy who just shrugged apologetically without a hint of shame; and then mouthed the word 'sorry'!
"We'll talk about this later!" Dave commented to Mindy as he hobbled past, pulling out the knife and throwing it down to the floor in disgust.
Those two made one hell of a couple. I had to admit that considering what I knew at that point, I was damned lucky to be alive. If I had known Mindy's secret then I would never have dared to do the things to her that I did. I shuddered to think about what Mindy could have done to me! She was a strange girl, that was an undeniable fact, but she had also kept a remarkable secret. I respected her for what she had done in her secret double life and regretted that we could not have been friends, rather than enemies. Maybe I could change that...
"You with us, Queen Bee?" Mindy called, dragging me back to the present.
There was a clatter as Dave knocked over some large cans.
"Jeez, really!" Mindy growled at Dave.
"I didn't touch a thing!" Dave growled back.
"Yes you did!" Mindy shot back.
Then, before Dave could respond to Mindy, gunfire erupted from all around us. We ran through that section of the store, with Dave and Mindy firing their submachine guns on full automatic and doing our best to avoid the bullets that flew in every direction. We dived through the open doors of an elevator and Mindy stabbed the UP button repeatedly.
The elevator ride was a little surreal considering that both Dave and Mindy stood with their submachine guns posed at their shoulders and we were listening to some typically crap, muffled, elevator music.
Mindy was getting impatient, but Dave looked calm and unconcerned.
The doors opened and it was instantly like a scene from Apocalypse Now!
Gunmen were emptying their magazines into the elevator as we all pinned ourselves to the sides and Brooke stabbed the DOWN button. There seemed to be dozens of the fuckers! Mindy and I had swapped out magazines during the elevator ride and we emptied thirty rounds, each into the upper floor of the store as the elevator doors slid shut.
Again, we endured the surreal elevator ride, this time downwards.
"I'm sorry about the..." Mindy began.
"I don't want to talk about it!" I interrupted.
"… Knife!" Mindy finished.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened.
Silence!
I had a pistol raised, having used up my last magazine for the G36C. I dumped the G36C in the elevator and scanning the closest dead bodies, I seized a combat shotgun that held a full seven rounds and a G36K that had a sniper scope. The lull did not last long as bullets started to head in our direction.
I shoved Brooke to one side and fired two rounds to cover our escape. I split off, leaving Dave with Brooke, while I looped around and pulled the trigger of the shotgun five times, and dropped three men. I then jumped up onto the grid that supported the store's lighting. I was small enough and light enough not to collapse the grid. I started to sight on the enemy and gently squeezed the trigger each time a head came into view.
I could see Dave, with Brooke behind his back, engaging the enemy with his G36K and a pistol. One man had a bead on Brooke, but I dropped him before he could fire, then I was targeted. Bullets hit the concrete roof above me so I dropped the now empty assault rifle and started running carefully along the grid.
That was what I lived for, the adrenalin rush of danger.
I saw the men targeting Mindy and started picking off as many as I could see that were aiming at my partner.
Then I saw Mindy fall from the grid and I paused in horror at what I was seeing. Mindy wore no armoured combat suit, nor was there anybody close by to help her. My attention had been drawn for too long.
"Dave!" Brooke screamed as a man appeared to my right, but before I could turn, Brooke pulled a SIG from my webbing and sent three rounds into the man, dropping him dead.
"I wasn't always a cheer leader!" She yelled with a brave smile.
I smirked back. I could hear single shots from where Mindy had fallen; she was still active. I saw Mindy between some sales displays, she was on her ass and pushing herself backwards; she was hurt.
The bullets were still flying and we were getting very short of ammunition.
My side hurt where a bullet had grazed it.
I grimaced with the pain, pushed it to one side, and concentrated on the moment. I fired the last bullet from the pistol and dropped it, reaching for my axe. A man appeared ten feet away and fell with the axe embedded in his chest; I loved improvisation!
I jumped as an arm wrapped itself around my waist and heaved me up; it was Dave with Brooke beside him and I was a little surprised to see a pistol in the girl's hand! Brooke offered her arm and I took it for support. With my free arm, I swept up the G36C from the man I had killed with the axe and returned fire in short bursts. Dave was doing the same while Brooke guided us through the store.
All three of us received bullets into our ballistic vests, Brooke screamed, unused to the abuse. The enemy was fucking everywhere, above us and to the side. Then the firing seemed to die down, slowly.
..._...
"What the fuck?" Dave uttered. The men had us; we were as good as dead...
Then more people seemed to appear; only these men were wearing body armour marked up with 'NYPD' in white. We instantly dropped all of our weapons, as we were seized by two Cops who were not in SWAT gear.
"What..." I began.
"Not here!" A familiar sounding voice said.
We were escorted outside and over to an unmarked SUV that was obviously NYPD. The older man turned to me.
"Mackenzie!" He said, holding out his hand. "Marcus had a feeling that you were in trouble and might need help; he was not kidding!"
"I..."
"Not another word!" The other Cop said. "We know that you are Damon's daughter and many of us owe your old man, not to mention owing Marcus."
"Take the SUV; just leave it somewhere conspicuous!" Mackenzie said with a grin.
A commercial unit some miles away
We had abandoned the NYPD SUV, along with all weapons and equipment, except for my Balisong, of course, a couple hundred yards away. I was not about to let Brooke see anything important, but we also needed to sort ourselves out before heading home and I needed to talk with Brooke.
"Where are we?" Dave asked.
"Hopefully in the right place; only I've never been here before!" I replied as I pulled the cover off a small plastic box on the wall revealing a keypad.
..._...
I punched in an eight-digit code and the door clicked open. So far so good. I pushed open the heavily armoured door and waved Dave and Brooke inside, pushing the door shut until it locked. I fumbled along the wall and found a light switch. The resultant light found us in a small vestibule with another armoured door before us. I punched in the same code into an adjacent keypad and we passed through the door into another darkened area.
Again, I fumbled for a light switch which when turned, illuminated a large square area about thirty-six feet on a side. The central part of the room had a training mat, bars and other assorted fitness and training equipment. To the left was a small kitchen, with a table and at the back were three doorways; that went to a bathroom, a storeroom and a bedroom with two beds. One of the beds had pink bedding!
I was as wide-eyed as Dave and Brooke, well almost, as I had never been here before, ever.
"Welcome to Safehouse Delta!" I said proudly.
Brooke was studying the pictures on the wall, over a desk, to the right of the main door. The photos were of myself, at about ten years old, with my Daddy and... A picture of my Mom! There was also another photo, my favourite, showing the two of us suited up and ready to fight, Hit Girl and Big Daddy!
"You actually look quite scary!" Brooke commented.
"She was!" Dave acknowledged.
"You were a fucking wimp back then!"
An hour later, it was just after eleven, but we had all showered and treated our wounds.
I came out of the shower last and judging by Brooke's expression, Mindy had just given her the old, 'say anything and I kill you', speech! Within minutes, though, the two girls were chatting away happily as if they had always been the best of friends.
"You remember Simon?" Brooke asked.
"How could I forget?" Mindy replied and I knew that Simon was the dick who had left her in the woods, alone.
"He, err, ended up in bed with Dolce and well she had a little infection and she passed it on..."
Mindy looked incredulous and then burst out laughing, along with Brooke.
Oh, Fuck, I thought, I am in hell!