8

“Pills,” I mumble, my head lolling as I move in and out of consciousness. “I need… my pills. Give me my… god damn… pills…” my hand is moved and the little plastic container is pressed to it. I flick open the cap with muscle memory and force my dry throat to swallow one. My Ray Bands and Rieka’s hoodie are still on me. A relief.

Zorikan sits across from me, in the exact same room that he had brought me to last time.

“Bastard,” I say. “You could’ve shot me. Lunatic.”

He nods. “Probably. Point is, I wanted you to work for me willingly, but that didn’t seem to work, so you’ve forced me to try alternative methods.”

I try to start towards him, but my hands are cuffed behind me to the back of my chair. I jerk forwards. Zorikan doesn’t flinch. “You’re a real twat, you know that?”

He cracks his knuckles and pulls a walkie talkie from his belt. “Get up here.”

“What’re you going to do? Torture me?” I ask with a lopsided grin.

He returns the smile. It’s the first time I’ve seen his lips move from a stone cold straight line. The smile has no warmth, and it doesn’t reach his ghostly pale eyes. It unnerves me.

I hear the door click open, and Dainin hustles in. He’s got a man in a headlock, with a hand gun pressed to the man’s temple. The man’s got black hair like me, but it’s shorter and straighter, and used to be combed back but strands of it now fall over his terrified dark eyes. His pale face has a huge purple bruise covering most of his left cheekbone area.

“Kallix,” my father breaths, desperation in his voice.

My fists clench behind my back, and my heart rate quickens. A forced poker face slides over me. After a moment, I turn it into a wry smile. “That’s you leverage?”

Zorikan is unphased by my reaction. He merely continues to stare into my soul.

“You know I left this fish faced crap eater when I was twelve, right? Him and my mom.”

“Kallix my boy,” my dad stutters. “You’re… you’re so big.”

I take no notice, holding Zorikan’s stare. I shrug. “Kill him if you like. If you do, you won’t have any leverage over me, not that he’s worth much right now.”

Zorikan makes a tiny hand signal from the side of his chair, and Dainin shoves my dad away, making him stumble. The tattooed, bald bear lowers his aim and shoots, hitting my dad in the calf. I flinch as I hear him cry out in pain.

Zorikan continues to stare. “We’ll do it again,” he tells me, calmly as my dad wreaths on the ground. “And again and again.”

“And then he’ll bleed out and die and you’ll be back to phase one,” I snark.

He shakes his head. “You’d be amazed at what kind of medical treatment we can do. We Swifter’s get shot all the time, and we always heal each other right back up. Your dad will be in top shape in no time. Then we can start the process over again.”

I sneer, my gaze flickering to my dad for a moment. There’s a pool of blood collecting beneath him.

Zorikan gives the hand signal again, and Dainin shoots. I close my eyes and wince.

“Ah, so you do have affection for him,” Zorikan tells me.

“No. I just have a soul that’s all,” I snap, forcing my eyes to stay locked against his. “Any sane human being doesn’t want to see another being shot to death in front of him. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that we share the same blood. Blood means nothing when it boils down to it.”

Zorikan gives the signal again, and my dad lets out a scream that sounds like it must’ve shredded his vocal cords. My breaths turn shaky as I hold Zorikan’s gaze. “As I said. We can do this all day,” he says.

I bite the edge of my lip until it bleeds. He raises his hand a fourth time, but I breath the order.

His ghostly smile, like the smile of a mask creeps onto his face. “Good. Dainin, get Darsus Rane fixed up, and have him kept in good condition. We may need him again.”

“I’ll kill you if I get the chance. I’ll slit your throat and bathe in your damn cursed blood. Probably get herpes, but it’ll be worth it.”

“Fantastic!” Zorikan stands, clapping his hands together like he just signed a favorable business deal for his company. “Your first run begins right now.”

~

The train chugs along, and I hug the slouch against the pole miserably. The seats are lines with civilians, going about their regular lives with no idea that there are criminals next to them. The hood pulled low and my shades make me invisible to anybody who may recognize my face. Deqar and Varan sit in the middle of the aisle, back to back, while Rieka swings around the pole I hold like a professional dancer.

“It seems fate has brought us together once more, rainy boy,” she tells me, twirling too close for my comfort.

I show her the middle finger.

She laughs. “Too bad you can’t run away this time. Zor’s got you on a leash.”

“Yeah. He does. A leash with thorns jabbing into my flesh so every move I make that isn’t his intention will make me bleed out. You’ve got a nice, soft fabric leash, that you could break with the slightest of tugs. Yet you stay attached to him, like a pet. Or a student, who knows they can escape, but fears what lies beyond the threshold.”

She looks shocked by my jumble of words. It’s not often that my metaphorical thoughts escape my lips. “Parkour professional, master escape artist and philosopher? Damn.”

“You forgot dashingly good looking.”

“You look like an elf and a troll made a mistake.”

“And you look like that elf got aids, rabies and braincancer, thought it was a human, and lived on in a human society.”

She shrugged. “At least I’m not half troll.”

“Would you guys stop flirting, god damnit,” Deqar groans.

“We’re verbally fencing. There’s a difference,” Rieka snarls back.

“Kick his ass faster then, would ye? Twat’s makin’ people stare,” Varan scoffs.

“It’s what I do best. I considered show business,” I inform him. “But then I realized I had more potential.”

Deqar laughs. “You’re like a steaming ball of pure sarcasm, you know that?”

I nod, not sure if it’s an insult or a compliment.

As it turns out, I didn’t break a rib yesterday, but it sure felt like I did. There’s a massive blue splotch covering most of my ribcage beneath my left nipple. Maybe if I’d had more muscle it wouldn’t have been so bad. Too bad I’m skinnier than a ferret.

“So, are you going to keep my hoodie, or?” Rieka asks.

“Oh, right,” I grunt, slipping my sleeve out.

“No. Don’t worry about it,” she smiles. “Keep it. I’ve got another one.” She removes a black one from her bag and pulls it on. “I prefer this one anyway. And I don’t think anybody wants to look at your little chest blemish.”

I smile briefly, sliding my arm through the sleeve. The soft, candy like smell faintly reaches me. It’s oddly comforting. The train jolts, and I slide, gripping the pole and sliding shoulder first into Rieka. She laughs and hip bumps me back. “You guys know… what we’re doing? I haven’t been told shit.”

Deqar nods. “We need to intercept a package transfer. It’s being moved out of some factory, and we need to get it before it reaches its train.”

I nod. “And it is….?”

“No idea. Dunno how big it is, dunno how heavy, dunno what’s inside or who’s guarding it,” Deqar says.

“Zorikan would tell us if he wanted us to know,” Varan counters, his ginger hair sloped up in a perfect wave like a cartoon character.

I analyze the two of them, sitting against each other. Varan is long, lanky and thin limbed. He’s probably a very fast runner, but not as nimble. His face is pale, skin is soft and his features are round. He can’t be over twenty years old.

Deqar on the other hand, is shorter, but he makes up for it with his huge purple mohawk, which I notice is blue at the roots. His eyes are thick with eyeshadow and are bloodshot. He’s a junkie for sure. His chest is bigger, and his biceps and calves are chiseled through what I know to be calisthenic training, not weight lifting and such. Rieka on the other hand, looks like she could be some random teenage girl, doing her last year of high school. She’s pretty, but not stunningly so, aside from her heaven-sent eyes. How the hell did she end up working for that prick Zorikan? I consider asking her, but then re-evaluate. I shouldn’t get too close to her, or any of them for that matter. They might need to hurt me in the future, so I should be mentally prepared to do the same. No pussying out. Pussying out is for pussies.

The train grinds to a halt. “That’s our stop,” says Deqar, leaping to his feet and helping Varan up. The four of us slide out the doors before the mob of people can pour out.

We follow him out of the station, up a flight of stairs onto open street. We split and walk, heads down. Two minutes pass before my walkie talkie buzzes. “See the building on the right?” Deqar asks. “The big one with the red sign?”

“Yeah,” the three of us mumble.

“Whatever we’re getting, it’s behind there.”

We slink through the narrow gap between buildings, one at a time, with a few moments between each movement. I join the three of them, crouched behind a delivery truck. There’s a small concrete space between the two buildings, big enough for a single truck to park. From beneath, I can two pairs of boots, standing rigid at the entrance.

“There’re guards,” I hiss.

“And they’re armed,” Varan adds, peering around the front. “Big guns. Very big guns.”

“Zorikan never told us about this. Why the hell wouldn’t he tell us about this?” I demand.

“Shh, keep your voice down,” Rieka whispers. “We’re not getting through here. There’s one entrance and one door.”

“Shit’s impossible,” Deqar huffs.

Rieka shakes her head. “Let’s try the back door.”

“Back door?” Deqar asks incredulously. “I thought this was the back door.”

Rieka shrugs. “It’s worth a shot.” She then darts back the way we came. The rest of us follow like baby ducklings.

She leads us around the block onto the next road. When I don’t see the low, dark structure, I frowns.

“What the hell?” Varan asks.

She then points at a convenience store called Shei’s Road Stop. “It’s there.”

Deqar raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Same number of buildings from the end of the road. Same size. It’s behind there. I assure you.”

“Maybe,” I muse, “But there’s no way we can squeeze through that gap,” I say, pointing to the probably two inch distance between the convenience store and the next shop over.

“Well then we go through,” Rieka decides, marching towards the store. We walk in, and to our misfortune, we’re the only customers. A haggled old Chinese man practically shrieks in delight and ambles over to us.

“What can I do for you, my fine you friends?” he asks, a wide smile on his face.

“Distract him,” Rieka whispers to Varan.

“Um, my friends over here actually just want to use the washroom,” the lanky ginger improvises.

The smile disappears.

“But I need to… stock up on snacks. Snacks and drinks for our road trip,” he adds.

Deqar and Rieka nod encouragingly.

“Oh! Well in that case, I know just how to help you. Come along,” the little old man says, delighted.

Varan scowls at the others but follows his new friend.

“Alright, go time,” Rieka whispers. We speed off to the end of the store where the empty cashier counter is.

“Couldn’t we have just robbed this guy and been done with it?” Deqar sighs.

“You want to rob a little old Chinese man?” I ask.

“I honestly don’t give a damn. I’m tired and I want to go home.”

Rieka slides over the counter and looks around the back wall, searching for a door.

“Door,” Deqar points out, nodding to the blue metal door on the far side of the wall. I quickly make my way over to it and push through, only to see a clandestine toilet and the reek of urinal candy.

“It’s the freaking bathroom,” I retort.

Deqar tears an uncomfortably large piece of flesh from the top of his index finger, sprouting blood.

I look for Rieka, then see her halfway into the wall.

“Air vent,” she says over her shoulder. “C’mon.”

“We don’t even know that those lead to our destination,” Deqar cries.

I shrug, and push Rieka further in, then crawl in after her.

“There’s no way I’m going to fit in there,” Deqar calls.

“You could stay with Varan,” I tell him.

He curses, then hauls himself inside as well.

Rieka wiggles on ahead, moving like an inchworm forwards. She moves double the speed of me and my mohawked accomplice behind me, crawling on our elbows and dragging our legs. It isn’t long before claustrophobia starts to creep up on me. My breaths turn ragged and my hands start to jitter as I crawl forwards.

“How much longer is this?” I ask her, my heart beginning to race.

“We’re here,” she whispers from further up.

Deqar and I scooch up until we’re right behind her. “What can you see?” I ask.

“It’s a… elevator? Something like that. Not sure.”

“Is there anybody inside?”

“Nup. It’s empty. There’s nothing inside. A sliding double door and a control panel. Nothing else.”

“Well get out then!” I hiss.

She pushes the vent out, hearing it clatter to the floor. We slide out one by one, and stand in the tiny, empty room. I peer out the gap sliver of space between the double doors, and see light, concrete, and what could be part of a delivery truck. I can’t see the guards, but they’re probably standing on either side.

I nod. “This is it.”

Rieka examines the control panel while Deqar replaces the vent grill thing.

“Floor one, two, three, four,” she mutters.

“That’s it, I’m radioing Zorikan,” Deqar decides pulling out his walkie talkie.

“That’s not going to work,” Rieka advises.

“Zorikan? Zorikan do you copy? Zorikan do you copy? This is Deqar, Rieka and Kallix. We need more information about the what the hell we’re supposed to do. Over.”

“Screw it,” I say, pressing the button labelled four.

“What the hell, Kallix!” Rieka shrieks, hitting me in the shoulder.

“What?” I ask. “It was a calculated guess!” I defend.

“How the bloody hell is randomly pushing a button a calculated guess?”

“Um… guys,” Deqar warns. The room jolts, and I feel my stomach crawl up my throat as we plummet.

Rieka grabs the edge of the control panel, holding herself down.

Deqar and I glance at each other with fear as our feet leave the ground. “Holy god damn shit,” I mutter.

Not a moment later, gravity slams into us, and Deqar and I crash into the ground. Rieka lands square on her feet, teeters, them smirks at us. As Deqar and I clamber to our feet, the doors slide open.

“What… the… shit.” Rieka gasps.

Before us, is a large bridge, extending over a massive contraption, buzzing with red electricity. The three of us amble out in awe, gazing at the utterly huge piece of what I think is machinery. Tubes and levers and cables and sockets and dozens of other things I can’t name, make up the gargantuan thing beneath us. I can see three hundred feet down, and the dozens of cat walks that litter it, but the further down it goes, the more shrouded it is in red mist. People mill around like ants, scurrying across the catwalks with pieces of equipment and clipboards. Some of them with guns.

“I don’t think this is what we were told to get,” I breath, peering over the edge.

The bridge is made of metal grate, allowing us to see right under our feet.

“C’mon, let’s check it out,” Rieka decides excitedly.

“You’re insane. You’re a literal lunatic,” Deqar says, far too loud.

“This might be a brake through! What if this is a secret nuclear weapon or a bomb, or something that threatens the entire city!” Rieka exclaims.

I gulp. “That’s not how bombs look. Or generators. Or anything for that matter.”

“Whatever it is, Zorikan will want information about it.”

“Screw this. I’m out. I am out,” Deqar decides, walking back into the elevator.

Rieka looks expectantly at me. I’m about to respond, when a deep voice shouts “Oi!”

Our heads snap to the source, and see a huge, triangularly chiseled man with a gun like the guards outside pointing at us. “Stop! Stop right there!”

“Shit!” Rieka exclaims as we dive back into the elevator. Deqar slams the buttons as we scramble to the walls. Bullets zip into the back wall as the doors close.

Deqar stares at us with open arms. “Case closed. We run.”

“I’m not getting shot for Zorikan’s bastard ass,” I tell Rieka.

She grimaces. “Too bad. Deqar hit the wrong button.”

We swivel around to see the doors opening to the second floor.

“Screw you, ye purple haired piece of shit,” I mutter under my breaths. As the doors start to close, the three of us dive out and roll to our feet.

A dozen men and women in lab coats and protective goggles stare at us incredulously. We tear through them, knocking over test tubes and microscopes and other apparatus I cannot name as we run. A bald, fat one stands in my way staring at me with shock, and I weave around him, slide over a lab bench, shattering a bunch of flasks to the ground. I hear sizzling as they crash to the floor and the doctors panicking to clean it up as we run.

Rieka grabs my hand and yanks me to the left and through a door and towards a staircase. We fly up, with Deqar scrambling after us best he can, a couple out of shape doctors trying in vain to catch up to us.

“What the hell,” I rasp. “What the god damn hell.”

We tear up near endless flights of stairs until my calves are burning and my chest is heaving, until we reach a door and bundle through it, slamming it shut behind us.

Rieka moves to the next door and pulls, but it doesn’t budge. “Shit.”

Deqar and I lift the end of one of the metallic waiting benches and slide it through the door handles as a barricade, so it rests diagonally into the room. Two guards in black uniforms with red highlights. They stare at us with shock through the little windows.

Rieka pulls the other door again. “It’s freaking locked.”

“Perfect. Just perfect,” I sigh, slumping down onto the other bench.

Deqar moves to the door, and pulls out a small, thin piece of metal, then pokes it into the lock and begins to fiddle. I look back at the barred door to see one of the guards as got something like a blow torch, with a thing flame blasting at the part where the double doors meet. He starts to melt the bench.

“Oh shit,” Rieka curses. “Deqar hurry up.”

“Hold on,” he mutters, jamming it in further while he twists and fiddles with it.

The blow torch thing moves slowly but surely, like a butter knife slicing through very cold ice cream, melting through the bench.

“Why the hell do these bastards have freaking blow torch thingies on them?” I ask.

Rieka doesn’t respond, her eyes frantically flitting from the ever melting bench back to Deqar, kneeling before the door.

There’s less than six inches of bench left.

“Deqar… hurry… up…”

“Stop talking,” he mutters.

I walk over and peer through the window of the door he’s lockpicking and see stacks of boxes about the size of a water bottle. Being loaded onto a delivery truck.

“That’s probably our target,” I tell Rieka.

She nods.

“Boom!” Deqar exclaims and the door swings open.

A dozen of the loaders look at us in shock, but we charge right for them.

I swing with my right arm, hitting one petite woman in a blue uniform directly in the cheek and ripping the package right from her arm, then take off towards the nearest door I see.

Rieka is right behind me a package in hand, while Deqar is still struggling to wrestle down a particularly burly man.

I hear a clatter as the bench falls to the ground and the guards break through, guns blazing.

Deqar manages to tear the box free from the loader and scrambles after us, bullets barely whizzing past him. I fling the door open to see another flight of damn metal spiral stairs and barge up them.

Deqar is scrambling after us when the guards reach the bottom and unleash a flurry of deafening gunshots that force me into a half crawl. Luckily, the grates o the stairs are too small for the most of the bullets to pass through, making most of the ricochet back down. By the time we reach the first floor, my hair is wet with sweat and Rieka has overtaken me.

The two of us bundle through the open door and onto a room filled with monitors and people slouched towards them. All eyes turn towards us. I freeze.

“The elevator, over there!” Rieka exclaims, grabbing my hand and yanking me to the right while all the computer users go blank with shock.

Deqar hurdles through the door a moment later, leaping over a computer lined desk, smashing them to the floor in the process and taking off after us.

Rieka slams her fist to the Ground Floor button of the elevator, and we hustle inside. Deqar flings himself with the longest jump I’ve ever seen through closing elevator doors just as the guards barge through the door and hammer down on their triggers.

He tumbles into me, a crumpled heap of ragged breaths and sweat. “Oh… my… freaking… god,” he rasps.

“Rieka the damn guards outside,” I warn.

“The air vent. We’re going back to Shei,” she tells me, doing a straight vertical jump and grabbing the grill as we ascend. She rips it out and lets it clatter to the ground, the crawls inside.

“Soon as these doors open, we’re bullet pancakes,” I tell Deqar, still heaving on the ground.

I leap up after Rieka and crawl in.

The elevator stops ascending.

Deqar pulls himself to his feet and presses down the hold doors closed button, still panting.

I waist no time, scrabbling after Rieka. A few moments pass.

The sound of Deqar launching himself across the elevator and up into the air duct hits me like a gong, followed closely by bullets and the loud cry of Deqar cursing.

Rieka drags herself around a corner ahead of us.

“Shit! Shit shit shit!” Deqar hollers, wriggled like a jacked up worm.

I pull myself around the corner.

“Up the air duct,” one of the guards says.

Deqar scrabbles around the corner just as deafening gunshots rip through the small metal passage. He screams in pain. I don’t stop, crawling faster and faster, kicking with my legs, pulling myself forward with my right hand while my left clutched the box. Screw Zorikan. Screw his damn idiot face.

More bullets. More screams. More curses. I don’t stop.

Only when my elbows, hands and knuckles are raw from crawling, does Rieka force open the vent, and slide out. I tumble out after her, landing with a thud behind a gawking Mr. Shei.

“High again,” she tells him, picking herself up and vaulting over the counter.

He’s speechless as I follow her.

We weave through the aisles and out the front door onto the open street. I relish the cool air, even if it’s thick with exhaust fumes. “Where to?” I ask.

Rieka’s pulled out her walkie talkie. “Zorikan? Zorikan do you copy? Over.”

“I copy. Do you have the package? Over.”

“Yes. We’ve acquired two of them. Small, rectangular boxes? About a foot tall?”

I’m about to yell the skin of Zorikan’s face through the talkie, when the limping form of Deqar bursts through the door. He’s bleeding heavily from his left ankle. “You guys are bastards,” he pants, doubling over.

I can’t help but smile.

“Yes that’s good. Get back here fast. Over and out.”

The talkie goes silent.

Rieka offers Deqar a hand and pulls him up. “Where’s your package.”

He shakes his head. “Lost it. Preferred my life.”

We’re about to start off, when I hear the all too familiar sound of police sirens. I tilt my head up, exasperated. “Aw shit.”

A single police car careens around the block, snaking through traffic and screeches to a halt before us.

We bolt away, as two officers, who just so happen to be Firidah and Grell exit their car, hand guns raised. “Stop! Halt where you are!”

We don’t. I know they won’t shoot. Too many civilians. Too high a risk. They know that too, and holster their weapons charging after us.

Ordinarily, they would stand no chance of catching us, but circumstances have changed.

Grell quickly tackles Deqar from behind, knocking him to the ground and pinning his hands behind his back.

I glance back, considering if I should help him or not. Rieka is already leaving me. I run, picking up the pace as Firida starts to gain on me. But I’m too nimble. Dodging through crowds is my second nature.

She’s slowed down, like a wildebeest pushing against the heard. “Stop! Stop in the name of the law!” she cries, but she knows she won’t catch me.

Rieka has found a route to the rooftops and is on top in a second. I reach the base of the climb, see my foot holds, how I will use my momentum, when to switch hands… but then I slow to a halt.

Rieka glances back at me in shock, as Firida catches up to me and takes me down. I grunt as she cuffs me hands behind my back.

I’d think I’d rather be with the police than Zorikan.