I've been sitting on this chapter for a while now. It's the penultimate chapter, and I am going to finish the final chapter next week. I've learned a lot in this little exercise and it will be a great relief when I'm finally done with it.
YOUTH, SEX, AND POWERA hail of bullets criss-crossed around the room in all directions.
It was pretty late, but there were still a couple groups of people in the bar. I’m not sure where the extra people came from, but I was pretty drunk anyway, so that’s not really all that surprising. When I downed Koslowski, they made their presence known by opening fire in the sparsely populated bar. They were not cops, they were Gurly’s men.
As soon as I heard the gunfire I fell on Sandy, getting us quickly to the ground and covering her as much as possible. I wasn’t too sure, but I think everybody was shooting at me, though the gunfire continued even after I hit the ground. I was prepared to lay there for the rest of eternity.
Sandy screamed the entire time. I choked a little and coughed.
Amid the noise and chaos of the gunfight, I noticed that the room began filling up with smoke. It was emitting from a small grenade that had been dropped into the room at some point. At the precise moment I had become aware of this development, a pair of hands had grappled onto both me and Sandy and was dragging us across the floor to the open exit.
Sandy continued screaming. I joined her.
The unexpected pressure on my shoulders had lead me to the conclusion that I must have been shot. All the telltale signs were there, warm sticky fluid seeping into my clothes, numbness of the limb, and above all else, intense searing pain radiating throughout my entire body from the source point.
Once out of the bar area, the phantom hands continued to drag us across the marble floor until we were safely behind a large structure of modern art, or some such nonsense. I rolled over and propped myself up against the so called art and looked into the eyes of my savior, Jennifer. No, she was wearing her mask, she was Night Cat right now.
“Stop moving, you’ve been shot,” she ordered.
“I know,” I coughed. No blood in the cough thankfully, that’s a good thing.
The gunfire stopped. I looked to my right and saw Sandy huddled into as tight a ball as she could be. One of the other kids was there too, Captain Kick was his name.
Just then, I noticed that the gunfire had stopped, though there were still sounds of a struggle coming from the bar. Then, signaling the end of the struggle, a single gunshot pierced the empty hotel lobby. The hollow explosion echoed down the hallways and up the walls like a specter trying to escape a life of torment. The ringing echo continued for an eternity.
Then there was a silence.
I ruined the status quo by violently coughing, announcing very loudly to anyone who might be listening just exactly where I was.
Night Cat tensed up. She was crouched next to me, completely obscured by the stone slab we were using as shelter, but she wasn’t hiding. She was poised, staring intently at some point in space just beyond the edge of the obscuring wall. Her left hand rested gently on the stone protector, her right hand on the floor. Her fingertips were suctioned to the surfaces like an Olympic runner about to launch into a mad dash. The muscles in her legs rippled through the skintight clothes. She was beautiful. For the first time since I met her, I admitted that she awakened old feelings deep inside me that were better left buried and numb. Despite being in the middle of a violent gunfight, time was polite enough to freeze these few moments for me, so that I could really see this girl for the first time as she truly was. I looked at her for so long, I felt I should have been ashamed. And even though this girl exuded youth, sex, and power from every pore of her body, all I could seem to think about was my daughter. If you didn’t think it by now, that’s sure to convince you how fucked up I am.
Time kicked back into high gear. For a fraction of a second, the beginnings of a shadow crept around the side of the stone pillar. Then she was gone.
She dashed around the corner in a low crouch. First I heard the gunshot, then the piercing scream that drowned out the sounds of an electric tazer connecting to flesh. I poked my head around the corner to see what was happening just as a bullet ricochet off the marble, missing my face by inches. My eyes filled with tears, trying to expel the dust and marble shards that now blinded me. All I could hear was a distinct C Sharp tone, which drowned out the rest of the world. Despite all that, I had a clear image in my mind of exactly what I saw just prior to my blinding.
There was a man, presumably the owner of the aforementioned shadow, sprawled out on the floor just a few inches from me. Night Cat, in a full dash, was charging another man standing at the opening of the bar entrance. That man was aiming his pistol at her. The fist shot had missed and I wasn’t sure how many more were fired, having been blinded and deafened by it.
I processed all this information with the speed and consciousness it takes to blink. I rubbed my eyes red, stood up and rounded the corner of the stone pillar. My ears were still deaf from the ringing but my eyesight was returning. Amid the streaks of black and yellow light, I could see two distinct blotches, one red and the other gray. Furiously blinking my eyes in an effort to conjure up my vision, I tried to take a wide stance, but ended up leaning on the marble column. My left hand grappled my right wrist as I raised my gun, attempting to steady my aim.
I didn’t really know what I was doing, I couldn’t see, hear, or think. I was acting on impulse, and once I saw the red blotch fall to the ground, I emptied all the chambers in my Smith and Wesson.
Then I fell backward and blacked out.
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