Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 29

Assuming he was talking about my would-be assassin, I said, “I killed him just a few minutes ago and took his stuff.” I peered around the corner just enough to see them talking. They looked animated and a little angry. Fuck… I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake that would cost Chloe her life. I needed to act fast.

I brought the walkie back to my mouth and pressed the button. “Do you know who I am?”

The man talking to me looked away from his fellow soldier in disgust and stopped next to Chloe, who was watching the man closely. He held the walkie to his face, and I heard a “No” crackle over my walkie.

“My name is Marcus Upton, and if you promise not to harm me or any of my people and help us get out of here, I’ll pay each of you one million dollars.”S

So far, if I needed to get something done, all I had to do was throw money at it. This was no different, right?

“You got money on you?” came the answer.

I felt my certainty slipping. “No, but I can get it for you.”

“Our employer pays us good already. He tells us to kill you, so that’s what we do.”

My jaw set as I chewed on that response. He sounded like he didn’t care about the amount of money, even though I highly doubted Tanaka was paying him that well. What was Hiro doing to buy that kind of loyalty?

“You’ll have to find me first,” I said into the walkie.

When I didn’t receive a response, I peered back around the trunk to see the man standing in front of Chloe again. He placed a hand on top of her head and stroked it like she was a dog. Then he spoke into the walkie, “How about you come find me or I kill your friend.”

Oh fuck.

“What?” I asked.

“You have one hour to come to find me, or I will fuck your friend in her pretty mouth and then shoot her in the head.” The man said. He had a thick accent, but he knew enough of the English language to get colorful.

I dropped the walkie to the ground and leaned back against the tree, banging the back of my head against it in frustration. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Picking up the gun again, I simply stared at it for the next few minutes, shivering slightly as I considered my options.

I two: walk out there and surrender myself or try to shoot them before they could hurt me or Chloe. I took a few minutes to figure out how to pop the magazine out and check on how many bullets were left in the gun. There were six, with one more in the chamber.

What were the odds that they would let Chloe go after they killed me?

Slipping the magazine back into the pistol, I checked it to make sure the safety was off.

Probably none.

I wasn’t interested in dying for anyone, but I especially wasn’t interested in dying for someone in vain.

That meant surrendering wasn’t an option.

“Jesus, Chloe,” I breathed. “Why couldn’t you be the one out here playing Liam Neeson. You’re the one with the ‘certain set of skills.’”

I peered around the corner and took stock of the situation once more. English was saying something to Chloe, still petting her on the head. Should he be the one I shoot first? Considering how close he was to her, that made sense, but that would leave two others to contend with. All either of them had to do was point their gun at Chloe, and it would be over. My bodyguard was brilliant. If she saw one of them get shot, she would do something to help, even if it was just throwing herself at one and knocking them over. That would buy a few precious seconds.

The one scanning the trees turned back to the trees on my left and gave them another look. That one might need a few seconds to figure out what was happening behind him. That left the one who had initially held the walkie. He was watching English interact with Chloe. He was the one I needed to take out first.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. I felt like I wanted to throw up. Not only was I about to do something incredibly dangerous that I didn’t have the training for, but it was also possible that I was actually about to kill someone for the first time. At least I’d left the other guy tied to a try and breathing. This, though…

Shaking my head, I tried to clear my mind. They were gonna kill Chloe. Eventually, they’d kill me. Time was limited, and I had to do this.

Fucking Hiro… if I survived this, I would ruin his goddamn world for doing this to me.

I needed to act quickly before the opportunity changed, and I needed to recalculate. English didn’t have his gun drawn. Walkie did, but he was holding it casually at his side. If I made a clean shot… that wouldn’t even matter. Scanner had some kind of automatic rifle, but it was currently hanging across his chest, and he had one arm resting on it, kind of like a sling. There might be better opportunities, but there could just as easily be a lot worse ones.

Taking a deep breath, I inched around the tree and held the pistol in both hands. I kept my body pressed firmly against the tree, trying to make myself as small as possible as I raised the gun and trained it on Walkie. My hands shook as I lined up the sight, and it took an effort of will to calm my nerves enough to shoot.

One more ragged breath, and I tried to expel any thoughts about the repercussions of my actions. I could think about snuffing out a man’s life later. My jaw clenched, and my arms tightened as I braced myself and pushed through my nerves as I felt the finger squeeze on the trigger. I wasn’t sure what my next move would be… just that I would have two to deal with instead of three in a few more moments.

The gun barked, I felt it kick in my hands, and everything exploded into action. Scanner spun toward me, blinking as I saw him begin to swing his gun around. Immediately, I started rolling around the side of the tree trunk to use it as cover.

Meanwhile, English whirled toward me, his hand already reaching for the gun holstered at his thigh. He’d just cleared it when I saw his legs drop out from under him as Chloe’s ankles wrapped around his, forcing him to drop to the ground like dead weight. His gun bounced a few feet away from both of them, but Chloe wasn’t paying attention. Instead, I watched in fascinated horror while still rolling behind the tree as she pulled her feet out from under English and wrapped them around the lower part of his face, positioning them strangely. English had just enough time to bring one hand up to her foot before Chloe jerked them in a weird motion that forced her victim’s head to jerk at an unnatural angle, causing his entire body to go limp.

Then, I was around the tree and unable to see anyone. I saw wood chips fly around me as several gunshots went off. Then, a curse spat out in Japanese, followed by a cry of pain.