Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 66

His body tumbled forward and collapsed across Astrid’s little cavern. The gun he’d been intending to use clattered across part of Astrid’s makeshift home before being pinned by its owner’s body with the barrel sticking up at a weird angle. I had just enough time to see the gun barrel wiggle a little before slipping inside Astrid’s hole and made a mental note to myself to ask her how the fuck she was managing so well while having an injured leg pinned under helicopter debris. The woman clearly had some kind of extensive training.

I hit the floor and skittered away from the opening as several more rounds went off around the space where the mercenary and I had been standing seconds before.

What was that? Four? Five dead? How many more of them could there be?

Another shout, and the gunfire died off.

Someone else shouted something I couldn’t understand. There was a quick exchange and then silence.

Half lounging on my back and trying to breathe as quietly as possible, I leaned forward to try and peer through one of the bullet holes to figure out what they were doing.

Please, please, please just give up and go home.

Something that sounded like a rock hitting the metal hull of the wreckage made me jump away from the wall, and I looked around wildly just in time to see an object settle on the ground. For a second, I thought that’s what it was, but something about it looked too… perfect. Too… artificial.

There it was—a dark green cylinder.

Please, God, don’t let that be a grenade.

There was a hiss, and dark smoke began pouring out of one end.

I felt my entire body go numb.

They were smoking me out.

“Fuck!” I slid further away from the smoke, looking around wildly for something—anything—that could help. Unfortunately, the helicopter’s shell had remained mainly intact. The passenger doors on either side were the only way into the largest section. Astrid’s side was the only one that remained large enough to climb in and out of… the other side was mostly blocked off.

I was stuck.

Scurrying further from the smoke, I still looked around for anything useful. I could hide in the smoke, but I couldn’t shoot anyone I couldn’t see. And if I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t shoot anyone at all.

My nostrils suddenly filled with the smell of something acrid and oily, and the heat jumped several degrees inside the wreckage. The smoke was rolling closer to me.

I leaned against the wall and put my mouth against several bullet holes, getting a whiff of cleaner air. Fear of getting shot mingled with a deep-seated desire to breathe and a curiosity to see what everyone was doing. I tried to peer through one of the bullet holes and spotted one man crouching low as he scurried toward the helicopter, gun raised.

Then I was forced to blink as tears began to fill my eyes. Despite myself, I coughed and inhaled a lungful of what might as well have been tar.

“Fuck!” I half yelled, half choked and beat at the air as I crawled to my feet and made my way blindly back toward the opening. They had me… There wasn’t anything I could do to—

Gunfire erupted, and since bullets didn’t immediately perforate me, I was sure they had found Astrid and that she had been proven right. She wasn’t me, therefore, she was expendable.

I coughed again. And a third time as I stumbled forward, seeing the light shift a little brighter in intensity as I tried to squint through tears.

More gunfire.

Shouting.

Even more gunfire and several screams… none of them were feminine.

What the fuck was happening?

I felt blessed cool air as I stumbled out of the helicopter and into what sounded like a slaughterhouse. Gunfire was erupting all around me, and I immediately dropped to my stomach as I reached up with one fist to scrub at my eyes with the heel of one hand, while I got my pistol up and in front of me with the other.

Blinking away the tears and trying to orient myself as quickly as possible, the first thing I saw was a dead Japanese mercenary in front of me. One of his eyes was missing. In fact, about three or four inches of his face where his eye used to be was missing.

I let out a strangled, coughing cry and rolled away from the body, looking around for anyone else… any sign of movement.

Then I noticed that the gunfire had stopped. There were people still shouting, and I heard heavy footsteps.

“Easy, Marcus!” A familiar voice said. A voice I wasn’t sure I would ever hear again.

I rolled over and pointed my pistol in the direction of the voice, still trying to fight back tears.

Henry Psalter stood in front of me, his hand raised in a placating gesture. His lips were compressed in a thin line, and his dark, leathery face was creased in concern like a worn dollar bill.

“Take it easy, son,” Psalter said. His voice was more placating than anything else. He was trying to calm a man who had a gun pointed at him. “You’re safe, now.”

I glanced at some of the other men spread out around us—men dressed very differently from Tanaka’s. All of Ryo’s mercenaries appeared dead. There were easily between eight and ten of them? How many did that leave at the cabin? Had Ryo gambled all his men on this raid?

I flipped the safety back on my pistol and let it slip free from my hands as I collapsed back on the ground, my entire body going limp. Another cough erupted, and I realized how much my fucking throat burned—like I’d gargled a mouthful of wood shavings.

I laughed, despite the pain, and my laugh turned into another gurgling cough… which eventually turned into a laugh again.

I was safe. And if the body count added up, maybe Chloe and Shea were, too.

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To Be continued.