RESEARCH ( barry berkman.. ) ✔

o4. judgement..

He's been told countless of times he has gotten sloppy. This time, Barry had to agree that he has tried so hard to escape the label of being a hitman and a killer that he forgot the rules civilians almost never worried about. Those rules made him into a weapon and in a try of finding a place in the world, he has forsaken most of which he has earned, embracing this impossible act to hold up. 

"Barry Berkman," a eastern accent shouted in his face. His ears woke to an acute ringing to accompany the roughness of the voice coming from the mouth which stank before him. After a default hearing and scent, his eyes blurred open, hoped to focus, unconsciously accepting all the pain in his body as a simple consequence to regaining all senses.

There was the sting in the back of his neck, linked to the memory of getting jumped in the midst of a raging cry in the privacy of his car. Then there was the numbness of his entire body from the tranquilizer, dissipating into a static noise, ants under his skin. The unexpected pains were the rigidity and tightness of the ropes which tied him to a chair and perhaps the few new bruises he could not identify or understand until the smelly breath backed away and returned as another waking punch in his stomach.

It surely did wake him up to the reality he was in.

"And he's awake," the mocking laugh came, continuing to exchange some words in Mandarin with the single other colleague responsible with the prisoner. There was only one name which stood out of their conversation as Barry was leveling his breathing to not sound as in pain as he was, an easy concealment. 'Esther' was the name of the person Hank asked of Barry to kill last. She was there during the unfortunate night when he fired without really seeing who he was wasting the bullets on.

One way or another, he ended up killing her. And these two did not seem too happy about it. The man who punched him, he remembered clearly to be the same thin guy he saw in his backseat before the inevitable. He wore two sleeves of tattoos and was taller than the other guy, weighing down on one of the four tables of this basement. The humidity and tightness in the air, even through his probably broken nose, gave away to Barry that he was being held as a prisoner in a basement for sure. 

It wasn't just any basement though, because the white packages and the boxes around did give away the fact that this was a provisional hideout to the Burmese. In a blind need for revenging their beloved leader, they didn't prepare a room for torture. 

One exit. Two short-barreled shotguns and one automatic firearm were the weaponry of the two enemies. By the amount of instruments on the table the other man was sitting on, Barry was sure they were there to torture and kill him. His final observation was that it would take a while to get out of the tight rope strangling his wrist behind his back, entangled with the hard plastic chair.

He had the initiative of opening his mouth when through the rather thick walls, he heard a familiarly pitched voice, loud and fast across a much unusual volume of words falling in cascades. The massive metal door was pushed open and now Barry was sure. Adelaide was shoved inside the room, miraculously not losing her balance, even with the heavy hand of a third guy on her shoulder, the driver of the van.

"Now, hold on just a second, is one not allowed to simply drive by on a street these days? It is hardly my fault my best friend gave me the wrong address for this delivery I have to get to him as soon as possible. You see, he has asthma and he forgot his inhaler at my place after a sleepover, we did each other's-"

She may have talked without a break, surely, but around her, things moved fast. Barry understood where that was going but his shouts were also ignored. Myo got off the table and opened another plastic chair, placing it beside Barry while the driver explained away how they found Adelaide and what her connection might be to the story. Myo reached for a second tight rope when Kan got enough of the woman's loudness.