You managed to go through the week delivering stuff without any problem. You started to get more responsibility. And you got to know one more information. The gambler ring was not just into gambling. They were involved in human trafficking as well. You knew because one of the package that you delivered was a woman. Sent to a prostitution house. You sent the message to Mark but his reply was your mission was to find the head of the gambler ring, and not to interfere with anything else. You started to feel desperate as you never saw the head of the ring. The highest that you had seen was the lady boss. You doubted that she was the head. However, you were lucky that night. The head of the ring wished to supervise tonight's loading. You could see the air was changed at the warehouse tonight because of that sudden visit. Everyone seemed to be on their toes. You didn't know what was so important among the packages that the head of the ring decided to show up himself. Yep. It was a he. You glanced while loading your van and you spotted a baldy, fat guy with heavy gold necklace around his short neck. He had several gold teeth replacing his original incisiors as well. He went to the office on the second floor of the warehouse immediately. One of the thug came with a big box and grinned, "This is your additional deliveries. Extra special for this one. Don't get caught and don't lose the package."
You saw the content of the box, it was smaller packages in various shape and sizes. You knew that it was. Drugs. You cursed that you didn't have any weapon on you. If anyone else heard that you had that much drugs in your van, you'd be targetted for sure. No wonder the big boss appeared. Your brains started to work to find a way to contact Mark to inform about the big boss. You just drove your van out of the warehouse when you spotted Parker smoking at the alley next to the warehouse. You sent him some signal, hoping that he understood it.
You started your deliveries with extra caution. You were half through your packages when you noticed there was this motorcycle three cars behind your van. It's been there for several blocks already. Then a black sedan, 5 cars away from your van. It started following you just two blocks before this. You started to get cold sweat. You decided to whip your phone and sent the emergency code to Mark. The hell with the procedure. Your life was at risk. And you were right. When you got into empty road, they started to speed up while you started to accelerate to avoid them. The motorcycle was the fastest to keep up with you and you decided to swerve your wheel toward the motorcycle, making the driver to turn hard to avoid your van thus ran over the pavement and hit the street light. You saw the driver fell down from your rearview mirror. Now there were two more cars following you. You concentrated and thought hard how to lose them. Being in a van was a disadvantage since it couldn't run fast. Suddenly your phone lit up, you saw the message. It was Mark. We're coming. You started to feel better. The backup was coming. You put your concentration back to the road. You had to stay safe. Then you heard something you've been dreading so far, gunshot. You felt you lost the control of your wheel. Your van drifted to the side. You struggled to steer the wheel so your van was kept on the road and not going through the houses on the side nor hitting the street light. But then you didn't see the truck coming. All you heard was a long horn sound and then the bright headlamp shone right through your eyes while you stepped on the brake so hard. Your head bumped the door then the wheel before blackness covered you. When you were awake, you saw the front window was shattered, your head was pounding, and you could feel sticky liquid flowing from your hairlines, down to your temple and to your chin. You touched it and saw it was blood. You checked your limbs, they were still intact. You immediately tried to lose yourself from the seatbelt and was grateful to find that the door wasn't jammed. You saw the truck hit the side of your van. The truck driver was still unconscious. Three cars that were following you stopped behind the truck, but the passengers of the car was scattered. Some tried to reach your van while returning shots to unknown parties. Could it be your backup? You saw one of them got shot. And another one. You ducked behind your van and tried to get a clear view. There were 4 more people left. You didn't know how many people on the other side. You had to secure the package, you immediately thought. You got to the back of your van only to find one of them managed to reach the door at the same time as you. You immediately landed a punch on his face and then kicked his crotch. He dropped his gun on the road and you grabbed it immediately, then put it over his temples.
"Stop or I'll shoot," you warned him. He raised his hands in surrender but when you tried to assess the situation, he started to move and you shot him in the chest. You froze. You shot a man. And the blood started to spread at the front of his shirt. He shifted his gaze from his chest to your face before collapsing. You killed a man. The reality hit you and you heard someone shouting from afar. You snapped back to reality only to hear Mark's sound, "Duck!!!" You were late. You didn't react instantly. You felt something hot piercing through your left shoulder, inflicting pain and you shrieked. You were shot. You put pressure on your left shoulder and kept on the ground, shuffling to the back of your van again to get some protection. You heard few more gunshots, one or two more shoutings before everything fell silent. You tried hard to stay conscious but you felt you were losing blood and it slowly eating your consciousness. You tried to peek to figure out the situation but you didn't get clear view. You fought hard to open your eyes and the last thing you saw was Mark's face, running toward you before saying, "You did it." You smiled and then let the darkness engulfed you. The next thing you knew when you opened your eyes, you were in a hospital bed, you looked down and saw your clothes was swapped with hospital gown. You lifted your arm and saw the pink band around your wrist. You were busted. The team must've found out that you were a girl. True enough, shortly after, Mark trudged into your room, surprised when he saw you waking up, but immediately called for a nurse to check up on you while saying nothing. After the nurse left, he pulled a chair and sat down. You knew he had a lot in his mind and he was halfway into exploding his mind.
"Just say it," you blurted.
"We managed to get the drugs, raided the warehouse and got the head, including finding out the place where they kept their trafficking victims. You did it," Mark explained in one sentence.
"I feel there's a but coming up," you pointed.
"But. You deceived the team. You are a girl for God's sake. How can we face you if anything happened to you? You were lucky the bullet went through your shoulder and not your heart. Imagine my surprise when I ripped your shirt to find that you wrapped your chest tight," he was fuming. "I should've noticed back then when you didn't know how to gamble and you didn't smoke. Did the captain know?" he asked after awhile.
"Yes. He's the only one that knows about it. He said it won't be good for the team morale if you guys found out that I'm a girl. Saying you guys might reject the idea of a girl going undercover as a male."
"Yeah damn right. For a good solid reason."
"What reason? That girls are weak?" you snapped back. You had enough of this gender bullshitt. "Just.. Get out of the room, Mark. I'll be back to my school now that we've finished the mission."
Mark said nothing and just stared at you before stomping out of your room.
