I gawked at my anonymous savior who was now standing by my side with his arm stretched out in front of us, his gun being the shield that protected us against the smirking criminal. The assassin's eyes sparked in some twisted amusement as he studied the man behind the smoked glass.
"Are you really going to use that? Panic will erupt when you pull the first trigger in thirty years," He didn't lower his hands though but started to take small steps to the side, circling us. "Those things have been banned for a reason, you know."
"I know why you've been after her," the robotic voice cut in, making me do a startled jump.
Where did that voice even come from?!
My eyes fell one the curled cord that connected with the backside of the helmet and twisted to his left shoulder. The heels of my feet lifted from the ground as I surreptitiously tried to see where the other side of the cord went. His right arm, which was currently in between us two, blocked my vision of his chest as it followed the assassin's movements. "But she won't be able to give you what you're looking for."
"Neither will she to you. I am a criminal and you are a cop."
"Glad the introductions are out of the way." The computerized voice somehow managed to sound sarcastic, making me glance up once again at the black helmet that was a head above mine. Something else the computer couldn't hide was the accent that coated his words- I had heard it from somewhere, but I couldn't pinpoint from where.
The words were pronounced with the diphthongs which emphasized the sophistication that set the city apart from the more rural areas of the country, but the rhotic drawl that purred out behind the mask was a detail that gave away the stranger's mysterious background, as it created an unmistakable contrast to the otherwise non-rhotic way of speaking that the Domerians had.
"I still won't let you take her," the cop stated. "If I have to shoot you, then I will."
The hitman stopped his circling and stared at us. The sinister smirk was back and he threw me an amused glance. "If you haven't noticed, she's just waiting for the opportunity to run and disappear. She has repeatedly told me that she didn't want anything to do with this, meaning she would run away from both of us if she could. Waste of bullets and time, in my opinion. How many bullets do you carry in that gun anyway?"
"I don't know. I'll tell you, though, one will be enough to kill you."
My head whipped to the man in the black helmet again. "You're going to kill him?" I asked incredulously. Wait, wasn't he supposed to serve and protect? Emphasis on the word 'protect'.
The armed man ignored me.
A throaty chuckle burst out in front of me "Yes I know, but will it be enough to kill me and the other ones watching?"
The blood in my veins grew cold as my eyes snapped to the hitman in front of us. His smirk grew larger as he took in my wide-eyed expression and I almost fainted when he nodded at me. "And trust me, there's a lot more where they came from."
"But I have to say, I'm flattered that you're willing to throw all rules to hell for me." He turned back to the cop. "Sadly, I'm suspecting that it's not me who's got you so worked up but instead little missy over here. I've never seen a cop run so fast in my entire life, you practically left a condensation trail over the whole square! The fact that you work so hard makes me want to ask for your boss to give you a raise but first and foremost...it makes me wonder how important she is to you guys."
Next to me I felt the cop shift on his feet, his arm brushing against the top of my left shoulder. "Protecting citizens from harm is our upmost priority."
"Thank god for our hang-around that managed to spot girly here, "the assassin continued as if the officer hadn't spoken at all and nodded towards me. "Didn't think that the bean counter would be good for anything else but calculating my salary but it turns out he had a hawkeye for wiggling skirts too."
My eyes almost popped out of my skull as realized who he was talking about. "The banker!" I gasped. "The banker in Humport worked with you?"
"For me, my dear." The smirk on the assassin's face dimmed a little as he scrunched his nose in disgust over the thought of being on the same level as the 'bean counter'.
"Mr. Potbelly tipped us off on your whereabouts and that's how I managed to fake our little encounter." The smirk was back in full force. "I would probably thank him if I wasn't such a self-absorbed son of a gun but instead, I'm just going to go ahead and presume that my plan succeeded because I'm awesome since well, here you are. And not just you but young mapper here too!"
The assassin then turned towards the police officer next to me with a low snicker. "It's good that you finally came, though. I had been waiting for the moment a link would appear," he said and clasped his hands together.
"I am never going to be that," the officer replied curtly and took a step forward, his fist clenched tightly next to me.
"I wasn't asking you to. I was preparing you for it." The hitman suddenly turned serious as he too took a step forward.
Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around mine and lifted me up from the ground.
"Hey!" I cried, my legs kicking furiously as I tried to free myself out of the unwelcome embrace.
At the same time, a hooded man jumped out from behind me and pulled the officer's outstretched arm down, creating a free pathway for the assassin in front to charge. In an instant, a leather-covered glove connected with the hooded man's face and the man tumbled down on the ground with a loud groan, his hand still grasping the air reflexively.
The officer stumbled a little too with the force of the punch but managed to regain his balance quickly before turning to face me. I was still frantically kicking in the air but froze immediately when my eyes fell on something glimmering in the darkness.
"Watch out behind you-!" I shouted, but my warning was cut short when one of the arms around me went around my throat instead. The cop in front of me swirled around just as the first assassin swung his knife in the air and I pressed my eyes shut as I tried to fight the sudden wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me. It was one thing when they tried to kill me, another thing to watch them kill some other person!
A large crack was heard and I tried to swallow down the bile that was rising in my throat, my fingers becoming stiff with the effort. The man behind me tightened the headlock and increased the claustrophobia even further.
"No," he growled and began to pull me back, forcing me to open my eyes to not stumble and accidentally snap my neck with his arm.
The scene that greeted me made me gasp, but not for the reason one would think. Instead of seeing a man lying unconscious in a pool of his own blood and with a knife sticking out of his helmet like I'd originally expected, I was met with the equally jaw-dropping sight of a man in a helmet holding a knife as he stared down at his opponent, who was clutching his arm.
"You son of a..." the assassin growled out a few colorful words as he slowly rose up, holding his broken arm tightly to his chest. "Ace!" he barked out and crouched.
The hooded man on the opposite side nodded and together they threw themselves over the man between them.
"While he's still distracted," the gruff voice behind me burst out, making me jump in surprise, "let's find a place with no disturbances."
The world suddenly became a dizzy blur as he rapidly twirled me around and hoisted me over his shoulder, like a sandbag, not even giving me the time to protest or even think.
"Let me go," I cried after my thoughts had finally caught up, "creep!"
That insult earned me an elbow to my head that made me see stars for a whole set of ten seconds and I flexed my stomach to stop myself from heaving. Puking while being upside-down would probably be dangerous. Or at least pretty nasty considering that the puke could travel up to your nose.
"No can do, shortcake. When he sees that you're missing he'll have to give himself up to us." The buff-looking man snickered as he pinned my hands behind the back of my knees, preventing me from hitting him from behind and thrashing on his shoulders.
"And when the cops realize that he's missing they'll come for him, though," I pointed out breathlessly and he barked a laugh.
"We'll be long gone before that happens."
Another wave of nausea rippled through me, not because of what he said but because I suddenly felt a finger trace the back of my calf, stretching the fabric of my tights slightly with the movement.
"Get your hands off me," I growled, making him snicker quietly, "or I'll fart you in the face," My my cheeks burned from the embarrassment, but desperate situations required desperate measures and the threat fulfilled its purpose.
Immediately, his hand disappeared and I let out the breath that I didn't know I was holding. Although, the relief was short lived as I felt him start to walk faster and I crooked my neck backward to see where we were heading. With each step he took, the Clock's entrance faded further into the dark night and with my heart in my throat I decided to turn my gaze to the people that were walking home in the far distance.
The idea to scream for help had I given up on way too long ago. Even if they would hear me, they'd never be able to help because my kidnapper would drop me on my head and drag my unconscious body away to oblivion. Without the chip I was untraceable, he could take me outside of the country and no one would even know it.
"What do you want with the cop anyway?" I sighed, defeat was clearly detectable through my low voice. Even if I couldn't escape the mess I could still try to understand it.
Maybe he was relieved that I wasn't resisting anymore and had accepted my situation because he decided to answer my question after a moment of silence. "Didn't you hear Zoel before? Young Mapper will be the link between Circuit and his own peers."
The man under me sighed and my upper lip curled into a disgusted snarl as I felt him shake his bald head against my hip. His broad Domerian accent and the slang word he used to address the cop made my thoughts wander back to the latter's robotic voice.
My thoughts were interrupted as my captor continued. "Pat down the feathers you ruffled, smooth down the rough edges in the silk. Your appearance is quite problematic, shortcake, because you've got the cops after us. So that's where he'll come in, to throw them off."
"Excuse me for existing," I mumbled under my breath whilst I made a mental note in my head. Apparently, the assassin with multicolored eyes was called Zoel and the hooded guy was called Ace. I was going to remember those names.
My thoughts were cut off for the second time by a pulsating vibration near his crotch, making me almost reach a heart attack then and there. Throwing all previous thoughts, on surrender, to the wind, I frantically began to kick towards his head and scratch the air with my fingers. However, the spazzing movements were quickly stopped by an elbow hit to my shoulder sharply and a small hiss of pain escaped me as I watched the creep dig his hand into his pocket. After some seconds of struggle, he finally pulled out a black phone and pressed on the blinking screen.
"Where are you?" The phone disappeared from my line of vision as he lifted it to his ear. "Hurry up, this girl weighs a ton. Which car did you take? Remember that it's two people we are bringing this time," he muttered and dipped in the air as he threw me further up his shoulder. The lower part of my ribs made a painful contact with his shoulders which knocked the air out of my lungs, making him snicker quietly.
"So how does it feel to be completely helpless?"
"Huh?" I hadn't realized that he had hung up and was now talking to me again until he pulled a little on my interlocked fingers to catch my attention.
"You are completely out of protection. Your friends have no idea where you are and the rest of the world doesn't even know that you exist." He clarified. I stayed quiet. I had already realized that long ago, where was he going with this?
"I could help you," he suddenly offered. "I mean, I won't let you escape, but I can make them torture you less. I'm close with my boss and he could probably tell the Head to cut you some slack. You're cute and I could actually imagine you being bearable to be around when you aren't acting like an obnoxious brat. If you're nice to me then I can make the rest of your life a little bit... nicer. More pleasurable. What do you say?"
My body had begun to freeze up the further he got in his speech and at the end, I stared blindly in front of me as I realized what he was proposing. The frantic beating of my heart and the rapid breathing was the only thing that gave away my slowly building rage. The Creep was taking advantage of the situation, that little-
I didn't get to finish the insult in my mind as it blanked out from a sharp movement in front of us. Two black combat boots had suddenly stepped out of thin air, in front of my kidnapper, and I felt him tense up under me from the surprise. How the mapper had managed to catch up to us without us hearing him was beyond me, because it wasn't particularly noisy in the alley next to the Clock. In fact, we were the only people in the bystreet at the moment.
The Creep holding me didn't even have time to comment on the cop's sudden appearance because he was busy grunting from receiving a strong punch in his stomach. Another fist followed right after and connected at the same spot, making my kidnapper double over and drop me on the ground with a large thud.
A small groan escaped me when I landed on my arm, but I quickly scrambled up, just in time to see the Creep take a swing at the cop, who grabbed his fist, turned around and threw him on the ground. An even larger thud echoed through the alley as the bald guy fell down on the frosty ground and, for a moment, I was stunned.
Sure, the cop was tall and well-built but The Creep looked beefy as if he'd been fed steroids fresh out of the womb. I was quickly snapped out of my trance when I felt something tug at my arm.
"Get up," the computerized voice ordered me. "Before he does."
I didn't need to be told twice.
I placed my hand on his leather-clad one and let him pull me up, ignoring the pang of pain that traveled from my shoulder and down. A wave of dizziness swept over me from the quick movement and I stumbled forward while I desperately tried to blink away the black spots that darted over my vision. Instantly his hand shot up to my waist, steadying me. Thankfully, the dots dissipated and I let out a shaky breath.
"Thanks," I mumbled, but my shyness was rapidly washed away when I heard a low exhale a few feet away. Glancing back, I saw that my kidnapper had begun to get up, his face twisting into a grimace of pain and effort. "Let's go."
"Hey!" The Creep tried to get up but slipped in the frozen ground and got quickly left behind as we sprinted through the narrow alley. A moment later, his faint voice echoed behind us as he called his friend. "Turn the car around, I lost them! Yes. Yes, I know... Just follow them, asshole..."
His words then disappeared altogether as we exited the alley and turned in to one of Myria's Boulevards. Dodging the people as best as we could, we ran down the crowded sidewalk until we reached a crossing, where two familiar persons were waiting for us.
"What do we do now?" asked him while clutching my sides. My short exhales looked like small balls of cotton that floated in front of me as I gasped for air. A tug on my hand answered my question before he did.
"Run."
Throwing all caution to the wind, we took off through the street. Horns blared as a car almost ran into us, but we didn't stop and continued until we were on the other side of the street, at a safe distance from Zoel and Ace. By the time we had reached the sidewalk, I was almost close to fainting, and I took a secret oath to go for morning runs for the rest of my life. I couldn't even imagine how the cop felt inside his helmet and his thick clothes.
However, I didn't even have time to sneak a glance at him before another blaring of a horn was heard making both our heads snap at its direction, just in time to see a black car cut in front of a red one and then continue speeding towards us.
"Shit," the cop swore and tugged on me again, making me almost double over since I still hadn't recovered from the previous workout. "Come on!"
I wanted to look back to see if also the Creep had caught up with us but knowing me I'd probably trip over my own feet so I resisted the temptation and kept my focus on the hand that was leading me through the crowd of strangers. After having run a couple of minutes, he suddenly yanked me into another alley where something else was waiting for us.
Clutching my arm that he'd almost ripped off, I stared wide-eyed at the large vehicle that was sneakily parked behind a rusty fire escape.
Either the officer didn't notice my wary expression or he didn't care because he stepped forward to the black motorcycle and opened the compartment at the back. Taking out a helmet similar to his, he threw it to me without a word and then proceeded to take out a large black cloth and turned to me. Noticing that I hadn't put on, he sighed and took the helmet out of my hands.
"Come here."
I numbly stepped forward and watched as he wrapped the leather cloth around my shoulders and hooked the straps around my arms. Then he took the helmet and put it on brusquely, folding the tinted glass over my eyes. Turning around, he swung his leg over the two-wheeled vehicle and gestured with his finger for me to do the same thing. Clumsily, I hopped on and wrapped my, now leather clad arms, around him, holding them a good inch away from his body and making sure I wasn't touching him. His head tilted down to my clasped hands and he let out a weird exhaling sound, but didn't comment. Instead, he just tilted his head to the side and pressed on the device on his chest.
"ED, 591 to Dispatch."
After a short moment of silence, a soft voice rang out through the loudspeaker "Go ahead 591. "
He continued reporting with the same robotic voice "Heading over to Area 23. Have a 207A with three suspects on my tail. And a vehicle."
"Copy that. Keeping a unit ready just in case." The high-pitched voice instantly replied before cutting the line.
Then with a soft purring sound, the engine came to life and the yellow lights on the black vehicle began to flicker, lighting up the whole front part of the dark alley. The cop crouched forward and twisted the handle a few times, making the seat under us vibrate with the power that was waiting to be released. Then he tugged on my hand and re-wrapped it firmly across his abdomen.
"Now let's go," he muttered before letting go of the brake and letting the alley be swallowed up in the darkness behind us.
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It's a shame I can't update but I'm swamped with school work (I think my teachers are trying to kill me). Anyways, chapter seven is finally up so tell me what you thought and that would make my day! :D
I've never struggled so much with anything as much as I did when I tried to describe his accent. If anyone has any other way to word it then please tell me, it would be greatly appreciated.