“One scream, and I wake this whole damn place up.”
“As if it’d be worth the risk,” I yelled back at her in whisper. She was one of the guards I believed I’d avoided.
“Try me. I’m more vindictive than a sewer rat like you knows how to handle.”
I pushed her back into the centre of the room. She swung her knife at me but I grabbed her arm before she had any chance to connect and held it in place as I unveiled my own and pierced her chest four times in quick succession.
She stumbled back until I had my own hand over her mouth and body against the wall.
“Drop it.” Her knife hit the floor. “I’m just here for a power bank you took from me. A power bank and a solar panel. About a kilometre from here. Left in the sewer grate sun.”
“I don’t know about it.”
“And yet, it’s the only way you’re any use to me. So you better remember, or you better get good at figuring it out.” She pushed her bottom lip forward. She was stern. Even amongst the pain, she was bitter enough to want to resist. Maybe she hadn’t been lying about the vindictiveness. I’d have to be careful about trusting her… not like I had a choice.
“I don’t have it. But I know who does.”
“That’s better. Ok, take me there.”
I pocketed by red-speckled hand, made her do the same with her chest.
We went out into the courtyard and she led me, with linked arms, down into the trenches of their outpost. We walked a series of long hallways and tinny metal floors before reaching what was once an important conference room.
Before we went in, I pulled my hands back out and stopped her. I grabbed a firework from her belt and checked my back pocket for my lighter.
“One wrong move, this whole place dies, not just you.”
She grunted, hiding the pain.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“And why wouldn’t I?”
“Even you must admit that this place is leagues above whatever hole you crawled from. You could stay here. We’re your next step.”
“You’re just my competition,” I assert. “Don’t get confused.”
We walked through the door to find a menagerie of eclectic survivors. They’re not as geared as the guard I’m holding, but they are surrounded by racks of weapons.
“Where is it?” I asked the woman in my grasp. “Where is it?” I pushed the cheese knife into the back of her jacket. She pushed back, digging the knife in and then spinning from my grip before thrusting me forward into the room.
In a panic, I held the firework high, scrambled for my lighter. It kept the brutes around me at bay for a moment. We all breathed heavily. One way or another, violence was coming.
The woman at the door scoffed as she plucked the knife from her spine.
“You won’t even get the thing you came for.”
Smug. Vindictive.
But so was I.
“Nah, I’ll just come back for it once you’re all dead.”
One of the brutes made a start for me and I let the flame lick the fuse.
Boom.