Not exactly wrong but… this is Eva.
“We’re not leaving without her,” Adriana said from his other side. “We’ll wait for her here. I’m sure they’ll be back in no time at all.”
And at that moment, it was obvious she’d jinxed it. The sound of a single gunshot rang throughout the fort.
Followed by a whole lot of gunfire and a small detonation.
Everyone looked to the camp as the sound of gunfire continued.
Damnit. Damnit!
“You’re all free to decide what you want to do. Stay here, fend for yourself, come with me, whatever. I’m going in for her,” Felix said. Chambering his rifle, Felix set off at a trot to the fort.
Damn you, Eva. I’m going to flog you and give you to Victoria to train in a mountain range for a decade.
Closing in on the fort, the sound of screaming, yelling, and people shouting could be heard through the din of the gun battle.
A Skipper soldier stumbled out of a tent, and went down almost as suddenly as he appeared.
Julia had appeared on his left in that moment. And not only had she joined him, but she’d taken the first shot.
Reward that loyalty later. Heavily.
“I told the others to go around,” Julia said. “Take Derek and clear the alley on the other side of the fort. Give us an exit route.”
Drown her ass in rewards.
Adriana snickered from his right, her easy gait, athletic grace, and feral beauty shinning through.
“The one-time thug is earning her keep,” Adriana said. Felix saw the front of her rifle come up an inch or two. A burst of rounds exploded free of the muzzle.
Off to one side, he saw two soldiers drop to the ground.
“Don’t try to make a claim on my Felix though. I won’t kill you, but Miu might,” Adriana said.
“Why does everyone treat this Miu as if they were a walking death machine?” Julia asked.
“Because she is. Follow the sound of the battle and let’s keep out of sight when and as we can,” Felix said.
Then they were in and amongst the tents.
Shifting their speed to a swift walk, Felix kept tracking towards the sound of battle.
As they got closer and closer, they started to see fallen bodies. At first there were wounds and corpses that looked like they’d been shattered or simply crushed.
Super strength.
As they got further from whatever had kicked this off, and closer to the battle, the wounds changed.
Now the bodies had clear bullet wounds mixed in.
Brass casings were everywhere in the grass. Glinting in the soft camp lights.
“Up ahead,” Julia said.
Focusing on what was directly ahead of them, Felix saw several soldiers taking cover behind crates.
Lining his rifle on them, Felix pulled the trigger. Julia and Adriana did the same, and the enemy soldiers dropped in a hail of fire.
Reaching the position the enemy had been holding, Julia made sure the enemies they’d shot were dead. A quick knife to the throat for each of them.
Didn’t even bat an eye.
Adriana set up on the cover, scanned the view, and hesitated.
Looking out to the area in front of him, Felix paused.
There were a number of Skipper soldiers throughout. All with their backs to them, staring down a concrete ramp that led downward into the ground.
The gunfire was these soldiers simply firing blindly down into that ramp.
Julia rested her weapon on the crate and took aim. “Light ’em up?” she asked.
“Take left, work inward. Adriana, the right. I’ll start moving out from the center. On my first shot,” Felix said.
Setting up carefully, he got in position and readied himself.
Then he pulled the trigger on a woman straight out in front of him.
Her clothes puffed out around her as the rounds struck her, and she dropped to the ground.
Sighting up his next target, Felix pulled the trigger again.
And again.
And again.
When it finally came time for him to change his magazine, there were only two targets left in his field of view.
By the time he exchanged the empty with a fresh one, there was no one left to stand against them.
“Move,” Adriana said. Standing up on top of the crates in front of them, she stepped over it and dropped to the other side.
Before Felix could process it, she was off at a run.
Julia slid over the crates leaving Felix alone behind cover.
Right.
Scrambling over the tops of the crates, Felix tried to catch up to the two women.
They had to be quick. The goal was simple. Get Eva, get Steve, get the fuck out. Before the rest of the base could respond and lock them into place.
“Friendly!” Adriana shouted down the ramp as she disappeared downward. “Friendly coming in!”
Adriana rounded the corner and vanished around the bend. Julia was only a few steps behind her.
When Felix managed to do the same he almost crashed into them.
Eva was down on the ground on one knee, blood flowing out of what looked to be gunshot wounds. None of them looked fatal, but they looked freakishly painful.
Steve was pressed up against a wall to one side, his rifle couched in his lap and wedged into his hip. He didn’t look very good either.
“Grab ’em up, we’re out of here,” Felix said, turning in place and moving back up the ramp.
There was a storm of gunfire that came down towards him. It felt like his leg exploded, and then went out from under him.
Screaming, Felix went with the fall and did his best to roll down the ramp and back towards the turn.
Concrete shattered around him as rounds impacted the ground and walls.
Coming to a stop at the edge of the corner, Felix felt someone grab his leg and yank him back around the turn.
Adriana squatted down over him and grabbed his leg. She deftly ripped his pant leg open, revealing flesh and blood.
Sucking in a breath she pulled the fabric free and cleared the area two inches above the problem area.
To Felix it didn’t look like one bullet wound, but several.
Reaching for his belt she started to unfasten it.
“I don’t think this is the time or place,” Felix said.
Adriana gave him a ghost of a smile and looped the belt around his leg just above the bloody mess, and then yanked on it till it was tight.
Shifting it around until the buckle was on the side of his leg rather than above the wound, she pulled on the tongue of it.
She expertly tied it into itself and gave it a tug to test it.
“Your leg is done. That’ll keep you up for around two hours but… we’re on a timer now,” Adriana said, her face turning a pale white. “Lose the leg if we wait too long, maybe bleed out if we remove it.”
Eva was staring at him from a few feet away. Her regeneration power must have been active, because the wounds she had were closing up.
“Felix, what are you doing here? Why?” she asked.
“Because you fucked up and got caught. And if I didn’t come to get you,” Felix said, sitting up, “then I’d never forgive myself. I hope your goddamn bleeding heart morality doesn’t cost us all our lives though. Did you even manage to free them?”
“No… they… someone shouted for the guards when they realized we were freeing them. One of the prisoners did. I don’t… why?” Eva asked, her voice tight.
“Because people are the best and worst things about our world. Someone probably didn’t want to give up the power they had over other prisoners. This isn’t a fairy tale. Remember? It’s life. When we’re done here, I think maybe it’s time you got a real world education,” Felix said. Levering himself up on one leg, he pressed his shoulder up to the wall.
Julia slipped in under his arm and pulled his around her side. “Come on, let’s head back a bit. It’ll only take a genius to get a grenade launcher around the corner.”