“How in the hell?” I mutter as I jog up to it.
We don’t have much time to talk once I’m inside. I hear the crack of gunfire as people realize that their leader has been killed. I don’t expect them to be very organized after this, but they’re going to be as angry as a swarm of wasps with their hive kicked in. We’d do well to get the fuck out of this place before we end up like Bheka.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Honey shouts over the rattling of guns.
“Let’s keep it that way,” I shout back, grabbing her gun and turning it to a mercenary who has run out in front of the van.
Honey yelps, driving forward and hitting him before I can get a shot off. I guess that’s one way to conserve ammo, but we can’t spend the entire time playing hit-and-run if we want to get out of here in one piece. We need to find the fastest way out and take it.
“Turn around. Let’s go,” I shout.
Honey whips the van around, nearly toppling over onto the plastic container that held me for so long. Part of me wishes that she crushed it, but that’s petty. Bheka is already dead, and we’re on our way out of here. I won’t delay our escape for a second more than necessary.
Movement to our left draws my attention, a group of men with their guns trained on us. I aim out the side window, spraying bullets toward them in hopes that they’ll have the sense to duck instead of shooting back. They don’t.
I shouldn’t be surprised that these men are willing to die to make sure we don’t get away. They’re most likely poor young men, picked out of the city from their broken homes, given food, shelter, and trained to serve the man who rescued them. They will die for him. I’ve seen this story play out before with previous rebel groups. They always pick the weak and unfortunate to serve them because nobody is more loyal.
Maybe I should’ve done the same. I’ve had men turn on me left and right since the union of the Dormer and Calandro Mafias. Apparently, Dean was one of the disloyal who turned against me, but I only have Bheka’s word for that, and Dean is nowhere to be seen.
I don’t have time to question Honey over what she knows, though, because the loyal followers of Bheka punch the side of the van with bullets, and despite Honey’s best effort to keep us stable, we start to veer off to the right side. She pulls the wheel in the opposite direction, but it does nothing to prevent us from turning into the crowd of men that are shooting at us.
The men scatter as the van plows into the side of the building they were standing in front of, tires punctured by bullets and the engine crushed from the impact. Honey and I both fly forward, sliding into the windshield and hitting our heads against the broken glass.
Smoke rises from the totaled van.
We’re not going anywhere.
Injured but not defeated, I pull myself away from the glass and grab Honey, taking her body with me as I exit the van. I sling her body over my shoulder, praying that she’s suffered nothing more than a mild concussion, and muster up enough strength to barge into the building through the hole we’ve punctured in the side of the smooth clay brick.
I point my gun forward, ready to shoot anyone on sight, but the people I’m met within the building aren’t Bheka’s goons. This building must be a prison of sorts because there are a few cells lining the dimly lit interior. Malnourished skeleton bodies with gaunt faces stare at me as I walk along the corridor.
I try to ignore them. After all, I have no clue who they are or what they’re doing here. I’m assuming they aren’t bad people, but there’s no way for me to know that. Besides, they would be far too weak to survive out there in the desert, and I don’t have time to let them all out.
None of them even attempt to speak to me. I wonder if they’re even capable of talking with how close to death they all are. It’s a horrifying sight, and something I wish I didn’t have to endure, but it only cements in the fact that Bheka needed to be defeated. He would’ve caused so much more suffering had he managed to gain control of the Dormer-Calandro Mafia.
I’m almost to the exit of the building when I hear a familiar voice shout through the thin iron bars of one of the cells. “Carter,” it says. “Help me!”
I look over to see Amy, clothed only in a tattered brown sack, gripping the bars to her cell as though she could pull them apart and slip through. She’s badly beaten, and her face is swollen and purple like an overripe plum, but she’s alive. That’s what matters.
“Stand back,” I command, turning my gun toward the crude padlock on her cell door.
Amy steps back, covering her ears as I fire two bullets into the lock, breaking it with a satisfying metallic clank. It falls to the floor, and Amy rushes out of her cell. “Jesus Christ,” she says. “I thought I would die here.”
“You may very well die if we don’t find another vehicle, preferably armored,” I reply, looking frantically back and forth from the hole that the van made in the wall to the exit door.
“There’s a few out front, but that was hours ago. I don’t know if they’re still there,” Amy replies.
I heave Honey up higher on my shoulder and turn to the door, waving my gun. “Let’s go.”
Amy follows behind me, unarmed and frightened. She depends on me, just like Honey and everyone else in my mafia are. I can’t fail them. I have a duty to uphold.
I push through the door, gun first, looking around the
