by Ben Swallow
Quickly moving to cover, Cross’ men open fire. The sound of four guns in a closed room is deafening, and the smell of firecrackers fills the air. Without thinking, I immediately go to ground, cowering behind a flipped table.
Three of the normal looking people are riddled with bullets, dropping to the ground immediately. Two of Dahl’s thugs standing behind each other both drop just a moment later.
Barely a second has passed, and yet all of Cross’ men are already behind cover, flipping more tables and other furniture to create additional protection. The British dude is cowering next to me, but cross and Bryan is still standing, unwavering. This is clearly not their first ‘visit’.
One of Cross man kneels close to us, ducked behind another table. He briefly rises up, just barely exposing his head, to let lose another salve of bullets. Only a few shots escape his gun before he screams in pain and falls backward, blood streaming from his eyes, nose, and ears.
The sound of battle dies down around us for a second, everyone watching the horror unfold right next to me. As the man continues to scream in pain, I notice one of Wang’s people staring at the soldier intensely.
Another one of Cross man reacts quickly enough to shoot the supernatural attacker, but the man next to me still dies a few heartbeats later, a pool of blood already forming beneath him.
Panic is sweeping through me. This is not what I signed up for. I look at the Brit next to me, my eyes wide in fear. I pull my head in as the booming sound of gunfire continues, a metallic hammering that I even feel deep in my skull.
The British man turns to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right, love. We are all getting out of here alive.”
His calm voice soothes my panic a little, but the chaos around me is still disorienting. The sound of bursting wood and bullets ripping into human bodies makes my stomach turn inside out. I carefully look over the table to see if we are at least winning this fight, if it’s even possible to tell.
But as I look up, my eyes immediately focus on a woman flying through the air towards one of Cross’ soldiers. Her leap reminds me of that of a wildcat, the ferocity in her eyes, the angry snarl on her mouth. But the scariest thing about her is her hands.
While she leaps through the air, her hands grow and mutate, forming sharp claws longer than a finger. Blood sprays out of her back as she’s hit by a bullet, but she barely seems to notice. Just a heartbeat later, she lands on the man, knocking him down to the ground.
I feel like throwing up as I watch her tear into the man with her claws, ripping his body open. Blood is all over her, splattered against the wall, across the floor. My mind is still frozen in horror, but my body somehow reacts.
I stretch a hand out toward her, sending a shockwave out. She’s thrown back against the wall like she was hit by a truck, collapsing like a broken doll.
As I look back at the soldier, I retch at the sight of his guts hanging out of his mangled body. But just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I follow the Brits fearful gaze and freeze. One of the people who was shot in the first second of battle slowly rises, even though his body is still riddled by bullet holes.
His face looks like straight from a nightmare, as one bullet has shattered his jaw, leaving an ugly mess of flesh and bone in its place. But while I watch the man get up, the bones in his face move like worms under his skin, re-taking their place while the flesh around them heals. Just a few seconds later, the man looks almost unharmed again.
The room is almost dead silent as we all watch yet another horror unfold. Fear is written on the faces of the two remaining soldiers as they stare at the risen dead. The same fear is written on Dahl’s thugs, but he himself recovers more quickly.
Blood splattered all over me, as he puts a bullet through the head of the solder standing closer to me. It looks weirdly peaceful as he collapses, like a string puppet whose strings have been cut.
Somehow, I see everything with surprising clarity. I don’t even feel afraid or panic anymore, just a simple acceptance of the situation. We are going to die here.
“Oh bollocks,” the British guy curses next to me. With one quick movement, he gets up and steps into the middle of the room, then screaming at the top of his lungs.
The high-pitched scream pierces through the air, so high and loud, it sends waves of pain through my ears. But as a look around me, I see that Dahl and his last remaining thugs and the remaining powered people all drop with pain filled grimaces.
Whatever his ability is, it seems to affect them much more than us. But just as I think we still may have a chance, his scream turns into bloodied gurgling as his throat is slit.
There is no one around him, and yet blood is spraying from his throat as he collapses. But as the blood is spraying forward, it seems to hit someone. Someone invisible. Even before his face briefly becomes visible and winks at me, I already know who it is. Eric Lang.
He used to be protecting me, but apparently, now he’s on Wang’s side. He really needs to learn to take rejection more gracefully.
But while everyone was watching the unexpected death of the Brit, Dahl has sneaked up to Cross, somehow getting through Bryan’s barrier around them. He pushes Cross back against the wall, a gun pressed against his chest, right over his heart.
“Not so tough now, are you, boss?” Dahl laughs wickedly. “You thought you were so clever, plotting up there in your high tower. What does your wit help you now, huh?”
But before Cross can respond, Dahl pulls the trigger.
Everyone is watching tensely as the muffled gunshot echoes through the room. Cross coughs as the air is pressed out of his lungs by the shot, pain washing over his face.
Another shot pierces the silence as Dahl pulls the trigger again with a wicked grin. But that grin is wiped from his face as Cross laughs weakly.
“You never were a smart one,” he whispers as he grabs Dahl’s head and breaks his neck with one determined twist.
As Dahl’s dead body drops to the ground, Cross nods at Bryan, even his eyes dull of the horrors of this battle. “We need to fall back.”
As the two of them retreat backward to the door, I quickly join them, dashing towards them hoping not to get hit. I exhale in relieve as I pass through Bryan’s barrier, feeling its protective shield around the three of us.
We run back the way we came, gunfire behind us. As the sounds suddenly stop, I glance back over my shoulder, just in time to see the last of Cross’ soldiers break down, killed by a shot to the head.
With surprise, I see that while Dahl and his remaining thugs are chasing us, Wang and his powered people merely watch us flee with satisfaction, apparently not interested in killing us.
We dash back to the car, Bryan getting into the driver’s seat, Cross sitting down beside me on the back seats. I don’t even have time to put on a seatbelt as the engine starts howling. Bryan accelerates brutally, the car jumping away from the sidewalk and back to the street.
Cross lets out a soft moan as he opens his suit. He smiles with satisfaction as he plucks two deformed bullets from the Kevlar he wears beneath. “Well, that hurt.”
I chuckle in relieve as he smiles at me, even though it doesn’t reach his eyes. He gives me a short nod before he leans back, closing his eyes as he exhales deeply.
I stare out the windshield, looking at the cars Bryan overtakes as he races through the street. But my thoughts are elsewhere, my mind replaying the scenes of this battle over and over. Blood, gore, mangled bodies, risen dead.
I only snap out of it as we arrive in the garage of Cross’ building a few minutes later. As Bryan parks the car, Cross sighs deeply.
“Clean up and meet me in my office in ten minutes. If Wang wants a war, he can have it.”
Chapter 8
Bryan led me to a room on floor 37, one of the rooms apparently meant for Cross’ guests. He then went into the room across from mine, leaving me alone in a bathroom.
The whole floor reminded me of a hotel, with numbered doors and
a welcoming atmosphere, plants decorating the hallway. Now that I’m in such a room, I really couldn’t tell the difference to a hotel.
It’s weird, I wonder as I scrub the dirt and blood off my arms, after everything that just happened, I’m thinking about hotels. I guess it must be some kind of brain response.
As I look in the mirror, I barely recognize my face. Instead of the lovely face that I know, with a playful smile and sparkling eyes, the face that stares back at me looks like from a bad zombie movie. Dead, empty eyes in a dirty face with dried blood splattered all over it. When Cross told us to clean up, he probably meant me specifically.
A few minutes later, I am somewhat clean, although I don’t feel any better. The life still hasn’t fully returned to my eyes, and even when I try to smile, it looks more creepy than nice.
Haunted. That’s what I look like.
As the images start flashing through my mind again, I stop trying to suppress them, but without much success. I see the man bleeding from his face. The man ripped apart by that human devil. Eric Lang, slitting the Brit’s throat.
It all happened. But I got out alive. And now it’s over.
I take a few deep breaths, trying to bring my thoughts to nicer things. Images of me lying on the couch with Bryan flash through my mind, us cuddling in bed. As I look in the mirror, a little spark of life has returned to my eyes, a slight smile on my face.
Alright, time to face Cross.
As I leave the room, Bryan is already waiting for me. He doesn’t look as haunted as I did, but maybe he simply learned to hide it better.
“You okay? That mission was a little… wilder than expected.”
“Yeah, the blood wasn’t mine, I must have been lucky,” I shrug in reply.
“Good. And are you okay?”
“Fine. Just a little shaken.”
I know Bryan means well, but I still hate to be treated like a little girl.
Instead of another worried look, he pulls me in for a long hug. I haven’t even realized how tense my body was until now, as I can finally relax a little in his careful but firm embrace. As I lean my head against his, it feels like the weight that has been crushing my chest slowly fades and I can breathe again.
After a few seconds, he pulls back, a smile on his face. “I was terrified, when everything went to shit and I couldn’t be there to protect you, didn’t know if you were going to die next. I couldn’t even breathe until now.”
I chuckle as I take his hand. I love how he isn’t trying to be tough for me, even admitting to his fear.
“I’m still here with you. I can’t let some thugs and freaks kick my ass, after all,” I add with a grin.
He chuckles and shakes his head, but his eyes still sparkle happily. “Good. Come on, let’s not keep Clayton waiting, then.”
Cross was still on the phone when we enter his room. For the first time now, I see him in only a shirt, even though he doesn’t look any less powerful in it.
From his tone, I would guess that he is organizing his people for war. But apparently, his people are not entirely happy about being sent to combat powered people who can’t die or turn to monsters.
Eventually, he just curses into the phone and throws it on the couch. “Damnit.”
He looks at Bryan, his expression one of barely concealed worry. “News of this battle is already spreading. Many gangs will think they don’t have to follow the rules anymore now that I was defeated once. If this Chinese is trying to take control over the underworld, there will be chaos and bloodshed like the city hasn’t seen in over a decade.”
He walks over to the table, pouring us three glasses of whiskey and gesturing us towards the couch.
“As for you, you have proven yourself today,” he continues as he sits down. “I wish we could drink to another rebel gang defeated, but I guess this one is to honor our fallen.”
We raise our glasses in silence, each of us pouring the whiskey down in one go. It burns in my throat, but it feels weirdly cleansing, like it was burning out the tenseness of my body.
“Also, I have something for you.”
I look at Cross with a frown as he turns around and fetches something from behind him. He pushes two envelopes towards us across the table as he explains.
“Your mission was to fetch the compass, and I would have been satisfied with that. But instead, you got pulled into this massacre. I know money can’t erase those horrors from your mind, but you deserve it none the less.”
I open the envelope and pull out a bundle of bank notes. From what I can tell with my limited experience, this looks like the bundles we got from Robby. A bundle of ten thousand dollars.
I can’t hold back a little gasp as I look up at Cross. “That is… a lot of money.”
“Money that you well deserve for all you went through these last two weeks. And I know how much you need it for your mother.”
He nods at me with understanding as I stare at him, mouth dropping open.
“Th... thank you,” I stammer, but Cross has already turned to Bryan, nodding at him as well.
“Both of you are free to go, your debt is paid,” Cross continues as he looks back and forth between us. “But if you feel like putting your powers to good use to protect our city, you will always be welcome here.”
I thought I would be incredibly relieved when this crazy adventure is finally over, but all I feel is a little relief and a whole lot of fear.
After everything that happened, can I really go back to waiting tables? A war is coming, and I don’t think I can hide from it, even if I wanted to.
The Story Continues…
The war for Galmont has only just begun.
Wang’s rebellion becomes a personal threat to Alice and Bryan.
Cross takes drastic measure to stop Wang, but their fight gets bloodier every day.
Can this war bring Alice and Bryan closer together, or are their fears still too strong to overcome?
SOON AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
A Note from the Author
Hey there, I’m Ben Swallow and I want to thank you for reading Rival Rising!
If you liked it, please leave a short review! You can be sure I read every single one.
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