Saving Mr. Player

5. The AC Vent

Sitting inside the presidential suite bedroom, the curtains drawn in, only the yellow spot lights brightening the deadly silent room, Alessandro sighed, grabbing a hold of his throbbing head. One after the other one, he was facing traumas and whatever was happening right now wasn’t any sign of peace in his life and he felt even more scared thinking if he was to lose another one of his team members.

The sight of Paul laying dead, his head stealth in his own pool of blood, a flying bullet hitting him out of nowhere. The boy who had extreme potential in his life and was about to conquer the world. The boy Alessandro imagined hitting the winning goal was hit by a bullet moments before he could make his team win.

His brain was too dead to think about the cruelty of nature and the span of life, his mind was frozen at the still image of Paul lying dead with his eyes open.

Moments ago, there was thundering sound of blazing guns and glass shattering, going right outside his room and while being stuck inside with half of his team, he was still worried for the rest of the half that were stuck on the other side of the suite.

Right outside his bedroom.

Amy, Antonio, and Richard stood deadly silent, listening to the soft thumping sounds coming from within the walls. Their gaze tried following the sound of the footsteps, to estimate the movement of whoever was inside the vent ducts.

Richard shock his head, signally at Antonio, “We need to save them!” he pointed towards the doors.

Amy saw his gestures, “Where is Ricci?” She asked him.

He lifted his shoulders and mouthed, “I don’t know…”

He didn’t see where any of the player went, when the loud shooting noises pounded in the corridor, earlier.

She groaned, sprinting towards the door on her side.. She opened the door and the entire room stood up, scared hearing the gunshots outside the suite but seeing at the tall woman, wrapped in a holster around her body, holding a pistol, her hair disoriented around her ponytail but she looked confident. The talkie tied around her waist intercepted. She held the loudspeaker button, so everyone heard it, while she was scanning through the male faces in search of Alessandro.

Amy’s eyes bulged, realizing that Ricci was nowhere in the room and the assassin could probably reach him on the other side of the suite.

“Everyone get out of the suite now!”

She yelled, turning towards Richard and Antonio, “Take everyone out of this place, take the stairs and empty the entire hotel… now!”

She ordered into the talkie as well, running towards the other room, where Alessandro was sitting on the corner of the bed, while six of his other team players were stuck inside with him. Luka, a skinny strike forward was sitting on the single wingchair, looking out the large balcony window. Alessandro noticed how calmly quite he was, knowing that just like Paul, he is also from Croatia. Alessandro wanted to comfort him but he didn’t had the words, so he held himself back. On the other hand the team goal keeper, Eden and two other Full-backs were scared to life, shaking with fear and crying with tears, hearing the blazing sound of guns coming from right outside their suite.  

But soon the sound of the guns went off, while they heard a loud woman yelling. There was a moment of subtle silence just then thudding noises built up inside the room, as if coming from the ceiling.

Luka stood up, looking at his fellow teammates, who also shared looks with each other, scared to hear the loud bangs and thumps coming from the ceiling, as if someone was walking into the vent-pipes.

They all looked up over at the ceiling, following the clocking sound of the thumps within the ventilating pipes, their gaze finally landed over the small squared white AC vent grill, fixed at the right corner of the wall, adjacent to the balcony, facing right in front of the bed, where Alessandro stood.

The white grill was entirely clean and at the same time it began puckering out of the beige printed walls, the clumping sound became louder, as someone hit the grill from the other side.

Alessandro watched the whole scene in a bedazzled tone but his eyes grew bigger at the same realizing what was happening.

“f**k!” he cursed out loud, grabbing everyone’s attention who was just as scared and surprised as him. “f**k this man, get out of the room now.”

Everyone hastened towards the door, while at the same time Amy kicked it open on the other side and looked at the AC grill, which was repeatedly being hit from the other side. The men in the room ran past her, while Alessandro made sure that everyone got out of the room.

Amy’s gaze went towards him, as he stood right in front of the grill. She immediately rushed towards him, just as the grill went down.

The assassin crawled out of the vent and held his gun pointed at his target, while Amy jumped in front of Alessandro.

The entire team was out of the suite, Antonio, stood at the edge of the staircase and guided the hostages down the grand staircase, amid rows of security while he noticed that Alessandro was missing. He looked at Richard who was standing at the doorway of the suite, looking inside the suite, waiting for Amy to walk out of the room.

While at the same time everyone paused at their places, turned their heads towards the door of the suite, as a huge gunshot went off.

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