The killer detective

24 - The first fight

I got her hands in mine, ready to wake her up within a few seconds. In fact, it felt like I needed more preparation time than she did. I knew how it felt like to be yanked out of the shock this way. I experienced it more than once when I was still a newbie. They had to get me out of shock in different situations. The first one was when I got shot, luckily in a bulletproof vest. Yet, you can never be ready to be so close to dying. The second time, it was when one of my close friends and teammates died. We were on a mission that day, it was really rainy and we were driven out of our positions against the Ruinee rebels in the mid-east. Rain was pouring so hard we hardly could see five meters in front of us. The raindrops were so huge and connected it actually looked like lines of water were falling. It was the worst time to be on such a mission against rebels, who knew the terrain and weather. A few other teams had to move away from their positions as well as their spots were threatened by a mudslide. They shot him out of the blue, right next to me in the hideout. As if they knew where exactly we were. Yet, it was just a blind shot aimed at nothing. And it got him out of the blue, just as it came unexpectedly.

I took a deep breath, pulling Omita’s fingers to crack them. I needed to wake her up somehow. And if the easiest tricks didn’t help, then only hard stuff could.

“Here we go…” I let the breath out with all the words and kicked her abdomen, making her fly against the small wall. She finally coughed and spitted out some fluids. She looked up at me, trying to breathe out the pain.

“Welcome back, newbie.” I held out my hand to her to help her up. Luckily, I didn’t need to use any other means. This was enough.

“Why did you…” She coughed again, her stomach had to be hurting quite badly. I could only hear Isaac’s and Basil’s stifled laughs, as they were trying to not laugh too loud. Unlike us, they were in safer positions right now.

“We talk later. We need to get going.” I said, squatting down at the wall, sticking myself to it flat, and leaning a bit to the left side to see any movement. Nothing. Only the breeze was moving the grass. If only Isaac was willing to help more! We are stuck here without any cover! That lazy ass! I scoffed. My instincts were telling me to ready my handgun. It was already unclicked and ready to shoot any moving targets in our direction. The grass rustled differently. My muscles started tensing, making sure they were holding my bones right. I could feel the heat spreading from my core to my limbs. I was carefully scanning the space in front of us. The sound came from there. Where are they? Just show yourselves! I was checking the vast space from left to right, right to left. But instead of steps, I could hear Omita’s uneven and hard breaths behind me.

“Omita, shut it.” I hissed at her quickly, turning back to the lookout right away. I heard a very timid rustling of the grass. It didn’t sound as if someone was running. They weren’t even walking. Someone was crawling! I quickly made sure my gun was pointing to the ground instead of the air. Shooting crawling people was harder than if they were walking.

“We got movement.” I heard from Isaac. I didn’t answer, I didn’t even dare to move. I needed to make them think we were completely unaware of anything going on around us. I was holding my gun with my left hand, gesturing Omita behind me to ready her gun. I didn’t turn around to see what she was doing. I had to keep my eyes front.

“Fifteen meters, Alth. Either now or not. Two or three people, not clear.” Isaac’s instructions were enough for me to know that I had to act quickly and not shoot into the air. I had to hit the target with every bullet I would fire. And I had to fire quickly. I shortly closed my eyes and took a breath. I emptied my mind, which felt like there was noise all over inside of it. It wasn’t saying anything, but it was supposed to keep me away from danger by running. But I had to overpower the survival instinct, step out and get into danger. I had to protect the newbie, even if it meant it would cost me a leg. That’s what Cail taught me. That’s how he got a bullet for me on our last mission together when he was trying to evacuate my three-manned unit to safety, and he never made it back.

I tensed my muscles more as they wanted to shake like there was no tomorrow. Adrenaline was surely doing its thing. At another rustle, I leaped out with a short inhale and pulled the trigger. I fell down to the ground, quickly exhaled, tumbled, and pulled the trigger again. I inhaled. I was close enough to drag the last guy down. I threw myself to the ground again, pulling his knee down. He lost his balance, falling. Exhale, half-inhale. His gun. Gun! I gripped his forearm and upper arm and twisted it with all my strength, until I heard a cracking sound, making the arm motionless. Exhale. He screamed. He was kicking around, but I grabbed my gun again, wrestled my way on top of him, locking his knees with my feet and aiming the gun at him. Inhale.

“YOU f*****g BI-” Exhale. Shot right into the middle. I finally took a deep breath. Another one. I was running on short oxygen deficiency as there was no time to breathe properly. I slowly got up from the motionless body and crept my way behind the wall to take Omita with me.

She was there, staring at me with her mouth wide open. I quickly got up and dragged her down behind the wall cover again.

“Another shock?” I mumbled to myself, not being able to figure out if she was shocked again motionless, or she was just speechless.

“We’re going. This is only the beginning, we need to retrieve something from one of the apartments in the city. Get going.” I grabbed her shoulder, pulling her after me.

“I’m coming, lieutenant!” At those protesting words, I let go of her shoulder.

“Then be careful, we are going to quickly run to that building there. Make sure you are keeping an eye on the building to the right. They shot at us from there before. It’s not sure if these three were it, or if there were more of them, perhaps giving them cover.” I was speaking in a very quiet and low voice. Omita nodded. I could see she was doing her best to get rid of the fear that was raging inside of her.

“Grind your teeth, we’re going!” I started out from the cover, running as fast as I could with the rifle on my back. Even if we didn’t finish this mission, just getting her through here alive would be an accomplishment on its own.

Thankfully, we had managed to get through the first part of the journey without any more hiccups. We were going through the empty streets. Most of the Ruinees were already sleeping, while we were doing our best to not wake anybody up. The street lights were either broken or nonexistent at all. Anyone, who valued their life, would definitely stay at home at this hour unless they knew how to move around in such darkness.

I stopped at a corner, seeing some movement. Omita bumped into me, nearly making me fall over. I hissed at her. Not only was she completely not ready for anything like this, she was also walking around like a huge elephant. She has to be nervous. I smirked.

“Air looks clear.” Isaac’s calm and quiet voice sounded in my ear. But I was still hesitating. I seriously saw some movement earlier. It’s impossible the air would be clear that quickly.

“Still clear?” I had to make sure we weren’t going to walk into another of the traps that Ruinees could have laid out for anybody who would have wanted to get inside.

“Clear.”

I readied my handgun. Hearing a familiar click, Omita had done the same behind me. We were stuck to the wall, making sure we weren’t easily spotted. I exhaled and ran out with an inhale, handgun in front of me. I checked the open square in front of us. There were some old car wrecks and a lot of trash. They probably used this place for getting rid of their garbage instead of getting together. I didn’t see anyone. Good. Now we can go. The target place, where we should get a few things in an abandoned flat, shouldn't be too far from here. I walked closer to one of the buildings, checking my watch, while Omita was obediently walking behind me. At least she wasn’t much of a talker. I could use the rest of my brain’s capacity to focus on finding the route in the GPS. The red dot on my watch was getting closer the longer we walked. We exited the square and kept walking. The balconies of the buildings were so low, that we had to bend forward to pass under them. This whole street was so narrow, that the balconies were nearly connected to the building right opposite of them. There were only about two or three windows with light, others were completely dark.

I signaled Omita with my fist up to stop. We were in front of the side door of the building, where we had to pick up the load. It was supposed to be hidden in a crate inside of the apartment. As the mission stated, it should be some equipment left here by one mission. However, they weren’t able to retrieve it for some unstated reason, so they had to send us to get it. I hope it’s not going to be anything too heavy. Dragging heavy things through here is going to be a suicide attempt given we already had a shitty encounter. They have to know we’re here. It’s only a matter of time until they find us and manage to get us.

We were trying to run up the stairs as quietly as possible. But still, the people living in the building had to be able to hear us. I stopped in front of the door, Omita was standing with her back on mine, making sure nobody was going to surprise us. I took out the keys and found the one fitting inside the keyhole. I turned it, hearing the usual door-unlocking sound.

“On three,” I whispered, letting Omita know we were going to enter the room. We got ready at the sides of the door, handguns unlocked.