AM (Chapter 5)
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery - Bertrand Russell
1:58 pm
Was I okay?
Would anyone be, okay?
I just watched a man die with an arrow through his neck.
Curiously though, I was conscious of hunger pangs, the bread and soft drink we’d had for breakfast must have digested.
That could happen to anybody who’d just been through the exhausting conversation we’d just had with Uto.
The very dead Uto.
I was conscious of my mind zoning out, presently I wondered why I’d not felt any pain when Gabriel had ploughed me to the ground.
“Baby, hey, Meems…baby, don’t zone out on me,” he whispered urgently, shaking me.
I first frowned because I wondered how he’d known I’d zoned out. And then my lips twitched, he’d called me baby again.
“Jesus, Meems, not the time,” Gabriel said, he leaned over me and struggled to unstuck something from something I was lying on.
I wasn’t totally zoned out because I lifted myself then to enable him to get whatever he’d been trying to get, it helped, then I went to lie back again but he wouldn’t let me.
I frowned and that’s when I saw the gun in his hand.
“You need to snap out of it, babe,” he said tersely. Then in an act of pure impatience, he slapped me…hard.
I reacted to the sting of the slap like an ear unblocking after being waterlogged for a while, in other words, I snapped out of my shock.
I snapped out of it right into action. I struggled up, the knapsack still tightly held in my hand. I snapped and my ear opened, all this while, gun shots were sounding loudly around me and I heard them now.
Gabriel had ploughed us into a corridor off the sitting room, and when I stumbled backward in my haste to stand, my leg hit a dead weight. He steadied me, while I turned and saw the arrow imbedded body of one of Uto’s thugs.
My body jerked, my breath hitched, I was about to scream, and Gabriel obviously knew this because he slammed his large palm over my mouth; I had no choice but to swallow my scream. I have to say, swallowing a loud scream isn’t fun.
I hyperventilated, my eyes bulging out of their sockets as I stared at Gabriel, my terror was obvious.
“Babe, please, you need to get a hold of yourself,” he whispered urgently.
How was I supposed to do that with a bloodied dead body wedged against my Achilles heel? I continued hyperventilating; tears brimmed and fell from my eyes.
This made Gabriel look frustrated, I watched him even through the tears, breath deep and curb his issues, something I needed to emulate. Then he used his hand holding the gun to pull me into a hug, leaving his mouth close to my ear.
“Baby, I know you’re scared,” he began slowly, “I am too, but we need to help each other. Those things, the devil’s minions, they are here, and they are making quick work of Uto’s men, with arrows,” he added as an afterthought.
My eyes widened.
“I’m hoping this corridor leads to another door which will take us outside…”
My vehement nod interrupted him.
“Will you scream?”
No, I shook my head.
He slowly pulled his hand from my mouth; his eyes conveyed his concern for me. His hand slid to my cheek and cupped it tenderly, his eyes staring deeply into mine.
“We’ll be fine,” he encouraged and as unexpectedly as a fart that comes with a sudden laugh, he swooped down and kissed me; it was fast, hard and alluringly wet.
I could feel my brain rolling in my head. I hadn’t recovered from that, oh so lovely kiss when he dragged me by my wrist into the recess of Uto’s palace.
I have no idea how he found his way, but in a matter of minutes we were outside. I hefted the knapsack over a shoulder and was surprised to feel it suddenly being wrenched from behind.
I screamed without even knowing the danger, Gabriel turned, he forcefully pulled me to him and in consequence the fellow dragging my bag. I saw his arm swipe an arc over my head and I heard the loud blast of the gun.
I shouldn’t have looked but I did, Gabriel had shot the guy in the face; as in, right in the spot between the eyes at close range, and since he’d done it twice, the ridge of his nose was destroyed. He’d certainly need plastic surgery in the afterlife.
I gagged at the sight, Gabriel dragged me along, and we started running. The sound of the gun shot had ceased every other sound, and then the familiar sound of running footsteps emerged in the silence.
Gabriel had his key out and beeped the locks of his car, we separated and flew to our separate doors, wrenching them open and jumping in. The ignition fired up and just as he was about to jerk forward, the back glass shattered.
We both instinctively lowered our heads, Gabriel silently, I with a squeal. He tightened his jaw determinedly, looked back and reversed on speed, the distance was short when I heard and felt him hit bump and climb over it.
He had hit one of the minions I supposed, my eyes slid fearfully to study his profile, he was a different person entirely. I was seeing a warrior totally invested in protecting a future he believed in; he was scary at that moment.
“Seat belt, babe,” he directed curtly.
I did as I was told and realized why I needed a seatbelt in the second it took to engage it. Gabriel pressed down on his accelerator; the needle of the speedometer swayed drunkenly to 200; my stomach lurched anxiously.
Without flinching, I must have flinched for both of us, Gabriel rammed his car through the gate. The Fore Runner took off one side of the gate from its hinges and we were road bound again.
Story continues.