“All
clear?” she murmured to herself, turning her head to look the other
way, then behind herself, then repeating the cycle again. As she
looked behind herself the second time, she jumped, barely containing
a scream of surprise, muffling it into a sharp squeal.
“Do
that a little louder next time, so they'll be sure to find us, Lia!”
he hissed.
“Maybe
you should stop sneaking up on me, Joaquin!” Lia retorted.
“I
didn't. I merely happened to come up behind you as you were looking
behind yourself,” Joaquin stated. “Seen any of the Bloodsuckers?”
“No.”
Lia nervously reached for one of the guns holstered on her small
waist. “It's like the quiet before the-”
A
loud shot rang out, followed by an agonized scream. A moment of
silence followed, then Joaquin looked at her. “You were saying?”
But
Lia was already preparing to move into the open street. “That
sounded like Keri,” she said, her teeth clenched. “If they've
killed her-”
Joaquin
grabbed her arm and pulled her back. A split second later, a bullet
whistled by where her head had been.
“Show
your faces, dirty Patriotics!” yelled the rough voice that Joaquin
and Lia recognized as one of the leaders of the Bloodsuckers.
“You
first, Bloodsucker!” Joaquin hollered back. “It's my turn to get
a bullet in your ugly face!”
He
turned to speak to Lia, but she had already pulled out her spikes.
“For once,” he said, “you're a step ahead of me.”
With
the speed of those who had done it many times before, they strapped
the spikes onto their wrists and knees and attached themselves to the
stone wall. Then they started hauling themselves up the wall with
speed and agility.
“Just
in time,” Joaquin grunted as bullets started hammering into the
alley.
“Maybe
we should wait to mouth off until we have the height advantage,
bigmouth,” Lia muttered.
“You're
not a guy,” Joaquin said, grinning. “Mouthing off is half the fun
of gang life.”
Lia
rolled her eyes. “Maybe the other half should be trying to stay
alive-and that's the half you should be focusing on right now.”
“Love
you too,” Joaquin said as they reached the top of the building and
rolled over the small ledge there.
“Save
it,” Lia said grimly, turning her wrist over so the spikes were
standing up. “Sentiments can wait.” She pressed a switch on the
side of the spikes and a bullet roared out, catching the Bloodsucker
crawling up the opposite wall in the throat. He let go and plummeted
to the ground, clutching his throat.
Simultaneously,
the pair grabbed the twin guns on each of their waists and started
shooting at the Bloodsuckers that were now pouring over the side of
the wall, giving them only a few chances to shoot back. Lia and
Joaquin, ducked, twisted, rolled and shot, going so fast that the
Bloodsuckers had a hard time aiming at them.
Finally,
they stopped coming over, and Lia and Joaquin were left standing in
the middle of a mass of bodies. Sweaty and exhausted, they smiled and
hugged each other, trying to catch their breaths. Then they froze as
someone spoke.
“Sentiments
can wait, huh? 'Til we've slaughtered all the bad guys? Huh, maybe we
should try that, Vesta.”
“Wildcats,”
Joaquin muttered. “Could've known they would try to spoil the
party.”
The
pair turned to face the two sole Wildcats, Vesta and her twin brother
Dax, notorious for breaking into the fights between other gangs and
escaping almost unnoticed. Everyone else in their sector of the city
was dead-they were the only survivors (hence the name Wildcats).
“Too
late, chums,” Joaquin said, folding his arms, a wry grin on his
face. “You missed this little party.”
“Only
most of it,” Vesta said, nodding in the direction of the opposite
wall. “Look who sacrificially let everyone go before him.”
Lia
and Joaquin turned back around and saw the Bloodsucker leader who had
spoken to them on street level. He was huge-almost two meters tall
and packed with muscles. Two large guns were slung across his back,
and two smaller ones were holstered on his hips. Only a vest covered
his broad chest, across which were folded two hefty arms.
“Hey.
You can have him-our treat,” Joaquin said over his shoulder to Dax
and Vesta.
“We're
tempted,” Vesta said, “but we really shouldn't.”
She
and Dax grinned at each other, turned, and swung grappling hooks over
the ledge of the next building, swinging away with whoops and cheers.
“Well,”
said Joaquin in a low tone. “We're toast.”
Wyndmere
was once a beautiful, bustling tourist resort. Until the US
government randomly-or maybe not so randomly-decided to perform
highly questionable nuclear tests here. Now it's dark and gray-the
sky is always cloudy, the buildings have no hint of beautiful
color-it's just all...gray.
I've
never seen the sun. Mom said it was beautiful-bright and yellow,
shining down, giving us life, giving us hope. Now it can't even
penetrate the cloud cover and even Mom is starting to forget what it
looks like. Of course, the experiments she was subjected to as a
child are finally starting to affect her brain. We have to keep her
in a deep basement under constant supervision 'cause we can't risk
her coming up and getting killed by the gangs that have become our
way of life in Wyndmere. Even if she survived, she would kill us
for getting swept into it. Like we could help it.
She's
the last of the parents, and lucky to have survived so long. Every
other parent, now dead, was subjected to experiments when they were
younger. They all died around the age of 40-except
for Mom. Something inside kept her alive longer-I don't know what it
is. One of the main
reasons Joaquin and I joined our sector gang was to explore the city
to see if we could possibly find a cure. We haven't had any luck so
far-but we're hoping to before she fades, which she is-and faster
than we would want.
Please
join me as I chronicle our adventures.
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