Chapter 48

Judging by how light the backyard is, it’s early morning, maybe around dawn or just after dawn. Angelene’s fighting someone right in front of me but it doesn’t seem to register correctly in my sleep deprived brain. It’s not that my body won’t move or anything like that but rather seeing her shove her blade under someone’s ribs doesn’t make sense to me, like I don’t understand what any of that means. It’s like there’s a disconnect between what I’m seeing and my brain processing what I’m seeing. I’m so fucking tired. When she yanks her sword out of the man she’s just killed, she pushes his body towards me and it lands right in front of me with a thud, kicking up a cloud of dust. The dust flies toward my face, making me sneeze. My sneeze seems to wake me up and I realize there’s a dead man on the ground right in front of me.

Throwing my blanket off of me, I grab and fasten my shield to my left arm and grab my sword with my right. Right as I get to my feet, two more people rush into the yard we’re in from the rear buildings or walls. Angelene throws herself at one of them while I circle the other with my shield raised high, nearly covering my face, peeking at him from above the shield. Seeing me slowly encroaching into his range, he becomes more cautious and opts to watch me, waiting for an opening. I don’t give him anything and instead keep circling around him until his back is turned to his friend and Angelene fighting. I keep moving back and forth, left and right, never staying in the same place for more than a few seconds, keeping all his attention on me. When it’s time, I drop my guard and stand up straight, giving him a look of sympathy while slightly tilting my head at him. There’s a look of confusion on his face that’s instantly replaced by horrendous pain when Angelene stabs him through the heart from behind him. She puts her left foot on his back and nudges him forward while pulling out her blade, his body crumpling to the ground. “What would you have done if he turned around and went after me when his buddy was still alive?”

“Wasn’t worried about it. I was close enough to him that I could lunge from here and plunge my sword into him if he turned his back on me. Weren’t you saying last night how you didn’t get to do anything yesterday? I just thought I’d give you my guy as compensation.”

Seeing Angelene’s smirk, I know I guessed her personality well enough and she appreciated my little gift. “Alright, I’m not sure what’s happening either. I was sleeping when I heard that guy over there creeping up on me and woke up.” She gestures to the body next to where I was sleeping. “I’ll need to stay here to keep an eye on our rear. I want you to go check up on the girls and make sure they hide somewhere safe. Reed’s men would need to either get through here or past the front gate to reach them but three people were able to sneak up on us here already and I don’t know how or where they got through. After the girls are safe, I want you to get to Bertrand or Quinn and figure out how they got in and see if we can plug up the hole or if we need to barricade ourselves inside somewhere. Now get moving.”

My feet are already in motion before she finishes. I think I remember which building I saw the girls looking at me from yesterday and I head there first. The entire compound’s quiet but it doesn’t lessen the growing dread inside me. The girls are fine. Like Angelene said, Reed’s men need to get through either the front gate or the rear checkpoint to get to this central area. They’re fine. Besides, I promised Mary I’d read her a story tonight and the gods can’t be cruel enough to ruin that, right? As I’m running forward, a man with a black ponytail runs out of a building in front of me and frantically looks around with a sword in his hand. Who the fuck is that? When he sees me, he starts walking towards me with a bloodthirsty smile on his face. Right when I reach him, he tries to cleave me in two with a huge overhead swing but I sidestep it and end up on the other side of his lead foot, leaving him completely open. He starts to panic when he realizes he missed his swing but before he can get a chance to recover, I slam my shield into his face, edge first. He drops down to the ground, letting go of his sword during his fall. Bertrand taught me this type of shield bash. He said something about reducing air friction by doing it this way, making it faster but it’s harder to land accurately, less surface area or something like that. Nevertheless, while the man’s on the ground, clutching his broken nose with both hands, screaming obscenities at me, I stand over his head and bring the shield down on his face, over and over again. By the time I’m finished venting my frustrations, his face doesn’t resemble anything human anymore and the edge of my shield is covered in blood and flesh. Not good, if he’s here then the girls aren’t safe.

When I got to the building I saw them in yesterday, I heard them screaming inside and my heart dropped. Right as I reached the entrance, Mary came running outside screaming, with tears in her eyes. Right behind her is a man with orange hair and an orange beard trying to grab a hold of her. When she sees me, she runs towards me with the man chasing right behind her. “Mary get down!” Right when she reaches me, she ducks her head down and covers it with both hands. I immediately slash my sword where her head was a second ago and brutally cut open the man’s belly. He stumbles backwards a few steps before falling onto his back. He feebly tries to crawl away while trying to hold in his dangling innards but he doesn’t get far when I stick my blade through his neck. He exhales one final time and I check up on Mary. “Are you alright?” She nods. “Are you hurt?” She shakes her head. “Where’s Ilya?” She points back to the building with a trembling finger. It looks like she’s too frightened to speak right now but that’s alright. “Are there any more bad men inside?” She nods her head. “Alright, I want you to stay right behind me, okay?” Seeing her nodding her head, I step into the building with my weapons raised.

This is not an ideal situation. It’s unbelievably cramped inside this house and I can’t dodge like I normally do since Mary’s right beside me. But what else can I do? I can’t leave Mary by herself and I can’t bring her somewhere else while leaving Ilya here all by herself. The house is somewhat quiet since there’s no screaming from a little girl but I might prefer that over this still silence. What if… stop it, I can’t afford to have these thoughts right now. The first floor looks empty after I carefully cleared each room. But I can hear creaking upstairs. Someone’s walking up there and I don’t know if they know I’m here. Turning to look at Mary, I put a finger up to my lips and she hurriedly nodded her head, understanding me. I cautiously go up the stairs, trying to make my steps as light as possible but when I reach the last step, it creaks like no tomorrow and before I know it, someone tackled me from my blind spot, bringing both of us to the floor right next to the stairs.

He has my arms pinned down to my sides and I can’t get my sword up. But at the same time, he can’t do anything either because the moment either of my arms get free, he’s dead and he realizes this. To be honest with you friend, I don’t need a fucking sword to take care of you. Tilting my head back until the back of my head touches the wooden floor, I use that space I created as windup to bash my forehead straight into his nose. His head reels upwards from the pain but he doesn’t let me go. Alright, you’re a little tougher than I thought, I’ll give you that. To prevent that from happening again, he brings his head closer to mine, resting his chin on my right shoulder thinking he’s safe from any more headbutts. Ohh buddy, that was the wrong fucking move. I immediately bite down on his left ear, chomping into it as hard as I can but it’s too elastic for me to bite through and instead I violently wiggle my head from side to side, trying my best to tear his fucking ear off. His blood fills my mouth and the metallic taste excites me, making me bite down even harder. His screams are bloodcurdling especially since his head is right next to mine and it deafens my right ear for a moment but I’m not letting go. You let go first. His blood’s covering my face at this point but I can see Mary out of the corner of my eyes running towards us with a copper bedpan in her hands. She futilely brings it down on the man’s back a few times to no avail. But it’s the thought that counts. The man finally can’t take his ear being bitten off any longer and tries to get off of me but the moment he lets go of my sword arm, I sink the blade deep into his chest and he takes one last breath before falling back onto me. I finally let go of his ear and rolled his corpse off of me.

I sit up and prop up my arm on my knee to take a second to catch my breath and I can’t help it when I feel my lips stretching into a huge smile by themselves. That was fun. Looking over at Mary, she’s terrified and won’t even look at me. I don’t blame her, my face is covered in blood. “Sorry about the blood, I’m alright. Thanks for the help. Was this the only other bad guy you saw in here?” Seeing her nod her head, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Do you know where Ilya is? Can you find her for me?” She nods again and runs off to find Ilya. While she’s doing that, I take another look at the man who was just on top of me and his nearly torn off ear. You know, I’m not one to leave a job half finished. I lower my head down to his ear and bite onto it again, this time I manage to tear it off, separating it from the side of his head and I spit it back out onto his body. I use the back of his shirt to wipe off the blood on my face and I reminisce about my latest kill. Reliving the memory sends shivers down my spine at how close I came to dying and when I look at the body again, I see Kayman’s corpse instead. I’m not back in the tunnel but there’s a bald man next to me with a missing hand instead of a bald man with a missing ear. I look up when I hear Mary coming back holding onto a crying Ilya. Looking back at the body, it’s the man with the missing ear again. I think I’m getting better. At least I didn’t go back to the tunnel this time. I pat Ilya on her head to soothe her but when she sees how filthy my hands are, she gets mad instead and starts pouting. She’ll be alright. Mary still looks shooken up but I can tell she’s trying to be strong for Ilya. They’ll both be alright.

Once we’re ready, we head out the building and make our way toward the front enclosure. If we run into someone right now, I might be able to take him. But if we run into two or more, I’m not sure I’ll be able to protect both the girls at the same time. Luckily we didn't run into anyone else on our way to the front of the compound. But when we get to the front enclosure, it looks like a battlefield. The front gate is wide open and there’s people streaming into the compound every second. Bertrand and Wraine are doing their best to keep the intruders back but they’re losing ground quickly. Right as I’m about to head inside to help them, Quinn spear tackles another man from the side and they come to a skidding stop right in front of us. He quickly slits the man’s throat with his axes and gets back on his feet, storming his way towards us, yelling, “The fuck are you doing here with those two!?”

“There’s a gap in our defenses and Reed’s men have leaked into the center of the compound. Had to kill two to save the girls. What do we do now?”

There’s a look of exasperation on Quinn’s face as he yells, “Bertrand! Wraine! We’re falling back!”