“Lux, Luxury,” I shout as she continues to run.
The assassin is here for me and not for her. I’m running at top speed and in the hardness of the night. There’s a glimmer of something shiny when the guy unzips his puffer jacket.
He watches Lux run, with disinterest for a second. Then his soulless eyes are on me. Less than a second later, his puffer jacket is off. A row of jagged knives is holstered at his chest. He snatches one out. With the flick of his wrist, the first knife comes zipping into my direction. Swoosh, the ultra-sharp knife soars past my ear. Then another misses me by a long shot. One pierces straight into my bicep. Adrenaline on high, I can’t feel anything. But at least four inches have dug into my bicep. I snatch it out, and it clanks to the floor.
Before he can take another knife from the holster, I hit the assassin with an uppercut. He goes spiraling backwards. His legs start shuffling backwards as he tries to right his feet and pull out a knife. We tussle. I hold his arm away from his body. Then we fall, I can see Luxury only a few yards away. Only a few seconds have passed.
She looks back and pauses. Concern for me? Her brain reacts, and she takes off.
With us interlocked arms, it’s hard for me to get the upper hand. It’s hard for the other assassin to get back to the beloved knives at his chest. With my weight, I bring him down. My hands grip his head and I bash it into the asphalt. One thud. Two. He’s dead.
It’s less than a minute when I catch up with Luxury.
~~~
–Now, we’re caught up to speed?
Whitson, Lux and I are sitting ducks. A sharp shooter begins to target the open living room.
Lux is wedged between the couch and I. My eyes lock onto Luxury’s, pull her in, and calm her troubled spirit. “Lux, right now I need you to be that cheeky, confident young woman I first met. No fear.”
She nods with a renewed sense of courage. Whitson crawls toward the front door, which offers less of a visual.
I won’t have Lux chance it. So, I command, “Stay.”
Lux doesn’t move. Maybe she’s processing the fact that the sniper is here for Doctor Whitson. She’s too afraid to move.
“Whitson, where’s your gun?” I ask.
“Right there, lodged in the side of my lazy boy,” he replies, holding the cut at his ear. I crawl over. Reach my hand into the side of the lazy boy. A Smith and Wesson handgun goes into my suit jacket.
On my hands and knees, I move around the various African artifacts, and to the window. With my back leaned against it, I grab a mirror from my inside pocket. Slowly, I lift the mirror to the large window above. Right outside, I try to quickly catch the sniper’s location before he catches the reflection of my hand mirror.
Bingo.
BLAP. Goes the sound of the Barrett M107.
Another .50 Caliber bursts through the window. With precision, the bullet would have taken my hand off, if I hadn’t quickly put the mirror down. I crawl exactly two feet to the left, lift up my gun and shoot. Then I crawl another four feet back in the opposite direction to have a safe place to look up and make sure the target is down. Through my hand mirror, I see the hit man’s body slumped over the side of the building.
Taking a deep sigh, I sit back.
Yes!
“Whitson, Lux,” I begin in a precise tone, “We need to leave.”
I’ve just murdered the sniper whose talents were comparable to my own. There will be more. After Whitson, or me who knows? But they will come. It’s silent as I push open the door to the loft. I do a quick entryway check. Father and daughter are huddled together just inside, when I say, “Let’s go.”
We get onto the elevator
Soon as we make it outside, a cop points his Beretta at me.
“Freeze!” a guy shouts in a shaky voice. With the uniform on, clearly he is a rookie cop.
Lux holds to me tighter. Whitson holds a notepad in his hands even tighter.
“Luxury Whitson, Doc, Detective Caruso sent me to keep you safe,” the cop says. The look in his eyes, says he’s been following for a while, but too afraid to step up.
“The hell of a job you’re doing!” Whitson snaps.
“Hey, I’m–”
My ears pique, “Shut the fuck up,” I tell the cop before he can finish his retort.
Another gun goes off. Luxury’s cries overpower the weapon, while Whitson clutches his chest and falls forward.
The cop’s shaky gun comes up toward me again. But I shot the assassin who is standing behind the cop and was getting ready to take him out too. Then I run to Lux as she falls to the floor, in this heart-wrenching sob for her father.
Fuck.
I’m not the hero after all.