@ofovtlaws. // Bad deal. Abort. Abort. He shouldn’t even be here.
Gunfire. Two shots in succession. A bullet smashes into the headstone he’d just passed, another one whizzes by his ear. Cemetery seemed like a good place to hide, right? Wrong. No respect for the dead. This is bad—and of course he’s out of fucking bullets. A mausoleum gives him coverage, but it’d only be a brief respite. Another shot. His shoulder goes numb as he’s pitched forward, boots hissing against the asphalt. One hand braces him from falling. He’s done for if he doesn’t get up; get his ass back in gear. Like a racer at a starting line, he takes off again, gritting his teeth against the heavy throb in his shoulder, the blood he can feel soaking into his shirt. Elias darts behind another crypt, his chest hammering. There’s enough coverage up ahead that he can potentially lose the two Cobra on his tail before the moon hotel came into view. Perhaps he can lay low there until everything goes quiet.
There’s a second mausoleum behind the first. He can hear them yelling, wondering where he went. Elias edges against the side of the structure until he finds the door. Not enough time, not enough time. Their muffled words are getting closer and closer. He runs into the center of the room and slides the covering off one of the coffins, jumps in and tries to block out the thought that there’s someone else there with him. It’s a new kind of darkness that comes when the top slides back into place. He can’t even see himself.
It’s there, with Elias’ hands on some guy’s crumbling sternum, his blood dripping out from the hole in his jacket, his chest wracked with shivers, and his heartbeat bouncing back at him off eight walls, that he realizes the door is far from slammed. ❝ Fuck. ❞ Thankfully nothing happens and after half an hour, Elias pops out of the mausoleum to silence. He’s bleeding. Perfect. He leaves the cemetery and starts walking - direction nowhere. ❝ Come on Elias, don’t be such a pussy. ❞ He mumbles to himself, digging two fingers into the hole on his shoulder to find the bullet but nothing.
When he sees a car coming his way, he waves at it. Maybe he’ll get lucky and it won’t be some Cobra piece of shit. It’s a girl. A pretty one at that. Focus. He needs to get to Celia or Ryan. ❝ Hey, need a ride - you mind? ❞
Fingers trembled against the steering wheel, knuckles turned white from the pressure applied on it. She held onto it for dear life, praying to a God she wasn’t even sure she believed in that she’d beat the pressure and get to the Snake Eye Casino all in one piece. It’d be at least ironic if she lost a limb because she was incapable of driving straight, when there were dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people heavily injured or worse only a few miles away.
She’d told him; warned him; begged him even, to stay away from the Casino. This year wasn’t like the others. Sylvia knew how rapidly things were changing ever since Balthazar Caito was executed. War brew inevitably between the gangs. The Savages of course had to pick the one day when every criminal and every innocent gathered together, to return the favor. She was so sick of it all: She was sick of her baby brother never listening to her, she was sick of the blackmailing to her family and, most of all, the violence that made innocent people suffer. Possibly the worst part of it all, was that she wasn’t even there to help when it happened. If she drove fast enough, maybe there were still people in need of medical help.
So she did. She hit the gas petal harder than ever, yet traffic wouldn’t let her move more than a few feet. Ambulances drove by and people tried to get to their loved ones. “Shit,” she swore. The second an opportunity showed up, she took a turn and drove past the empty Cemetery in hopes of getting to the casino without any more interruptions.
A figure signed for her to pull over. Sylvia, who spotted the injured shoulder from afar, stopped the car at the side of the road. However, the second the man showed his face, the logical side of hers demanded she drove off---and preferably hit him with her Audi in the process. She knew the stranger’s features because she’d been warned against him by the Cobras: The Butcher. The medic greeted her teeth as she looked him in the eye without sayin a word. Her heels hovered over the petals. An inch away, and she’d be in a safe distance.
Except he wouldn’t be, because she’d be leaving him injured and pale from the blood loss. In the midst of the agony to get where she needed to go, her despair at the mere thought of letting the fucking Butcher into her car and her dignity, the former won. Because, at the end of the day, she took an oath to help absolutely any and every patient in need. I hate myself, she thought.
Her foot switched from the gas petal to the break. She hit it, stopping the car that’d began sliding forward slightly. However, she didn’t unlock the door to her car just yet. “You don’t want to go where I’m going,” she told him plainly. “But I can help with your shoulder.”
