✦︎✦︎✦︎ —— A volley of bullets rattled from behind the corner where Howard was taking shelter. He flinched, mostly out of human nature to duck when fired upon, chipping concrete blocks spraying onto him. He could hear the bullets ricocheting off of the nearby car and knew he was cornered with no way out.
Sometimes, even with teeth this sharp, you're bound to bite something too big that you can't gnash nor swallow whole. This was exactly that something for Howard Pike, who was told to wait for a contact for a considerable sum of non-sequential stack of one hundred dollar bills in a black Chevrolet Vega. Fresh off the boat (literally), he knew nothing about the vast, interconnected, high-octane, high-velocity gang rivalry in the United States; and to be caught up in a cross-fire between them would mean a death sentence.
If he was alive, at least.
"Sssssssshit," he cursed, turning his wrist to look at the time. Half past eleven. Dead watch, he forgot. He decided to break a window with his bare hands, slipped into it, and just as he managed to get through, another volley of shots rained down from behind him.
He started on his feet, suit, tie, oxfords and all, across the marbled floor. If he couldn't find a back door to escape from in this office, he'd make one, so help him god. A fire exit appeared at the end of the maze of partitions and office desks. He braced for a shoulder-charge when the handles didn't yield, stumbled out on the other side of the door and ran.
Dusk had just settled, shades of navy and blue against the backdrop of the city's yellow streetlights. Howard ran, and ran. Car wheels skidded and screeched in the distance; they saw him. He veered into an alleyway, hopped over several fences, further, deeper into the stomach of the city.
He pressed himself against a wall. Sweating, blood (uh oh) leaking out from his spleen, and a whole load of gasping for air. What a scene to behold, under the thin hem of the street lamp around the corner.
Howard could hear the two Ford Falcons groaning around the area, looking for him. As he was training his ears to the noise, trying to discern their location, he was jumped by the creaking open of a door.
"Oh--- fuck--. You made me jump out of my skin, mate," Howard groaned, holding his chest in his hand. A funny concept, spooking a vampire. Old habits die hard. "Get back inside, mate, someone's aching for some fun out there."
"Get back inside," he repeated sternly.