Damn it, boiocozzoboingiado! That's jaguar in Katembri!
There isn't any time at all for me to sink in my illiteracy. The Bloodhounds all draw their weapons. One, two, three and a lot more jaguars (and rifles) emerge from the jungle's unassuming greenery as well as our mercenaries' holsters respectively.
My eardrums positively shatter from the sounds of bullets racing by from everywhere. I look to my left to see Nienke and Alex gunning down a jaguar from a few metres away. Blood sprays from its bullet wounds as it falls.
To my right, Kelli peeks from behind a rubber tree and takes shots. Her laser-focused face, her eyes darting around for threats, her shooting stance...
Not far from her's a poor fellow Bloodhound. Their abdomen's been pierced by the spotted beasts whose carcasses lay lifeless to the side, but they're still breathing. Oh no...
...where's Eliza?
I'm struck by a massive weight to my chest. My back hits the ground with a thud. The air in my lungs escapes me and I'm forced to breathe in a deep, raspy gasp of air. In front of my face, claws on my shoulder, is unmistakably a jaguar.
>>
Fucking fuck shit! There's too many of them! We only have so much ammunition and it feels like these fuckwit jags never run out! They even managed to get one of us.
"Rivera's down!" I call out at the sight of her. A pool of blood forms under her stomach as she's sprawled on the ground; the jaguar that attacked her's long gone, its head shot to shreds.
I see an opening. A clearing. No jags around, so I run to her.
"You okay, Rivera?"
She coughs out droplets of blood. "Shit, Kelli..." I tear away the part of her uniform covering her wound and lay down a first-aid kit. I take out some bandages, gauze pads and I use the cloth as a makeshift tourniquet. I perform the procedure of wrapping the bandage around her body to stop the blood loss after tying the tourniquet tight.
Shit, the wound's too deep. I can see the... is that...? Fuck, fuck...
I fidget around racking my brain for a solution, but I just... can't. The area's still full of gunfire and that's not helping one fucking bit.
Rivera reaches weakly for my shoulder.
"Kel-Kelli..."
"Hey, hey!" I slap her face lightly. "You're gonna be fine, just—"
Her eyes lock into mine. At that moment I knew she was a goner. She knew it too. "My daughters..."
I shout at her to keep her consciousness, but it's no use. Her eyes roll back as her last breath escapes her mouth. With no time to mourn, I grab her gun and some spare magazines to make sure her loss isn't in fucking vain.
A bloodthirsty jaguar sprints towards me with long and wide strides. Rivera's FN Five-seveN penetrates its skull with hardly any resistance. The rest of its muppet friends are up next.
>>
The shock wears off and I find myself in an uphill battle against a jaguar with 50 odd kilograms of pure muscle. It stabs my left shoulder. I manage to extend my right arm just long enough to reach my knife and I stab the right side of its chest in return. The jaguar roars and covers my face in saliva, giving me a hard time seeing out of one of my eyes. I pull on the knife but it doesn't come out.
Oh, my pistol!
I reach for the H&K on my waist and draw the gun to its neck. I pull on the trigger. Out comes a resonating bang. The jaguar drops down to my side staining my face with even more muck. I'm shaking like mad I can hardly put my pistol back.
I wipe off the blood with my sleeve before I'm rudely brought to my senses by the wound on my left shoulder. "Ow." No more gunshots can be heard, so I can safely assume they've all been dealt with. One less thing to worry about.
Eliza bolts to my side and immediately gets into a fluster. "Och no. No no no. Ye hurt, Eve?"
Kelli comes along with a first-aid kit already open and tends to my wound.
"It's not that bad, mate. Didn't seem to have nicked an artery." She takes out some alcohol swabs. "This is gonna hurt a bit, Yvette." I nod it off.
The Bloodhounds including Neto regroup near a tree close to our pack. None of them appear injured to any significant degree. Only scratches from what I can see.
That's until I spot a dead body.
"Her name was Rivera," says Kelli solemnly.
"Oh. Um, sorry to hear that..."
"Wasn't your fault mate." She finishes up the bandaging. I move my arm about and it still hurts, but the blood's staying in my body better. "Fuck, she always phoned her kids."
I-I don't know what to reply. Best I don't. Eliza and Alex kiss their crosses and say a short prayer. Even the more hardened-looking Bloodhounds bow their heads.
"On your feet, everyone! No time to waste!"
The Bloodhounds all line up in formation again and trudge towards the entrance. Eliza stares a hole with the wrath of God into Neto, who doesn't look at all affected by this business.
"Fuckin' prick. Doesnae even pretend to care. A woman just fuckin' died and he's actin' like it's barely any shit on his shoe."
"They're just pawns to him, Eliza. Nothing more, nothing less. Besides, um, no offense or anything, but didn't you not like these Bloodhounds in the first place anyway?"
She glares at me. I knew I said something wrong.
"Some of these lot may be arseholes, off their head and all that. But they're people too."
When she said that, I couldn't help but realise she was looking at Alex and Nienke.
YOU ARE READING
Ice: The Immortality Trinket
Adventure"Cheers, mate," I thank the man in front of me as I receive a kebab in return. I begin walking off to find a spot to sit at in dear old London. Always rainin', always depressin' with you. I set my eyes on a seedy bench near a dark alley. Definitely...
