Roses & Ruin

Chapter 56 (God's eye view)

         Lexi stood behind the alcove wall waiting for the guardsmen to come around its corner. She remembered what her brother said, "Breathe out." And so she did. She felt it. Their looming presence. She could even see their shadows like ghouls closing in on her. 

But something stopped the men from coming around the corner. Outside, Dom had just heard one of the men say that they'd go balls deep in Mia while they shot him in his stupid face. Dom lost all sense of self and charged through the door.

        Behind Anthony's back were Enzo and Andrei running into the front yard when the gate opened and they slipped through. "Check the guards. We're meant to have nine" Enzo shouted to Andrei and they split up.

Enzo rushed to the right. When he came around the corner he immediately saw two of his guardsmen laid out on the ground. He checked their breathing. It was shallow but there. No blood, he noted. How'd they go down? What'd Pepper do to them?

        Andrei rounded the left hand side of the one story home and saw two idiot guards passed out on the ground. He nudged one with his foot, but held little interest in them. Instead he moved past them. He breached the backyard and saw more guards knocked out on the ground. Or dead. He didn't care.

He quickly did the math in his head. They'd be paired in twos except for the monitor guy. That's who Andrei wanted to spot and he did. When bullets started popping off from somewhere inside the house the 9th of the guardsmen cowered behind a flower bush.

Andrei spotted him and ran when he saw the man's eyes go wide and reach for a gun, possibly. He didn't wait around to find out. But Andrei realized the man wasn't looking at him, he was looking towards the right of the house. The hidden man had spotted Enzo, not him. 

That's all he needed to know. Stealthily he rounded behind the 9th man, and as the man went to let a shot off at unsuspecting Enzo, Andrei lifted the butt of his gun and CRACKed it into his skull. The man toppled forward.

        Enzo watched Andrei drag a man out from behind a bush. The man's skull was bleeding, but he still looked alive. Enzo realized that that was Andrei's intention. He wanted to catch a live one. 

Before Enzo could go to help Anthony and Dom, he saw Andrei pull a single flower from the flower bush the guard had been hiding behind, and like a madman he tucked the flower behind the guardsmen's ear.

"I'm not doing all the work here. I caught mine. Go get yours" Andrei waved Enzo away.

        Inside the house, inside that bin, all Mia could hear was guns going off. Voices shouting. There was a buzzing so sharp in her ears she almost couldn't hear anything at all. She felt perspiration bead up at the back of her neck. Her long strands of brunette hair clung to it. 

It was so hot inside that laundry bin. She felt suffocated inside there. Her heart was beating so fast she felt like she couldn't breathe, and then she did stop breathing when she heard Dom.

He practically growled, but still she knew it was him. She heard all these sounds like a wild animal and shouts from someone else. She heard Anthony's voice in the distance shouting, "LEXI RUN!" And more gunfire. "LEXI." 

        Mia squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to a God she doesn't believe in. "Please let everyone I care for be the one to walk out of this alive. Protect Dom, Lexi, and Anthony. Please." She thought. Mia wasn't thinking about her own safety at that moment. Lexi had set her up to hide, to keep safe, and she felt guilty now. Why should she be safe over anyone else? People are fighting for their lives out there and Mia was hiding.