Arctic Rising

28

The suits spread out, two of them turning to cover the door they’d just walked in. They had their hands in their jackets—resting on guns, no doubt.

Anika stood up, mouth open in shock. “Vy? What have you done?”

Vy smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, Anika, it’s complicated right now.”

Who was Vy? Anika had wondered. She still didn’t know, but she was certainly not necessarily a friend. She’d sold Anika out. Handed her back over to Gabriel.

Anika looked around the room, but Gabriel shook his head and pulled a handgun out from a shoulder holster. “Don’t try to run, Anika. I would have to shoot you. Which is not what I want. Understand me?”

“Yes.” Anika glared at Vy, who didn’t seem affected by this at all. “Who are you?”

Vy looked down. “Gabriel won’t hurt you. He just needs to take you somewhere where you won’t get hurt.”

“He is a liar, I would not trust a word of his,” Anika said. “We know for a fact he no longer works for the Canadians. He’s not an official of any sort.”

Vy raised an eyebrow, but did not look all that surprised. “Working more than one side, Gabriel?”

Gabriel squinted. “Don’t try to muddle your way into all this. Let’s just get this done.”

Vy raised her hand. “Now, please…” she said, almost in a bored tone of voice.

The two bouncers, hairy chests and zipped masks and all, stepped inside from their posts outside. They had disabled the two men who were watching them. And they were now carrying very large assault rifles. “Hands up gentlemen.”

Hands, however, did not go up. The men in suits split, the ones on the edges of the group diving for cover and pulling guns out from under their jackets. Not for even a second did they consider disarming.

The two club guards opened fire after a second of hesitation, surprised at the reaction.

The three nearest suits fired at the same instant as the guards. Blood exploded out the backs of the gray material with the loud crack of the rifles, and at the same time, the pop of handguns dropped the two guards. Blood sprayed from their bare chests as they stumbled back against the doors and fell.

Vy and Gabriel hit the floor.

One of the suits worked his way around behind a booth, gun out, to make sure Anika wouldn’t run. She turned and glared at him. He kept his distance, though, cautious.

In the silence that had settled over the dance floor, the very distinct sound of a shotgun round being chambered echoed.

Gabriel, now getting to his knees, frowned.

None of his men carried shotguns.

Tempo, the blonde, shoved the kitchen doors open, forcing one of the suits out in front of her at the end of the shotgun. Behind her came Alicia, armed with a submachine gun.

She turned right, focusing on another suit standing beside the door. Anika noticed that she had a half-crouch walk and the submachine gun pulled tightly to her shoulder.

These performers had been trained to handle their respective weapons.

“Throw down your fucking weapons,” Alicia shouted. “There are more of us, we’re well fucking armed.”

The two men held their weapons out, handle-first, and started to get to the floor.

But the three men using the booths for cover opened fire.

Tempo jerked, hit, and the shotgun went off. Point blank. Blood and flesh sprayed across the floor. The second round of the shotgun hit the ceiling as she fell.

Shards of glass from the mirrored tile shattered and fell, and Alicia fired a burst into the man by her and dove at Gabriel, who held Vy down with a gun to her head.

Smooth hands grabbed Anika and shoved a gun against her temple. “We’re just going to sit here for a moment, and if you move, you’ll die,” her captor said.

Anika was not going to sit passively. She elbowed the man behind her and grabbed his gun hand, shoving it up into the air.

Right by her head, the shot sounded impossibly loud, instead of the pops she’d heard when they first started firing.

Bits of ceiling fell down and shattered on the floor around them.

Anika managed to twist her other arm up, and now held on to the man’s gun hand desperately with both hands.

He grabbed her head with his free hand and smacked it into the booth’s table. Her vision narrowed, but she hung on to the gun. Her sore muscles and bruised ribs protested as they scrabbled around the cushions of the booth. The gun fired twice again into the air.

He managed to get her up against the back of the booth and shoved his forearm underneath her throat to choke her.

Then a loud smack staggered him. He let go of her and slumped over.

Kerrie stood over him with a baseball bat, blood smearing the end of it. She grabbed the gun.

Anika shoved the man off her, and he slid down under the booth’s table.

She took a deep breath and looked around. Alicia sat on the floor, submachine gun hanging by a strap on her shoulder, crying as she held Tempo on her lap.

A couple of the suits crawled in their own pools of blood, lost in a haze of personal pain, trying to get … somewhere.

Two of the performers sat on chairs holding dish towels to wounds.

And Vy had Gabriel standing up, holding his own gun to his head. Her hand shook slightly as she also scanned the room, and then spotted Anika.

She looked relieved.