I instinctively dropped to the ground and let out a scream, as did a number of other people around me, Ace being included.
And then I heard another shot.
I screamed out, again, and threw my hands up by the sides of my head.
Nearly everyone else around me was screaming in terror.
"Shit!" I could barely hear Ace yell out, by my side. Soon after that, I felt a hand gently touch my back and his voice continue to yell more toward my left ear. "We gotta go!"
The hand on my back then migrated upward, grabbed my left upper arm, and jerked my entire body up, forcing me to stand. I then dizzily snapped my head over to Ace and opened my mouth, even though I couldn't possibly begin to formulate any words in that moment.
" 'Nesia, come on!" he shouted, looking back at me and tugging on my arm.
Suddenly, another shot exploded.
However, this time I did not scream out and, instead, lunged forward to get beside Ace.
"Good job," I could faintly hear him mutter.
He then placed one hand on my back and the other back on my left upper arm, making him now stand on the side where I had heard the bullets from. He quickly pushed me forward, and I complied, the both of us beginning to run away from the ice cream stand. He kept his hands on me and his body hovering over and to the side of mine as we did so, as well.
More gunshots rang out, but, this time, they were shot in a set of three, making them sound as if they were coming from a machine-like gun, which was completely different from the previous ones. I screeched out once again when I heard these ones, but I continued to sprint alongside Ace as I did so.
My heart was beating way out of control, and my lungs were way out of air. And, after about the first fifteen long strides on the sidewalk, my feet began to stumble a bit.
And that's when I heard another quick set of shots, which is also the exact moment when I stumbled a bit too much and fell onto the hard ground with my entire right arm smashed against the concrete.
I kept myself still a second, my head now pounding. After that second, though, I pushed my other arm, which was now detached from Ace's grasp, under my body and lifted my head slowly upward.
"You okay?" Ace yelled at me, still having the need to overpower the screams of other people, wherever they were at this point.
He then stepped in front of me and hastily crouched down to grab at my left arm, once again.
"Come on, 'Nesia..." he more mumbled this time than anything.
He next re-found his grasp on my back and under my arm, and then gently heaved my aching body up to stand. After that, he basically had to carry me as he ran off again. He didn't have to haul me far, though, because he soon found an alleyway between a few empty stores on our right that he could throw us into.
"Okay..." Ace muttered as soon as we had both swung around the corner of the closest store. He then gradually released his hold on me as we walked into the empty alley.
"Now..." he continued to mumble as he completely let go of me and stepped farther away.
I, too, walked, but I kept myself at a much slower pace than him in order to catch my breath. I looked around and saw nothing but two long brick walls on either side of us, which were connected by another shorter wall about thirty yards in front of me. I also noted that there were no dumpsters or fire escape staircases anywhere in sight, which was very much the opposite of what I'd expect from a slightly sketchy alleyway.
"Here!" Ace shouted, now running over to a side door at the end of the right brick wall. Shouting was not so much a necessity at this point, though, since most of the screams outside of the alley had slowed to a stop or had become distanced farther away.
I watched him as he made his way to the door, and then decided to pick up my pace and catch up with him. After he had approached the door, however, his attempt to open it proved unsuccessful. I then stopped by his side as he began to look it over.
He cocked his head to the side.
"Okay," he simply stated. Immediately after his statement, though, he abruptly threw his foot upward and slammed it into the bottom of the large, metal-framed door.
My body jerked back a little at the sight of his action.
"Ugh," he spat out, throwing another kick.
The door had caved inward a tiny amount but was still far from breaking.
"God..." he shouted out at the same time as another one of his blows to it.
"Damn..." he yelled, again in-sync with his next throw. "It!"
He finished with another powerful kick.
The door remained, for the most part, intact.
Ace then took a deep breath and studied the door, again.
"Ugh!" he suddenly yelled out once more. As he screamed out with frustration, though, he threw his body back, and then slammed all of himself into the door, instead of just using a kick.
I stood back and watched as he stumbled through the now opened doorway. He soon regained his balance and turned back to me.
"Come on," he said, holding his hands out to me.
Boom.
Suddenly, another gunshot.
I immediately jumped forward and practically crashed into his arms.
"Okay," Ace muttered out, afterward reaching forward with one hand to close the door in front of us. His other arm remained preoccupied with wrapping itself around my back.
Once the door was shut, a complete darkness and silence fell around the two of us.
I took a deep, shaky breath, and then slowly eased out of his grasp.
"Wha... What's going on... ou... out there?" I forced out.
I looked around slightly, but my eyes couldn't pick up anything out of the blackness surrounding me, so I eventually decided to tightly cross my arms in front of my body and stand still.
"I don't know," Ace started to answer.
I could hear his feet shuffle around me as he went on.
"It's just Chicago."
I remained unmoved by his response and began to focus on keeping at least a few steady breaths under my belt.
After a few seconds, a dim light flickered on by my right side. I looked over at it and realized it was coming from a small cell phone in Ace's hands.
"Nice," I whispered.
"I've only got five percent," he commented, now shining the flashlight from the back of the phone in my face. "So let's find a real light."
I squinted at the bright ray that was shoved in my eyes.
"Shine that thing somewhere else," I said, reaching out to push it away.
Ace complied and shone it over the rest of the room in a quick scanning motion. We both contently observed a mess of metal racks and stacked boxes scattered everywhere. There were also a number of foreign objects thrown all over, even though I had a strong guess that most of them were just different types of car repairing tools and parts. The room itself was also not very large, or at least it didn't seem so with the mess of car merchandise everywhere.
"Light's over there," I declared as I stared at a light switch next to another door on the far side of the room.
"Okay," Ace said, now returning the light to in front of himself and stepping over a box on the floor next to my side.
Once he had passed by me, I turned myself around and started to follow his trail around to the other side of the room.
"So, on a scale of one to ten, how great has this day been for you?" Ace asked while the both of us tromped through a large crowd of boxes.
"Well, you know..." I had to pause a moment to push a big empty box out of my way. "I think it's probably been just about the most excitement I've had in my whole life... Then again, how would I know that?"
My voice then trailed off as my feet trailed on, so Ace finished my reply for me.
"So... thirty-three, right?"
He finally had the chance to step over to the light switch, so I stopped a few feet away from him.
"Sure," I responded.
Ace then leaned over another pile of filled boxes and reached out for the switch, but before he could flip the lights on, I felt a bulky, sweaty hand suddenly grab my mouth from behind my back.
I instantly threw my hands up and let out a loud, muffled scream.
At the same time, a bright overhead light in the small room flashed on.
I looked over at Ace to see him return his hand from the light switch and whip himself around.
"Hey!" he shouted out, dropping his phone and practically leaping over to me.
I screamed out again and began to grab at the hairy arm wrapped around my left shoulder.
"Let her go!" Ace yelled, now close enough to also grasp the arm that held me.
"Let her go!" he repeated, now throwing his free hand back in a clenched fist.
He froze when I heard a familiar clicking sound by my right ear, as did I.
"I'd take a step back if I were you..." a deep, masculine voice with a thick, Russian accent spoke from behind me. Or, at least, I think it was Russian.
Ace lowered both his eyebrows and his fist slowly.
"Go on," the man's voice growled beside my ear.
Ace cautiously obeyed and stepped back with only one foot.
"Miguel!" the man then shouted out, his boisterous voice making my muscles jump a little under his clutch.
I then heard the hard rustle of boxes from far behind where I was placed.
"Eh?" a similarly-accented voice spoke out.
"Por qué están ahí?" the man holding me angrily mumbled in an unfamiliar language, although it was a language that I had a strong feeling wasn't Russian.
"Por qué pensarías que yo sé algo al respecto?" the other man, presumably Miguel, grumbled out.
The man keeping me captive and still let out a sound of frustration before Miguel decided to continue.
"Qué quieres hacer con ellos?"
I attempted to take a deep breath from underneath the hand smeared over my mouth and glanced up at Ace, who was intently looking between each of the two men in the room.
"We don't want any trouble, okay?" he abruptly piped up. "Really."
"Then tell us what you know," Miguel shot out.
"What do you want to know?" Ace questioned.
"What you know!" the same man yelled back.
Ace seemed taken aback for a second.
"We don't know anything," he eventually replied.
"Certain about that?" my captor chimed in.
Soon after, I felt a cold, round surface gently nuzzle against the side of my head, but I didn't want to think I knew what it was.
I began to breathe more heavily and looked back toward Ace, who looked much more tense at this point in time.
"Tell us..." the man holding me breathed out by my ear. "Why you're here."
My eyes began to water as Ace took a deep breath.
"We were out for ice cream," he calmly began to respond. "And then there was just... a... bomb, or something," he stumbled on his last few words.
"Bomb?" the other man, Miguel, suddenly stepped into my view and began to approach Ace. "You know about a bomb?"
His voice was uncomfortably tense and he looked a lot smaller than he had sounded. We can say he's not exactly what I had expected to see.
"I mean a shooting," Ace quickly corrected.
"La bomba no debería de estar ahí aun!" my holder shouted out.
"I know!" Miguel turned around to spit back. He then twisted back around and took another step toward Ace, making the two of them nearly inches apart by this point. "Tell us what you know about the bomb!"
"There's a bomb?" Ace innocently asked, himself now taking half of a step backward.
"Don't act like you don't know," Miguel shot back.
Ace squinted at him a moment, and then gazed over at me and my situation for a shorter moment.
"Tell us!" Miguel continued. "Talk!"
He then abruptly reached out to push Ace down, or something of the sort, but before he could, Ace swung at him with a large red, pipe-like object.
Without a sound, the man was struck in the head, forcefully, and his body swiftly tumbled to the hard, cement ground. Ace watched him fall down only for a second, and then switched his attention over to where I stood.
" 'Ey!" the one holding me captive yelled out.
His grip suddenly lightened up a small amount, and I took the change as an opportunity to begin to at least attempt to wiggle my way out of his grasp. After only a second or two of struggle, though, I caught a glimpse of Ace throwing the red pipe my way.
I instinctively closed my eyes and flinched.
However, I soon realized the hard, strong object had hit my captor somewhere in the head area, on account of his immediate collapse and simultaneous release of me.
I slowly opened my eyes to the newly quieted environment.
"Whew," Ace whispered, stepping over to the last fallen man by my feet.
I turned around and watched him bend over to retrieve the gun that had been thrown on the floor.
"Wh... What's going on?" I nearly screamed out in distress.
Ace stood back up and looked over his new weapon.
"I don't really know," he calmly replied.
I studied the unconscious man on the ground near my feet a moment, observing his large, round belly, hairy, dark arms and sweaty, dirtied white tank top. Oh, and I also took notice in his deep, bleeding head wound.
"Are you okay?" Ace asked, immediately drawing my attention back to him.
I looked over his concerned expression a long time before giving a simple answer.
"Yeah."
I then quickly turned my head away and loosened my shoulders in an attempt to look as if I were actually fine.
Ace paused.
"Well," he eventually picked up, again. "We really need to get away from here."
I twisted myself back to face him, but when I realized his back was toward me, I took the chance to wipe the subtle tears away from under my eyes. Once I had finished that task, I saw him begin to walk toward the door next to the light switch on the near wall.
I took a deep breath, and then followed after him.
"I'm going to go check it out; you stay here," he said to me as soon as I reached his side by the door.
"Okay," I, for some reason, whispered.
Without another word, Ace quietly clicked the door knob into its open position, cracked the door about a foot or two outward, and then slid out. He pushed the crack back a few inches after he had pushed his way through, but I could still see a bit through it.
I watched through the small slit of doorway as Ace waved his pistol back and forth in odd, but slick, motions. I then faded my gaze from him a little and noticed the large room that he was currently in was nearly dark, receiving only small increments of light from the windows at the very far wall. There were also numerous shelves and tables set up all over the area, each stocked with metal mechanical parts, which were unsurprisingly similar to the ones I had seen in the storage-like room that I was still in.
Ace next turned back around, snatching my attention back.
"Okay," he said, basically spitting through the door crack as he did so.
I didn't respond but placed my hands both on the door handle and doorframe once he had twisted back around. I then glanced over at the two, unconscious guys sprawled out on the cement floor to the right and shuddered a small amount at the sight of the one's continuous bleeding.
"Well, it's..." I inaudibly whispered, my head facing the direction of the men but my eyes averting to the floor beside them. "It's been... fun... but..." I looked back at the two for a spilt second. "Bye."
I then immediately turned back toward the door and pushed my way through it, also unintentionally stumbling into Ace in the process.
"Oh, God, sorry," I muttered.
He nearly jumped a foot forward.
"Damn, 'Nesia," he shot out.
"I'm—" I began to reiterate my apology, but Ace quickly cut my 'sorrys' short.
"Sh... just be quiet and follow me."
He then took a few steps forward and around the nearest table.
"Oh... o-kay..." I half-stuttered, half-whispered in response.
I began to make my own footsteps behind him. I kept my eyes on him, then, as he cautiously swung his gun left and right in observance of the area, even though part of me felt like he was over-exaggerating his motions just to seem cool. Then again, I should have just assumed that his over-emphases were normal for him; I mean, this probably wasn't his first rodeo.
"Okay, we're just going to go back to the car," Ace kind of whispered as he stopped to stand by a cash register near the front of the room.
I looked the register over, and then gazed at the closest window to us. Although shaded with slightly cracked blinds, I could see an empty sidewalk through the glass.
"I think it's safe out, now," Ace went on, now pacing toward the windowless door by the window that I was searching.
"Are you... sure?" I questioned, not stepping away from the cash register area.
Ace stopped in front of the door, reached out to the handle with his free hand, and looked back at me from over his shoulder.
"No," he simply stated.
Before giving me a chance to even think about saying anything more, Ace twisted the door handle and pushed the door into the outside air, his body quickly tumbling after.
"Ugh," I let out a mutter and began to make my way over to the doorway. Before I had completely reached it, however, Ace stepped halfway back inside, looked me over, reached out his hand, and grabbed my wrist.
"Come on!" he yelled, pulling me forward and straight through the doorframe.
I stumbled onto the sidewalk behind him and let the door close itself behind me. I then quickly looked around the area and saw absolutely no one in sight but a handful of cars parked parallel to the street in front of us.
"Where's everyo—" I started to formulate a question, but Ace answered it before I could even manage the entire thing out.
"Don't know, but we should probably go, too."
Immediately after that, Ace tugged on my wrist, again, and pulled me up to a running speed behind him as he made his way down the sidewalk on the left, taking us back the way we had originally come. And, after rushing past a tad bit familiar stores and a loud, odd silence, we eventually came up to a recognizably deep blue sports car.
I instinctively proceeded to open the passenger's side door but paused before getting in once I saw that Ace had not chosen to follow suit.
He instead stood, frozen, in front of the car's right headlight area, staring back at the sidewalk which we had just sprinted across.
"Ace," I called for his attention, softly, though, because there was no reason to yell through the silence we were standing in.
He snapped his head back toward me, his look seeming to be in some kind of weird daze.
"Get in," he commanded to me, now walking toward the opened door by my side.
I looked him over a quick second, and then obeyed by ducking under the roof of the car and taking a seat in the passenger seat. He then approached the still-opened doorway space by my right side and grabbed the edge of the car door.
"I'll be right back," he said, hovering over both the car and myself.
I focused on moving my feet completely into the vehicle before looking over and up to him.
"Why?" I questioned, a small hint of confusion added to my voice.
"Just stay here," he hurriedly instructed and slammed the car door closed in front of me. I flinched at the harsh push he had given it, and then gazed back up at him through the window.
I watched as he backed up onto the sidewalk and turned back toward the mess we had just fled from. He then began to jog away, down the sidewalk, with the gun he had still in hand.
"What?" I mumbled, just to myself, naturally.
Ace then turned into an alley of some sort, not too far away, and ran out of my sight.
"Oh, great..." I said with an only slightly large sigh.
I then looked away and searched the area around me from the other windows.
Still, I saw nothing and no one.
I let out another, softer sigh and repositioned myself in my seat with my back more slouched and my arms more... well, crossed across my chest. I sat in a cloud of impatient silence for about another sixty seconds or so before I started to look around again.
"Should have at least gave me the keys or something..." I muttered, reaching out my left hand to fiddle with the unresponsive buttons on the car radio system. Then, when it became very apparent that I wasn't going to escape the silence with music of any kind, I returned my hands to my lap.
I gazed out of the front windshield, again, and continued to see no sign of any lifeforms or such around.
"Well..." I took a deep breath and stretched my arms out a bit, hitting my right elbow on the side door in the process. I looked over toward it a moment and spotted the passenger seat belt from the corner of my eye. "Safety first."
I pulled the belt across my front and clicked it into place. I began to slide my hands across its surface after it was secured, but then the glovebox above my knees suddenly caught my attention.
I stared at it a second, and then reached out my right hand and pulled it open by its small, round unlocked handle. I peeked inside slowly and immediately saw a bulking heap of papers and folders.
"Whoa..." I whispered, now reaching in to remove a few of the topmost sheets of printed documents. I scanned them loosely and found a lot of information that I really didn't comprehend and just disregarded; a lot of it was just random codes and different sets of numbers printed out. However, once I had gotten farther through the stack, I found a few that contained a bit more material.
One was dated as March thirteenth, two-thousand fourteen and looked to be formatted as a letter, addressed to someone named Jeremy Barker. The body of the letter was brief; it literally only said: 'So glad you could finally join us.' The rest of the page was entirely blank, except for a barely legible signature at the very bottom right. From what I could make out, though, it looked like it was signed by some 'Munjrghieble Butihngytish'. That's just my interpretation, though.
The last four pages following that appeared to be part of a big contract with the words 'AGENT AGREEMENT' splattered across the top of the first. Under that, there were a lot of numbered paragraphs listing terms and conditions to what I assumed constituted to the agent's job, or whatever it would be called. The rest of the pages were created in the same manner, and at the bottom of the last paper, the name Jeremy Barker was signed once again. Beside it, a witness's name was also signed as Anna Harris, and both were dated as March tenth, two-thousand fourteen.
Under that in the glovebox stash was a plain, manila folder. I pulled it out, set it on top of the papers in my lap, and flipped the top of the folder open. Expecting to find more revealing paperwork, I instead discovered a different type of revealing papers.
It was a thick magazine with an imagine of a young, blonde woman plastered on the cover who dressed in nothing but... well, nothing, sitting sideways on the ground, and posing with her hands covering her chest. At the top read the headline 'Legally Boned' and smaller printed subtitles were supplied along the edges of the book.
"Oh, wow," I came close to shouting as I flipped the top of the folder shut once more.
Before I had time to think or say anything else, a far-off yell from somewhere in the silence caught my attention.
I snapped my head back up to center and stared out of the front windshield with wide eyes.
I then heard another, longer shout in the form of some kind of incomprehensible sentence. Soon after that, though, I saw Ace appear from around the corner of the same alleyway he had went into not too long ago. He was sprinting toward the car at full speed, and I noticed that he no longer had a gun in either of his hands.
I hurriedly looked back down at my lap and shoved everything I held back into the glovebox, all at once. I afterward heard more shouts, this time slightly a bit closer, and once the glovebox compartment was returned shut, I gazed back up to see another, unfamiliar man running right behind Ace.
Then, seemingly all of a sudden, I heard the more familiar sound of a gunshot ring out.
And I saw Ace suddenly stop running.
I let out a gasp and threw my hand up over my mouth.
Then, I watched Ace stumble over and onto the ground, his one hand clutching his left shoulder, and heard him let out a loud scream.
I removed my hand and took in a few heavy breaths as I looked back over to the man, who was now approaching Ace slowly and pointing a small pistol directly at him.
My eyes darted back to Ace, who was struggling to pick himself up from the sidewalk.
I then looked back at the other man and watched as he yelled out something that I could neither understand or completely hear.
He suddenly halted his walk and began to re-aim his gun at Ace.
"Ace!" I instantly screamed out, turning toward the right and throwing the car door open in front of myself. When I proceeded in my attempt to stand, however, I became restricted in movement by my seatbelt.
"Oh, God," I muttered as I reached back and clicked the belt out of place. Immediately after that, I shot up to a stand and jumped onto the sidewalk beside the car.
"Stop!" I shouted out as I began to run into Ace's direction.
The man snapped his look over to me and paused a moment. And, once I had nearly reached Ace's point, he pointed his pistol toward me as well.
I drastically slowed down and threw my hands down by my sides.
Ace then screamed out in pain, again, distracting the man, who redirected his gun at him.
I then took the opportunity to sprint over the man's side, which was only a few feet away now, and instinctively threw myself at him, pushing him onto the ground. I then fell on top of him, and it took me a second to pull myself onto my knees beside him.
"Arg!" he yelled out in anger, rolling himself toward me and aiming his gun into my direction with his hand farthest from me.
"Ah!" I more innocently screamed back and reached out with both of my hands to grab his wrist. I then found struggle in trying to hold the gun away and the man began to push it even more toward me.
He yelled out, again, and I looked his hand over, now making my focus on pushing my thumbs in between his hand and his weapon, somewhat in hopes that I could slightly loosen it from his grip. After another few moments of battling his strength, though, I caved in and fell backward, onto the pavement. I let out a small mutter of pain when my body smacked against the ground.
He fell over as well, though, and I could hear his gun crash onto the hard earth somewhere by my right side, which was farthest from him. I snapped my head over to it and saw that it was close enough to reach. When I went to throw my hand out to grab it, though, the man rolled himself onto his knees and snatched it right back.
I gazed back at him, seeing that he was basically hovering over me. Then, when I tried to push him back with my free hand, he grasped it, as well, and looked me in the eyes.
He smirked at my bewildered look and pushed my both of my wrists into the clutch of his right hand. He then looked over to the gun and reached out toward it with his left.
"Ugh!" I then yelled out, suddenly kicking my knee up and forcefully striking him in his abdominal area. He let out a grunt, released his grip on my wrists enough for me to escape, and fell backward a bit.
I quickly pushed him back as much more as I could with my partially still-held hands, and then ripped them completely free. I afterward twisted back toward the thrown pistol and successfully snatched it up into my own grip.
Once I looked back, the man was preparing to reach out for the gun once more. He began to yell out and lunged toward me, but before he could conclude his motions, I aimed the pistol at his chest and pulled its trigger.
The loud shot screamed out and the man soon enough fell silent. He then fell off of his knees and sprawled his limp, upper body across my legs.
I could only stare in shock.
"Ah!" Ace yelled out once more, forcing me out of my trance.
I refocused my eyes over to where he had collapsed on the sidewalk, just a yard or two away from the bottom of my feet.
I then pulled my legs out from underneath the lifeless man's heavy body and attempted to push myself up to a stand. Before beginning to make my way over to Ace, though, I studied the pool of blood seeping out from under his midsection.
"Oh, God..." I muttered, dropping the gun onto the ground and bringing both my hands up to my face.
A mess of both dizziness and nausea swept over me, all at once.
" 'Nesia!" Ace strained to scream out.
I took a deep breath and gazed back over to him.
He began an attempt to stand from his knees and spoke, again.
"We... need... to..." his voice trailed off and he fell slightly aback.
I immediately rushed over to his side and reached out to grab his right arm