Darling of Fate 2: A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure, page 29
Once his friends were dead, I pulled him around to face me.
“You saw me tank automatic gunfire.” I looked pointedly down at the knife uselessly hanging down at my side. “What were you thinking, my guy?”
A hard look washed over his face—the acceptance of death, it seemed. He made a sound in his throat that I recognized all too well. I broke his other hand with a tight squeeze before he could hawk a loogie into my face. He screamed out in pain, the delicate bones of his hands snapping like twigs.
“Now, now. None of that.” I dragged him over to the discarded clipboard on the table. “What’s this about?” I asked with a nod.
“F-fuck…you—aghhh!”
I cut him off with a squeeze of my hand. I was about to press the issue when my eye caught on a familiar name at the top of the front page.
“What the fuck?” I muttered.
Lifting the clipboard up, I examined the list more closely. It was a list of unfamiliar names—unfamiliar, that is, except for the first two names.
1. Dirk Damascus — Alive — $10,000,000
2. Craig Allen — Alive — $5,000,000
A bounty list? But why? And that name at the number two slot… it seemed Craig was still alive. Just reading that name made my skin flush with anger.
Before the rage could fully cement in my mind, shouts of alarm began ringing out all around the warehouse, and were getting closer. I pulled the list into my Inventory and looked at Paul again.
“Last chance…” I said.
He clenched his jaw and stared back defiantly.
So I reached up and twisted his neck with a crack. Peeling his hand away from the knife still in my side, I let him fall to the ground.
“Better than you deserved, I’m sure,” I said to his corpse. I was going to get to the bottom of these bandits on the next redo, but for now, I just wanted to escape so I could figure out what the fuck this bounty list was about.
Voices were shouting right outside the warehouse door, calling for Paul or the others to give a status report. I cycled my mass down and amped my Agility to the max. The pain immediately crescendoed, but I shoved it down. I snagged as many of the guns within reach as I could, then leaped up the warehouse wall. In seconds, I was at the ceiling where a grimy glass skylight looked down on the warehouse. There was no time to be subtle, so I smashed the glass and climbed through to the roof.
A quick glance around showed the roof was clear, so I strode to the edge to get my bearings. The scene below me was one of chaos. Dozens of men ran about with automatic weapons at the ready. A siren was blaring nearby, and spotlights scanned the surroundings. It was nearing twilight, so the visibility to the average person would be worsening by the minute. For me, I could see like it was midday.
The ‘camp’ was clearly located in some sort of warehouse district. A road stretched down the middle of the camp, with warehouses on either side. But the buildings had an abandoned aesthetic to them—broken-out windows, years-old graffiti, and overgrown weeds lining the street and alleys spoke of years of neglect.
What was obviously new was the chain-link fence ringing in the nearest dozen or so warehouses. Barbed wire lined the top, and the spotlights I had noticed earlier were placed high up on nearby roofs. This was clearly the early stages of what was meant to be a permanent encampment.
Everything about it demonstrated planning and forethought, which was why I was so damn confused about why they would focus on setting up some sort of bandit camp instead of entering the Tower to get stronger. What was the play here?
Before I could follow that train of thought, Lex sent me a panicked message. I crouched down and closed my eyes to concentrate on what he was projecting. His perspective appeared in my mind, and I looked through his eyes.
He was flying over the warehouses, looking down on the chaos below. After a few moments, I spotted the roof I was on, though it was too far for him to pinpoint me exactly. I scanned through his vision for a few more moments but couldn’t figure out what he was worried about.
Sure, there were dozens of heavily armed men running around looking for me. But without Athena here as a hostage, I was confident that I could slip through their—
Athena!
The chopsticks in her hand made sneaking into the bandits’ camp easy-peasy, lemon-squeezie. The shadows wrapped around her like a heated blanket, and the feeling of being invisible brought a smile to her face. Someone had even run past the shadows she was hiding in, but his eyes passed right over her without a flicker of hesitation.
For the first time since before… well, for the first time in a while, she felt powerful. Invisible in the shadows with the ability to teleport wherever she wanted!
It’s like I’m a Night Elf that can Shadowmeld—only better!
Thoughts of playing World of Warcraft with her dad, sitting on his lap as he explained the controls, made her throat tighten. Tears threatened to form, but she roughly shook her head and forced them down.
Dirk was in trouble, and he needed her! He had saved her from the bandits, so she would do the same for him!
Then, he would respect me…
She was crouched in the alley between two large buildings, trash and puddles of muddy water forcing her to step delicately as she moved. The bad guys were lazing around, cleaning their weapons, throwing logs on the bonfire in the middle of the camp, and generally sitting calmly like nothing had happened.
She used their laziness to travel shadow-to-shadow with ease.
The plan in her mind was half-formed. She had a vague idea of where Dirk had been taken—Lex had followed from above and then reported the general area before he realized what she intended to do. When he realized that she was going to save Dirk, he begged her to stay. ‘Dirk can handle himself,’ Lex had said. But she hadn’t listened.
Lex was a good friend, but he didn’t understand. She had to do this. She had to prove that she wasn’t some useless kid. She was strong and smart and could be Dirk’s partner in the Tower—not just some kid that he had to watch after. This was her chance!
It sounded selfish when she thought about it like that. She forced her thoughts back to the task at hand—saving Dirk! The teleport ability, [Shadow Walker], was off cooldown, so she used it to reach the top of the warehouse next to her. She had confirmed that this roof didn’t have a spotlight, and she hoped there was no one patrolling up above.
The shadows deposited her at the roof edge, and she crouched down as soon as she materialized. She remained immobilized for a full minute as she scanned for any movement. When she was confident there were no patrols on the roof, she slinked forward to reach the far side, where she intended to teleport to the next roof.
But as she crossed the roof, she passed by a skylight and cast a casual glance down below. She almost walked past it but then did a double take.
Leaning over the glass, she tried to take a closer look. The grimy coating of dust and dirt made it difficult to see inside, so she wiped her sleeve against it and cleared a hand-sized section of the worst of the grime. Her eyes went wide as she examined the scene below.
Five women lay on filthy cots, chains running from their ankles to a steel post. Their clothes barely clung to their bodies.
Athena felt her face burn hot, a wave of nausea rolling through her body. Thoughts of her parents flashed across her mind, and she whipped around, unable to look at the captive women as she tried to force down the overwhelming feelings clawing away at her.
A sound like an avalanche ripped through the air, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. The sound echoed from inside one of the buildings, and shouts of alarm immediately rang up from across the camp.
Dirk!
Chapter 31
There's Nothing Like Home
Athena stepped away from the window overlooking the poor women and went to the roof edge, crouching low to limit her profile in case anyone glanced up.
A dozen men were standing outside one of the warehouses, their guns aimed at the door. More gunfire rang out briefly before falling silent.
She squinted as she watched the warehouse, her heart clenched tight. If Dirk came out now, he’d be riddled with bullets!
She was debating whether she should create a distraction when movement on the warehouse roof caught her eye. The glass window shattered, and a blur burst from the warehouse, moving almost too fast for her to see. The only distinctive marker was the flaring cape snapping in the wind.
Her eyes went wide as she tried to track Dirk’s movement, but he was out of sight in a blink.
Indecision—and a bit of guilt—struck her immobile. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed that Dirk hadn’t needed her help after all. This had felt like her only chance to prove herself—especially after she was the reason he had been captured in the first place.
But now that he was free, she needed to get out of the camp, too. Getting caught now would only confirm in his mind that she was a liability.
She turned to cut back across the roof and follow the same route out that she had taken in. But as she passed by the skylight, she couldn’t help but look down on the trapped women below. She tried to force herself to leave them—if she told Dirk about them, he’d make sure to free them… right? For a moment, she wondered if she really knew for a fact that the man would do that. After all, she’d only known him for a few days.
Then it was up to her. She couldn’t leave them, and no matter how much she wanted his respect, she was old enough to know exactly why those women were held captive…
I can do this!
I watched Athena hesitate on a nearby rooftop through Lex’s eyes. It was obvious from her body language that she had seen my escape—or at least understood from the panic around the camp that I had broken out.
So why didn’t she leave…?
She was peering through one of the skylights of the warehouse she was on, and a foreboding filled me. I wanted to continue observing but shouts from below pulled me away from Lex’s vision. A quick glance through my own broken skylight revealed the dozen or so armed men examining the corpses of their friends. It wouldn’t be long before they found the broken glass and realized I was on the roof.
And once they realized that, Athena’s position would be compromised too!
With my Agility still maxed, I sprinted across the rooftop and leaped to the nearby warehouse in the general direction of where I’d last seen the girl. I made it across two more rooftops before new shouts of alarm went up, and the spotlights that had been illuminating the alleys were suddenly swiveled to the tops of the warehouses.
I was forced to crouch low as I made my way, slowing my pace considerably. The last thing I wanted was to be spotted and bring reinforcements to Athena.
Staying low, I crossed four more rooftops before I made it to where Lex had last spotted the girl. She had used Mileen’s chopsticks to teleport, so he had lost sight of her.
Ideally, she was making her escape, and I was worrying for nothing.
But as I passed by the skylight looking down into the warehouse, movement caught my eye. A patch of shadow on the far side of the inside of the warehouse shifted slightly, and I groaned. Then I noticed the prisoners chained up on the cots, and my skin itched.
I was burning this camp to the ground on the final run…
But for now, I wanted to get Athena out of here so we could have a proper talk before I had to reset. There would be no time once I reverted back to the Tower. I’d be swamped trying to tie off every thread, and leaving the Tower at the most critical juncture to scold a child didn’t seem like the wisest move.
As Athena broke from the shadows toward the chained women, I broke the window glass and hopped into the gap. Red flared wide to slow my fall, and I half-drifted, half-fell into the warehouse. The sound of the breaking glass caused Athena to freeze, her eyes going wide as she glanced up in terror. When she noticed me, her expression cycled through a range of emotions that would have given me emotional whiplash.
My feet touched lightly on the ground, Athena standing across from me, the captives in between us. We locked eyes, and she lifted her chin defiantly. I resisted the urge to shout and curse, though all I wanted to do was berate her.
Things had seemed so clear looking down from the skylight. But standing before the girl now, I couldn’t process the right emotions or words to make her understand how reckless she had been.
“We’re leaving,” I finally said.
The sounds of alarm throughout the camp were only getting closer, and I guessed they were going warehouse-to-warehouse now. I was sure the rooftops were compromised as well.
But Athena said nothing, finally snapping into action as she took the magical chopsticks in her hand and began stabbing at the padlock attached to the manacle on the nearest woman’s ankle.
My pulse suddenly started pounding in my ears, and my mind went blank.
“Don’t you dare ignore me!” I barked.
She flinched at my tone but didn’t look up. The chopsticks continued to stab at the lock, but it was an amateur’s attempt, and she growled in frustration.
“Athena! Goddammit, don’t you understand what could have happened to you?”
“Are you gonna keep yelling, or are you gonna help me?” she fired back.
I crossed the fifteen feet between us in a single blink, my hand suddenly wrapped around her upper arm. Her eyes went wide as I ripped the chopsticks from her and deposited them into my Inventory.
“Help you? Don’t you get it? They almost killed you. They were going to torture me. How can you be so selfish—”
I cut off as tears burst from her, and her whole body convulsed. She ripped her arm away, and I was too stunned to react.
“Fuck you!” she cried, turning away to hide her tears. Her shoulders shook, and my rage cooled like a bucket of ice had been dumped over my head.
“Athena, please,” I said quietly. “We can talk about it when we’re out of here. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Would you have left my mom?” she fired back, her tone full of acid.
I reared away in shock and some small amount of guilt. If it meant saving you… I didn’t finish the thought as one of the women stirred, her eyes glassy as she peered up at us.
“Honey, listen… your dad,” she slurred. “Get out…” The effort was too much, and her head slumped back to the cot.
Athena’s eyes narrowed, and she cast me a cold glance, the tears streaking down her dirty cheeks. “He’s not my dad.” But the woman’s eyes were drifting shut, not registering the girl’s words.
“They’re drugged. They can’t walk,” I said. She ignored me and began tugging at the padlock with her bare hands, her face contorted with the effort. “Athena.” She continued to ignore me, propping her feet against the post to pull with all her weight. “Athena! Look at me!” Her head whipped around at my sharp tone, then turned back to the lock. I sighed. “Fine, then just listen. I promise that we’ll save these women on the final run. And I’ll kill every single bastard in this camp.” I noticed her eyes glance over at me, and her useless pulling paused.
“You promise?” she asked softly.
I nodded seriously. “Every last one. But we have to go now, or I’m gonna reset back to the beginning of the day.”
Her shoulders sagged, and the lock dropped from her hands with a clink. She stared at it for a tense moment, and I resisted the urge to hurry her along. Suddenly, she launched herself into my arms, her body shaking with a new bout of tears.
“I’m sorry, Dirk,” she cried into my shoulder. “It’s a-all my fault.” She was beginning to hyperventilate, and I felt a lump forming in my throat.
I stroked her hair awkwardly, doing my best to calm her with soft shushes. “Everything is gonna be alright.” I hesitated, not sure how to treat this new ground. A crying pre-teen in my arms was so far outside my wheelhouse I felt frozen like a deer in the headlights.
Facing certain death against Kneer had been easier than this…
Wrapping her tight in one arm and locking her in with friction, I scaled the post one-handed, using Red to compensate. Once we reached the roof, she extricated herself, her eyes glued to the roof floor.
“C’mon,” I said gently. “Lex is worried sick. I think he’s gonna have a heart attack.” She looked up through stringy hair, the corner of her mouth ticking up for the briefest second.
“Tell Duckie we’re fine.”
A honk sounded from high above, cutting through the shouts below like an air horn.
We made it out of the camp without incident. I gave Mileen’s chopsticks back to the girl, and the two of us were outside the chain-link fence in minutes. Lex scouted ahead for us while we searched for a still-working car.
We had been jogging for a few minutes, but there were no sounds of pursuit, so we eventually slowed to a fast walk.
The air was tense between us now that we weren’t fleeing immediate danger, and I was wholly unequipped to broach the subject weighing on my mind.
Give me a dozen elite Jree or a mountain to jump off any day.
But the tension mounting between us was only rising, and I needed to face it head-on. I cleared my throat and noticed she flinched. It seemed she was just as uncomfortable as me.
“Look, I… I’m no good at this stuff.”
Why was my heart racing?
“I’m not used to being around kids, and if I was a parent, I wouldn’t want my kid around me…” I trailed off, uncertain of where I was taking that thought.
I glanced over at Athena, who was chewing her lip in thought. She returned the look and whispered, “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I didn’t think, that is, I—”
I cut her off. “No, I’m sorry. I was insensitive about… you know,” I said vaguely, hesitant to bring up her parents.
She nodded and didn’t say anymore.
The tension seemed to rise again, so I rushed to fill the silence. “We have about thirty minutes before I need to revert. Do you… Do you wanna find your house before then?”
