Chapter 6: Gunshots from the Forest

warning: shooting and bloody scene

“What do you want?” Stacy asked. The intensity of her voice sent shivers down her own spine. Right there and then, she knew the severity of the situation. She could feel it. These people wouldn’t think twice before sending her on her way to hell. However, in the face of death, she had to maintain her composure.

“You,” the man smirked as he crossed his arms in front of him. Stacy eyed him warily. “Why? Who are you?” Stacy continued, her body was on full alert.

“Too many questions, baby girl,” the man replied. His smirk widened as he took his steps towards her. Stacy backed away slowly, as if a prey avoiding its predator. She watched him carefully while timing her escape.

After backing away a few steps, with a jerk, she turned and bolted in the other direction. Before she could even run, she ran into something behind her, or more precisely, someone.

“We meet again, baby,” the person spoke up. Stacy looked up only to see the redhead from Ivory right in front of her. ‘What rotten luck! I ran into him in Ivory, escaped him to run into the Reapers and now escaped the Reapers just to run back into him?! What did I do to deserve this!!’ Stacy whined to herself.

“Little btch. You tryna escape?” The first man started cursing at her, reminding her that there were two of them to handle. Stacy turned back to face the man. ‘They’re just the Viper dogs,’ she reminded herself.

Redhead hugged her from behind. “I’ve missed you, baby. I know you’re playing hard to get. If it’s so, you succeeded in getting my attention,” he whispered in her ear. ‘What a jerk!’ Stacy reached for his arm around her. “Well, I’m glad,” she said softly. The next second, she kicked his leg and flipped him to the ground with her grip on his arm.

The sudden attack caused the other man to jerk in shock, preparing to counter but Stacy was faster. She has been on alert the whole time and was watching his movement from the corner of her eyes so in just one movement, she sent a blade into his leg.

Almost immediately, ten men appeared from the bushes nearby. Each and every one of them had a gun pointed at Stacy. ‘They came prepared! How did they know I’d be here? Did they really come for me? Have they found out my real identity?’ Stacy was shocked by the ambush. ‘Think, how could I escape ten armed men?’

Redhead got up from the ground. “Oh, you’re mine, baby,” he said, grabbing Stacy’s arm roughly. She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened. The force he exerted was almost strong enough to break her bones.

“You won’t run away again,” he said like a vow. Then, he leaned in closer and dropped his pitch, “I can think of many ways I can break that ego of yours.” He had his smug expression on.

"Oh, just in case,” the first man casually spoke and without warning, fired a shot into her leg, just like how expressionless she was when she threw the blade at him. The shot caused Stacy’s leg to give out from under her as she slumped to the floor, wincing. The only thing holding her up was the redhead’s tight grip on her arm.

The men surrounding them were laughing as she hung from his grip with her head hung low, fists clenched. She felt like a freshly hunted rabbit, held up by its ears. In her anger, she jerked her head up to glare at the redhead.

“Pathetic,” he said as he started dragging her by her wrist. Her other hand clutched on her bleeding leg hard. The wound was bleeding so much her head started to pound. The friction against the ground as he dragged her was making it worse.

Despite the pain, she gritted her teeth and looked around. ‘How would I escape? There are ten of them armed with guns and I only have the knives in my heels. However fast I act, it’s just impossible to take ten of them at the same time before alerting one of them to shoot me dead.

‘I need a plan. I couldn’t go back this way, totally in the mercy of the Vipers. With their ruthlessness and cruelty, I could only imagine what they would be doing to me once we got to their base.

‘It didn’t help that the leader of the gang hated me. Everyone there used to look down on me as I was a pathetic little girl and a byproduct of my mother’s adultery. Mom protected me and made sure that I addressed that man as my father. She insisted that she was being accused when the men wouldn’t believe her. Apparently, I wasn’t important enough for them to even bother carrying out a blood test.

‘I was bullied and treated as a slave since birth, I couldn’t fight back as it would further irritate them, causing them to retaliate ten fold. Hah, if they knew it was me. If they found out that I’m the little brat back then, God knows what they would do to me!’

Stacy closed her eyes as she was caught in her internal monologues. ‘I wouldn’t want to go back, at least not this way. If even one of them recognized me, I would be as good as dead. No, they would probably use me against mom, like how they did years back. My goal was to save her, not to cause her more trouble. I have to come up with an escape plan!’

“You’re a lucky btch I took a fancy on you. Becoming my woman and pleasing me, that was something a lot of girls could only dream of!” The redhead barked on as he continued dragging her on the ground. Stacy wondered what gave him the ego but was too pained to pay too much attention to his rambling.

“You only have one job, which is to please me. If you promise to be good from now on, I might even claim you as mine,” redhead continued his proud speech. Stacy willed herself to not pass out but the fading in and out of his voice was proof that she was so close to losing the battle.

With her last resolve, Stacy gathered all her strength and put weight on her wounded leg, stepping the redhead hard with the other. He cursed out loud.

BANG! BANG!

One bullet hit Stacy in the hips. The other, she assumed, missed the target. She stumbled and staggered away from the redhead, who was surprisingly not holding on to her anymore. She could feel the chaos around her as a commotion broke right there and then but all she was focusing on was the ground and her strong will to get herself to safety before passing out.

She tried looking up to see what was going on but it was hard to focus with her rapid bleeding and blurring eyesight. Her head felt light and she fought hard to stay conscious. Her whole body felt numb. The only thing she felt was her little effort to drag her next step. There wasn’t even any feeling on her leg anymore as she felt like a log was attached to the lower half of her body. She was soaked and at this point, she wasn’t sure if it was sweat or blood. Maybe it’s both.

Right then, she felt a figure darting past her and a hand gripped her arm hard, the same way she was held by the redhead before the commotion broke. She felt devastated. They were back to square one. Only, his motions were more frantic than before.

Stacy blinked hard two times and willed her eyes to focus. She saw a blurry figure of redhead in front of her and reached for the blade in her heels. She could hear the ringing in her ears and used her last resolve to drive the blade right into the hand gripping hers.

That caused the redhead to loosen his iron grip and Stacy fell flat on the floor. There were feet everywhere. She tried staying awake but all she saw were fragments of the scene. Feet. Deafening silence. Gunshot. Rush. Commotion. Shoes. Silence. Screams. Everything and anything. Blood. They all overwhelmed her.

Noises around her faded in and out and her world moved in a slow motion as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

Right before she passed out, she felt a hand reaching for her shoulder.

‘No..’