I tensed.
Nothingness...
Am I dead?
Nothing happened.
Then every sense rushed into liveliness. The hood still covered my head. The yoke still crushed my shoulders. And the burning break in my arm still throbbed.
All my discomforts returned along with noise.
So, so much noise.
Deafeningnoise.
Gunfire slaughtered the air as footsteps pounded the hardwood floor of the ballroom. Men hollered. Things banged and clanged and a cacophony replaced the empty silence.
Curses. Words. Promises. They were all cut short as fighting broke out all around me.
I couldn’t see, but I couldfeel.
The whoosh of wind as bodies flew past. The flinch of bullets flying too close to my skin. And Cut’s hand on my head as he bellowed for it all to stop. “Black Diamonds! Attack!”
More boots. More curses. More bullets.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
My final hopes had been answered, my prayers delivered.
Help had arrived at the last second.
Who was out there?
Who fought on my behalf?
My eyes begged to see. My body twisted to know. But Cut’s fingers dug into the hood, pressing my throat against the wood and the yoke tight over my shoulders.
Instead of dying, I’d entered a warzone where my vision couldn’t tell me a story.
I huddled at Cut’s feet, my spine curled and knees bruised beneath a guillotine just waiting for the sharp edge to plummet.
My heart lodged in my throat, terrified a rogue bullet would slice the rope and drop the blade to butcher my tender flesh.
I was alive, but for how much longer?
How reckless was the fighting?
How could they prevent an unforeseen event from killing me all while they tried to save me?
“Fuck.” Cut never stopped touching me, his fingers digging into my scalp as anarchy rained. “Over there, get him!” His orders fell on the raucous, delivered to an unseen fighter.
I had no way to judge time, but the war only increased in ferocity. More gunfire, more thuds as bodies fell and fists connected with flesh.
My ears rang with gunshots. My thoughts suffocated with violence and mayhem.
Grunts and curses bounced off portraits and velvet, changing the destiny of the ballroom from dancing frivolity to carnage brutality.
Stop.
