Page 1 of Little Fury

4 Days Earlier

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck!

I'm going to die in this room.

I'm going to die in this room wearing this tight fucking pencil skirt complete with slit and my favourite Louboutin black stilettos. This outfit, while hot as fuck is going to get me killed.

There are nine people in this room. Myself and eight men. Eight men who have no allegiance to me.

The room is big, with two large windows on the wall I’m in front of, and a desk that sits in between them. I'm standing in my usual spot just left of the enormous mahogany desk with my back to the window.

The room is dark in all forms of the word. The walls are a deep burgundy, and the woods are darkly stained. All the fabrics here are sombre tones of green or brown; There isnothing light in this room. The fabrics, curtains and rugs are made from thick fibres like wool and leather. The heavy fibres only add to the weight of the room. The things done and planned in this room linger here, imprints of the past that you sometimes catch out of the corner of your eye.

Wow, Ava, so poetic in the moments leading up to your probable death.

Internal Ava’s voice is a sarcastic bitch today, apparently.

It’s a stereotypical men's room where they retire to smoke and drink whiskey. Usually, this room is filled with the scents of cigars, bourbon, men's aftershave, and sometimes the tangy scent of iron. Today, I miss those scents. Today, it smells like nervous sweat and anxiety.

Oh, my fucking god! Focus!

How the fuck do I get out of here?

The window behind me is the most apparent exit, but it doesn't open. The things done and discussed in this room do not lend well to having windows that can be opened by anyone all willy-nilly. Extra routes of escape or entry are bad for business.

The two men between me and the door are one of the few bright spots in this situation. Lawrence, the one directly in front of the door, has just recently come back from being shot in the knee. One good kick to that knee, and he’s going down hard. Ty, the one directly between Lawrence and me, is young and inexperienced. Honestly, it's the best-case scenario for me to get the fuck out of here. Once I'm out of this room, it's about 30 feet to the front door.

A plan starts to form. I’m not sure if it's a good plan, but it's a plan, nonetheless.

I start slowly inching my skirt up my thighs getting the slit high enough to give my legs full mobility. Thankful for the chair obscuring me from view, I slip out of my heels,staying on my toes so my height change and clothing adjustments don’t draw attention.

Everyone here is trying to ignore me and look relaxed like it’s any other day. But the usual hum of the room is missing. The guys in here are too quiet, too still.

I helped him pick and recruit almost every soldier he had. But these eight? I chose none of them. I told Marcus flat out that four of them were bad choices. They had sub par training, and none of them have the ability to remain calm, to not let the tension in their bodies give them away.

Ty is the only one who looks chill, and that’s because he’s an idiot of 19 who has no idea who I am and what I can do. The others know if I get out of here, I’m going to kill every last fucking one of them. The older guys have known me for years. They know who trained Marcus and me. If Ty had any sense in his head, he would realize that Marcusputting eight men in this room to kill me wasn't an error or overkill.

Marcus is anything but stupid. He doesn't waste resources.

I give my shoes one last sorrowful look, apologizing for abandoning them. And I go. Ty is on the ground before he even knows what happened. My kick to his side, stealing his breath and breaking a rib, gets him out of my way. Lawrence, however, sees me coming. The sound of surprise that leaves him is akin to a squawk or a grunt. He goes for his gun, but I’m faster. A sweep to his knee, with my leg and he’s on the ground writhing in pain.

The other six wake up, yelling at each other and going for their guns. I’m almost out the door when I hear the first gunshot. A bullet hits my shoulder, and another rips into my side, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I stop, I die. And Harry would be so disappointed in me if all his training went to shit, and I stopped from the pain. But the adrenaline and theknowledge that my life is hanging in the balance keeps me going.

I'm out of the room and out the front doorbefore even one of them has made his way from the room in pursuit of me. I don't waste time looking behind me. Sprinting across the front lawn faster than one would think this skirt would allow. I can see my car just as I hear Marcus yell for more of his men. The noise of my escape drawing him out.

Looking back for only a moment as I climb into my car, I lock eyes with Marcus. Marcus, the boy I've known since we were seven years old. The boy who I thought was my best friend. The man I shared a bed with for years. The man who just very blatantly told me I was no longer a welcome partner in the world I helped him take and rebuild.

My heart breaks for the seven-year-old girl I was. The one who came to a place alone and found someone she thought was just like her.

I floor it. Grateful for the speed of my Audi R8, I make it to the end of the block and turn just as the first car speeds out of Marcus’s drive. I know where I'm heading. It’s the only place Marcus won’t look for me. The one place and person no one knows exists. I grab my phone, toss it out the car window, and keep moving.

Making a series of quick turns, my brain works through as many routes as possible to escape the men pursuing me. LA is a busy city, which is both good and bad. Traffic can both conceal and hinder. But I know this city; I’ve lived here for a while, and like the well-trained little hitman I am, there are multiple escape routes in my brain.

My R8 is far from the only one in the city, a choice I considered when I bought it. Black is my year and model's most popular colour choice, so it blends well. Ten minutes pass, and there is no high-speed chase involving myself and others I exhale a breath and give myself a mental high fivefor my expert driving skills, buying me some breathing room.

---