Page 118 of Semblance

Shadow was contemplating taking out the four guards, escorting us, on his own and without a gun.

It was suicide.

But then again, so was walking into whatever game they had in store for us next. After watching Justin burn, I realized there was very little hope for us to get out of this alive. Sinister was cruel and a liar and at this point, there was no reason not to think that Lincoln was dead as well.

I wanted to scream.

“I know what you’re thinking,” one of the guards said to Shadow. “You’re thinking about taking us out.”

I froze in my tracks. How did he know?

“The odds are against you,” he continued, “But then again, I’ve always been one to play the odds. The question for you Shadow is, are you a risk taker like myself?”

“Hey, we’re not paid to talk,” another one of the demon-faced thugs said, turning his attention to the yapper.

“I’m just trying to create some dialogue, unlike you, you anti-social conversation Nazi.”

“What the fuck is the problem here?” another one of the masked men asked. “Can we please all just shut up, get them to the helipad already so we can finish the job? I want to get paid and go home.”

“Why can’t we be friends?” the talkative one asked.

“Just shut the fuck up,” the first guard said, his patience worn thin. “Please, just shut the fuck up.”

“You shut up,” the yapper said. In a moment of complete surrealism, I watched as the chatty guard raised his gun and blew apart the thug next to him with a round of bullets to the chest.

I dropped to the ground, hands over my head, and watched as Shadow tackled another guard to the ground, trying to wrestle the gun out of his hands.

“Lincoln, there’s one more,” Shadow cried out as he continued to struggle with the guard beneath him.

Lincoln?

The yappy guard immediately turned to the last demon-faced man standing and pulled the trigger, spraying the walls with red matter.

Lincoln wiped the makeup off his face with the back of his sleeve and nodded at me.

Meanwhile Shadow managed to tear the gun out of his adversary’s hands after delivering a crushing fist into the man’s throat. It took only one bullet to end the fight for good.

“I thought I ordered you to leave here,” Shadow said, wiping the sweat off his brow.

“You honestly thought I’d listen to you?”

“Nope.”

“And did you expect anything less from me?” Lincoln asked, looking at the bodies of Sinister’s men on the ground.

“Of course not,” Shadow replied, patting Lincoln on the back. “Come on, let’s go save my sister.”

#

It had stopped raining but the night air harbored a chill. Calisto stood at the center of the helicopter landing pad, hands bound behind her back. She must have been freezing in thewhite evening gown, her shoulders and legs bare.

The large torches that aligned the circumference of the helipad didn’t seem to provide much warmth for her, though it did succeed in creating a creepy atmosphere.

Calisto tried to shout something at us, but the gag covering the lower half of her face muffled her. Instead, all I could hear was a desperate scream.

Shadow’s first instinct was to run to her, but after no more than three steps, Sinister stood behind Calisto and pressed a knife against her bare neck.

“One more step and I end her life,” he said.

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