Page 47 of Powerless
He cocked his gun and raised it to aim. Jandro jumped in front of me.
"Wait, wait!" he protested.
"No..." I grabbed his shoulders and shut my eyes with my forehead against his back.
The shot rang out and his body jerked.
"No!" I cried, clutching him tighter.
But he was still standing on his own.
"Shadow, you motherfucker!" he yelled.
I peeked open one eye and peered over his shoulder. The biker's limp, lifeless body hung over his handlebars. Shadow approached from the left side and grabbed the man's body to haul it off the bike. When the man's head fell back, a dark, bloody hole decorated his forehead.
"Where the fuck is our backup?" Jandro growled before turning around and squeezing me tightly against him. "It's okay."
I couldn't reply. I was shaking again. How could he be so calm? He almostdied.
"I don’t know,” Shadow answered his question distractedly while looting through the dead biker’s pockets.
"Check his cut," Jandro instructed while rubbing my back. "Who are these shit heads?"
Shadow kicked the body over onto its back, then leaned over to inspect the patch.
"Razor Wire," he reported.
"Of course. In the pocket of General Tash, I'm assuming," Jandro grumbled. "How many of them are left? And how many of us?"
"I've taken down five, including this one," Shadow answered. "As for us, I don't know. It's impossible to see through this dust."
"Reaper!" I remembered now that my own life was safe. "You haven't seen him anywhere?"
Shadow's dark eye passed over me briefly, the pale one still hidden under his hair. "No," he answered.
"We've taken about six or seven down," Jandro said. "Mari shot two herself."
Shadow did not look impressed. "So that's twelve, out of roughly twenty-five total that I counted. To our eight."
"Ten," Jandro corrected. "You know Hades and Horus had to have gotten a couple of kills. They're in the fray just like we are."
"I haven't seen them either."
"Uh, guys?"
"Shit," Jandro cursed at the line of bikers, at least eight of them, coming straight for us on the other side of our cover. "Shadow, give me a full clip."
The large man opened his cut to reach into an inside pocket. It was hard to tell with him wearing all black, but his shirt was wet and sticky with blood.
"Shadow, did you get hit, too?"
He glanced up, surprise on his face before his eyes flicked over to Jandro.
"You definitely got shot, bro," Jandro confirmed.
"Must just be a graze," Shadow mumbled as he reloaded his weapon. "I didn't feel an entry point."
"Let me clean that up real quick," I reached into my pack.
