I shut my eyes and screamed waiting for the end to come; and through the chaos I heard a single cough.

  I slowly opened my eyes and saw that my attacker was halfway towards me but had stopped and was looking up. I swivelled my head till I could get a better viewpoint and looked into the disappointed gaze of José.

  “No, please,” he said, taking a pull on his cigar, “don’t let me stop the fun, amigos—continue, continue.”

  My attacker slowly stood up from where he was and wiped a hand under his bleeding nose. “José,” he said with a nod.

  “Arun.”

  They both regarded each other with smiles that didn’t reach their eyes.

  “I know you’re not trying to muscle in on my job now, Arun, because if you were, then there would be unfortunate consequences for your actions. We’re not out in space anymore, amigo, you know there’re rules to this shit. Rules we must all adhere to when in this borough.”

  “Bah, what rules? They’re more like guidelines.”

  José took a step forward.

  “It wasn’t even a thing, José, just a small misunderstanding. Now if you excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

  He stepped over me and made his way to the door that José was standing in front of. José didn’t move, his eyes never left Arun’s face.

  Arun licked his lips and moved from side to side, switchblade still in his hand.

  With a nod, José moved to the side and allowed him to pass. The door closed with a slam bringing silence once again to the toilet.

  “Aren’t you tired of lying in piss and shit all day?”

  “I think one of my ribs is broken,” I grunted, holding my side.

  “Get up, we’ve got to go,” José said, with a hint of irritation in his voice.

  I didn’t respond. Fuck him and the self-righteous horse he rode in on. If it weren’t for him then I wouldn’t be in this mess; I would be making my way back home, to normal, instead of being stuck on some godforsaken planet with the scum of the galaxy. Who was he to look down his nose at me?

  I got up to my feet and looked his way, urine running down my forehead.

  “You done?” he asked, taking another pull on his cigar.

  I didn’t respond but straightened up as best as I could.

  “Good, because that weasel shitbag Arun runs with the Laughing Hyenas and if we don’t get out of here before he calls for backup, then there’s going to be carnage.”

  I rolled my eyes at the gang’s name. It felt like I was in some West Side Story play.

  I followed him out the door and back down the stairs, as he spoke into the computer at his wrist. We entered the chaos of the bar, where the rest of the crew were already waiting for us.

  “What did this rusty trombone do now?” Willis asked, pint of Guinness still in his hand.

  “Nice to see you too, Willis,” I said dryly.

  “He ran into Arun upstairs,” José said nonchalantly.

  “Shit,” Willis said.

  “I still don’t see what the big problem is,” I said.

  “Arun and his gang the Laughing Hyenas,” Poppy said, “are what we call in the business scavengers. They wait for a crew or gang to complete a mission, and then they swoop in and take their kill. The reason gangs like his exist is because they normally sell what they take to the original buyer for half the price, and the buyer doesn’t care if the original crew that was commissioned for the job completes it or not, as long as they get what they want.”

  “My heart bleeds for you,” I said.

  “Hey!” Willis said, slapping me on the head. “they don’t take captives and they always leave a mess. You’re lucky you ran into good God-fearing folk like us.”

  “Where’s Tuari?” José asked.

  “Getting the transport ready,” Poppy answered.

  “How’s everyone doing for firepower?” José asked.

  Poppy held up her hands, which had four knives in each; Willis banged the handles of his pistols together and gave José a manic grin; José pulled out two revolvers as big as his forearms and checked they were fully loaded.

  Poppy handed me a knife and I held it as if it was a poisonous snake. “What the hell am I meant to do with this?”

  “Defend yourself.”

  I looked at them as if they had all grown two heads. “Knives and pistols?” I stuttered in disbelief. “Don’t you have plasma weapons, ion cannons or at least something bulletproof?”

  They returned the same look I had given them.

  “Listen, chico,” José said, cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth, “those types of weapons are expensive as shit to buy, expensive as shit to maintain, and expensive as shit to refuel. Bullets are cheap and there isn’t much that can go wrong with a pistol.

  “Now come on, let’s get out of here before Arun’s friends turn up.”

  We navigated our way through the crowds, the crew alert, watching their surroundings with the keen eyes of professionals. Where was the drunken state they had been in less than ten minutes ago? Were they faking? To lure me into a fake sense of security? How had José known where I was? Better yet, how long had he been outside the door waiting to intervene while I got seven kinds of shit kicked out of me?

  We moved through the crowd like sharks through a shoal and I breathed a sigh of relief as the exit came into view.

  It was short-lived.

  The glass along the walls shattered as canisters trailing smoke entered the bar.

  “Get down!” José shouted as he pushed me to the floor, while bullets quickly followed the canisters that had entered.

  Hands over my head, I was swallowed up by the chaos that erupted around me. Glasses broke, people screamed and shouted, and the sound of gunfire filled the air. I had never heard a gun go off before; I thought it would sound like fireworks—stupid, I know—but as I huddled under the weak fleshy protection of my arms they didn’t sound like any firework I had ever heard.

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  They sounded like death.

  “You have to move!”

  I heard the command but I refused to get up from where I lay. The floor was safe. The floor was comfortable. The floor was my friend.

  A pair of rough calloused hands grabbed me by the arms and lifted me up. José shook me from side to side forcing me to focus on his face.

  “If you lie on the floor like a victim, then you shall become a victim—now move!”

  We hurried through the crowd, ducking and dodging as best we could as pieces of glass and bits of mortar flew in the air around us. Bodies flew past us riddled with bullets, slamming against the wall. They left a trail of red as they slid down to the floor, vacant eyes staring at me accusingly.

  I could see the exit we were aiming for. Up ahead, a rusty door with a flickering emergency exit sign called out like a siren.

  I doubled my pace, rushing towards the door, but a hand yanked me back as a hail of bullets peppered the floor in front of the door. Before I knew it, I was pulled along and thrown over the bar’s counter where I landed with a thump.

  “Glad you could join us,” Poppy said with a smile.

  I scrambled backwards pressing my back against the bar counter as I looked to my right and left.

  Poppy, situated to my left, gave me a cheeky smile and a wave, while Willis at my right merely grunted in my direction. Jerry the bartender was next to Poppy, shotgun in hand.

  “You witless cockroach motherfuckers better believe you’re paying for the repairs to my bar,” Jerry said, clutching his gun with a death-grip. “I am sick of this shit! All I ever wanted was to open up a nice bar, a place where the intellectual can come and have a drink or two, a place where I could chat about politics, art, the finer things in life.

  “Instead, I have moronic conversations like which celebrity you would sleep with or what’s the dirtiest thing you think she’s ever done! I’m sick of this shit.”

  “To be fair, Jerry,” Willis said, taking a sip of his pint of Guinness, “this is what happens when you burn, threaten or kill the other competition. When this is the only watering hole in the borough, then people will flock to it like the disciples flocked to Jesus in his time of need.”

  Jerry narrowed his eyes as he looked Willis’s way. “That’s your sixth pint… You’ve only paid for three.”

  Another round of gunfire saved Willis from giving a response as it blasted chunks off the marble top, creating a cloud of fine dust that fell onto Jerry’s shoulders.

  “Motherfuckers!” Jerry yelled, jumping up and firing back at our would-be attackers.

  Willis pulled him back down as a wave of bullets blasted the area he was standing in front of.

  “Count my debt as paid up,” Willis said, nodding to the bullet-ridden wall.

  The bullets stopped flying and the only thing that could be heard was the moans and groans from the wounded. I turned towards Poppy, about to say something, but she placed a finger to her lips and slowly shook her head.

  “Where’s José?” I mouthed.

  She gave me a shrug as footsteps echoed through the bar. I clutched the knife I was holding tighter, hoping it would act as a talisman to ward off evil.

  “To those of you still alive!” a voice from the bar called. “We do not wish to kill any more of you, but we shall unless we get what we want.”

  Nobody responded while boots crunched glass underfoot.

  “We are looking for one Quinton Blake. Hand him over and we shall leave this shithole you call a bar at once.”

  My face paled and lost all feeling as I looked into Poppy’s eyes. The voice that spoke wasn’t Arun’s, so who wanted to kill me now?

  I tapped the handle of the knife against my forehead, as bile tried to force its way up my throat.

  This was not happening.

  This was not happening.

  This—

  “What do you want with him?” José said from somewhere in the bar.

  “That is none of your concern.”

  “You came in here, fire upon us indiscriminately, demand something from us, but do not tell us the reason why. That, my amigo, is just plain rude. This borough may be filled with the scum of the galaxy but at least we buy someone a drink before we fill them full of holes.”

  I looked to either side of me and could see Willis and Poppy edge further and further away from me.

  Were they leaving me to die?

  “Find him,” said the newcomer. “Kill the rest!”

  As the words left his mouth Jerry and Willis popped up and fired at our attackers. The sound of gunfire was deafening as the attackers returned fire. I placed my hands over my head and hunkered down as a body flew over the top of the bar and crash-landed at my feet. He groaned as he tried to get up, defiance and anger radiating from his eyes.

  I sat there frozen as thoughts of what to do swirled around my mind.

  His hand inched towards his pistol and still, I stayed there staring at him.

  I had to move or he would shoot me. I held the knife tighter in my hand while he got his bearings and raised his gun my way.

  A flash of silver appeared and sliced his throat, spraying me with blood. Wide-eyed with blood on my face I slowly turned and looked into the face of Poppy, who regarded me with caution. She said something but it didn’t register. I could see her lips move but it was like the world was on mute.

  She slapped me in the face hard. Hard enough for my ears to start ringing.

  “You need to move!” she said, shouting in my face.

  She pointed over my shoulder forcing me to turn. Glass covered the floor and bullets blasted the wall above.

  “I’m not crawling through that shit!”

  “If you don’t you die.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. But where I was sitting appeared a lot safer than crawling over glass and under bullets.

  I turned and looked back towards Poppy; her eyes were urging me on. Turning back around I gritted my teeth before I felt a hand on my shoulder. ”You can do this,” she said.

  I nodded as I scampered forward. Glass cut into my hands and knees and bullets broke bottles apart overhead causing them to fall upon my shoulders. I just wanted to go home! I shouldn’t be here. This was just a misunderstanding.

  These thoughts rattled around my brain before I finally came to the end of the bar and peeked around it.

  The scene was chaos.

  What I saw appeared to be out of a cheesy action flick.

  Bodies lay on the floor riddled with holes, their open eyes reflecting the last emotions they had. I stared into those eyes and felt sick. Sick? I was glad they were dead and I was still alive.

  Blood mixed with spent bullet casing covered the floor as José hid behind a stone pillar and took potshots at anyone stupid enough to show themselves. Willis and Jerry were nowhere to be seen as Poppy tapped me lightly on the shoulder.

  “When I say so, I want to you make a move for the exit,” she said.

  I said nothing but simply nodded.

  “Whenever you boys are ready!” she yelled over my shoulder.

  I saw José nod before leaning his back against the pillar protecting his life. He reloaded his revolvers, closed his eyes and whispered something to himself before swinging back into the open and shouting, “Now!”

  Willis and Jerry popped up themselves from their hiding places and began firing, as Poppy leapt onto the bar top and somersaulted into the air. She landed with her legs around the neck of one of the attackers and stabbed him in the eyes with her knives. I could hear his screams over the gunfire.

  I watched in amazement as she moved like a snake. Wherever her knives flashed blood would follow.

  She rolled under another attacker’s wild swing and stabbed him in the groin; with a twist and a yank she pulled out her blade. She didn’t wait to see if her opponents were dead before she moved. She was that confident in her skills as a murderer. Willis and José gave covering fire. Each shot they made counted; they were ruthless in their effectiveness, no bullet was wasted, no shot was made in haste.

  “Go!” Poppy yelled as she stabbed another man in the neck.

  I didn’t have to be told twice as I leapt to my feet and began making my way towards the exit. “There he is!” shouted a voice behind me.

  I turned around and saw who had spoken.

  Salt and pepper hair cut into a buzz cut, with a crooked nose broken on more than one occasion, he stared my way. Like his men, he wore combat fatigues, but unlike his men, he stood tall and proud amongst the raging battle that whirled around him, almost as if he was immune to damage.

  His rigid finger still pointed my way as his grey soulless eyes bored into mine.

  A smoke canister detonated in the centre of the room and he was engulfed in smoke and vanished from my view. I kept looking his way till someone bundled me off and pushed me out of the door; I tried to fight them off until I got a slap in the face and saw that it was Poppy who had pushed me through the door.

  “We need to get going, dumbass!” Willis said, slamming the door closed behind José and sticking a small square metallic device over the door handle.

  An electric muscle car fashioned in the styling of a 1969 Ford Mustang slid in front of us kicking up a dirt cloud into the air. Tuari was behind the wheel pressing on the horn for us to get going.

  I took one last look behind me at the door as I was dragged and pushed towards the vehicle; we jumped inside and before the door had been closed we were already pulling away at speed.

  “What did you place on the door?” I asked Willis.

  He smiled in my direction, teeth flashing in the gloom. “A little present.”

  I looked back towards the bar as an explosion tore through the bar exit that we had come through, sending flames shooting up into the sky and illuminating the night sky in a fiery red blaze.

  “Jerry’s gonna be pissed!” Tuari said, looking back in the rearview mirror.

  “It ain’t the first time we’ve blown up his bar and I doubt it’ll be the last,” José said, to sounds of laughter.

  I looked around me and just stared.

  I was in the company of a bunch of psychopaths!