As always, you can catch up on previous entries here. Enjoy!

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Upon agreeing to accompany Cynthia wherever it was she needed to go, she immediately picked up her gun and quickly ascended the stairs to her room. I followed soon after. One of the great joys of being with her was showing up at her house long before I was supposed to when we were going out on a date together. Predictably, she wouldn’t be ready and I’d follow her up to her room and watch as she got dressed. Not only did I get to see her naked for brief periods of time, the two of us typically had very good conversations, conversations that usually led to me getting laid either before or after our date. I began to think she expected me to show up early most times and was merely waiting in her bathrobe for me to show up, eager to talk.

I’d missed those little half-naked chats we used to have and I think she did too.

The two of us reached her room and she quickly dropped her bathrobe to the floor, standing there in nothing but a black bra and a matching pair of lace panties. I sat down on her bed, admiring her curves. I think she knew I was staring as she sauntered over to her closet, fluffing her hair as she walked, and flung the double doors open. She removed from the closet a pair of black pants and a black, low-cut top and threw them at me. I snatched them out of the air and placed them on her bed.

She started to turn to me for a second, almost as if she was sorry for throwing the clothes at me or she felt like doing that was out of place, hesitated and then went back to rifling through the closet. It was common for her to throw her clothes at me, expecting me to catch them and neatly put them on the bed for her. I enjoyed her playfulness but, seeing as we weren’t together anymore, I’m guessing she was considering our relationship more businesslike than I’d thought or perhaps she felt she had to keep it businesslike for some reason…

Cynthia was now removing a large black suitcase from the closet, one that looked like it was already packed, in case of emergencies and wheeled it over to me. “Hold this for me.” She said, thrusting the handle toward me.

“What for?” I asked, taking the handle from her and watching as she sat down on the bed and began pulling on her pants.

“Just hold it.” She replied tersely.

“Umm…right.”

Cynthia pulled her top over her head and walked over to her mirror and checked her appearance. She wasn’t wearing any makeup but she seemed satisfied. She was a natural beauty. Makeup only enhanced what she already had; it wasn’t a mask that she put on to cover up flaws in her appearance. Cynthia walked away from the mirror and picked up a laptop that was lying on the desk near the window, her cellphone and the silenced Beretta, which she tucked into the back of her pants and pulled her top down over. She walked over to me and unzipped the suitcase, shoving her laptop inside and zipping it back up. She looked up at me.

“Come on, we don’t have much time.” Cynthia said, walking out into the hallway.

I quickly followed her, her black suitcase in tow, as she swiftly descended the stairs, still wondering why she couldn’t tell me where she was taking me or why I couldn’t just leave. I hated being left in the dark, especially by people I cared about.

Cynthia pulled on a pair of simple black flats sitting on a doormat by the front door and grabbed her keys from the nearby hook situated on the wall. “Let’s go.” She said quickly. I nodded in reply and we headed for the back door.

However, it seems someone was eager to see us before we left. Cynthia and I heard the sounds of a car pulling up outside and two sets of doors opening quickly after. We knew what was going on. The loan shark had figured out what happened and had sent more of his goons to take care of us before we left.

“Shit. I knew this was coming.” Cynthia hissed, crouching low and pulling out her pistol. “Get down.”

I acquiesced, drawing my gun as well. “Alright, how do you want to pla—”

I was cut off as bullets from several guns, most likely submachine guns and assault rifles began to cut through the house. Cynthia and I dropped to the floor in almost perfect unison. So these guys weren’t here to take us alive. Well, that certainly made things a lot more straightforward than I’d originally anticipated. The two of us moved quickly into the kitchen, split left and right to different sides of a doorway and took cover behind the thick concrete wall. Bullets continued to rip through the house, flying in through the windows and the front door.

“As I was saying, how do you want to play this?” I said over the noise of the bullets being fired in our direction.

“This is a distraction. They’re trying to circle around and get us from behind while we’re concentrated on the front.” Cynthia said, unusually calmly. “Cover me; I’m going to make sure no one’s trying to get in the back door.”

In that instant, the lights went out and the house fell into darkness. They must have cut the power, I thought. Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they try to make this as difficult as they possibly could for us? Cynthia made her move, darting towards the back door. I looked out into the hallway toward the front door, which was in the process of being broken down. I pointed my gun toward the door, glancing furtively at Cynthia as she moved toward the back door. She held her gun at the ready as she noticed that someone was trying to pick the lock and discreetly make his way inside. Cynthia peeked out of a nearby window, checking the back porch to see how many people were waiting to get inside. She motioned to me, holding up two fingers. I nodded in reply.

The front door was finally broken down and a large, heavy set man stumbled inside. I let loose with my Beretta, hitting him three times, twice in his chest and once in his head. He never even saw it coming. As he dropped to the ground, his partner came inside and let loose with the Mac-11 he was carrying. I took cover behind the wall, bits of plaster, concrete and dust erupting from it as it was struck by numerous bullets. Even more bullets whizzed past my place of cover as I looked back to Cynthia seeing that she was waiting by the door for the men to enter. I wanted to help her. I didn’t know how adept she was at handling herself in a firefight but I had to trust that she could handle this alone. As much as I wanted to help her, I’d probably end up getting in the way. Besides, I thought as more bullets whizzed past me, I had my own problems to deal with.

There was a brief gap in the stream of bullets and I peeked out. The guy who had been firing at me had retreated behind a wall and was noisily reloading his gun. I could barely see him in the darkness of the house, through the dust that still hung in the air but I caught sight of his exposed ankle. This guy apparently didn’t take cover as well as he thought he did. I took aim and fired, hitting him squarely in his Achilles tendon. The guy cried out in pain and fell to the ground and I shot him three times more.

Sure that the guy was dead and that there were no others coming through the front door, I looked over at Cynthia. The guys picking the lock had just finished and were trying the door, slowly and deliberately. I pointed my pistol in their direction but Cynthia motioned at me to lower my gun, evidently insistent that she was going to take care of this herself.

The door opened and Cynthia returned her attention to that, as well as the people opening it. The door slowly opened, toward me so I couldn’t really see what was going on but as far as I could tell, the two were coming in, one behind the other. That was until Cynthia stepped out from her cover directly to the side of the door and, in a move even I didn’t see coming, elbowed the guy in front in his face and delivered a heel kick to the guy’s sternum as hard as she could as he stumbled backward into his partner and unloaded her clip into them. Their screams cut through the air in the dead of night as they fell to the ground.

Cynthia dropped her empty magazine to the ground and looked over at me, as I stared at her, open mouthed. “Alex,” she began. “go get my suitcase and let’s go.”

I frowned. “The fuck, is my name Jeeves or something?” I said as I went off down the hallway to retrieve the bag. I could practically feel Cynthia rolling her eyes behind me as I walked. I stepped over the dead guy at the end of the hallway and grabbed the suitcase and headed back to her, suitcase in hand.

“Let’s go.” She said as I returned. “The police should be here soon and I’d rather not be here to greet them.”