Altered Ch. 02

I tried to casually walk toward the door when one of them spotted me halfway there and shouted "Orale Guey!" and pulled out an Uzi, his buddies immediately followed suit and I rushed for the door. I wasn't really worried about myself and escaping as much as keeping them from shooting everyone else between us.

I dove through the door as the bullets started flying. "Crack, crack, crack, crack," the sound of a machine gun being fired by two men. Screams followed as my fears of crossfire came to fruition anyway. I didn't feel the bullets until I got up to stand outside. I grit my teeth and rushed to the corner of the building and hid. The blood stopped spraying out of me in seconds and my wounds were closing over the bullets.

The gangsters came rushing out of the door in seconds, guns still drawn. They looked down and saw some drops of blood but no trail, so they split up, two going left and two right. As their steps approached my hiding place, I filled myself with rage and rushed forth right when they came in sight.

My fist hit the one with the gun on his jaw with such force it broke both his jaw and shattered my hand. But, I was feeling no pain at that point, and the adrenaline had my blood pounding in my ears. The man seemed to be falling back in slow motion and I carried my momentum forward into the second man and struck him in the chest with a palm strike, using the heel of my hand. His chest seemed to implode and he spat out blood.

I stood there as time seemed to speed back up and I saw the first man land hard on the concrete head first, the second man flew backwards in the air, landing four feet away. It looked like he was DOA when he hit the ground.

The men running the other way heard their buddies' cry and turned back toward me. Both afraid and angry and rather than rush me they unloaded their clips into me as I dove for the cover of the corner again. I was not faster than a speeding bullet as I was struck 10 times before I landed behind cover and the pain that was alluding me before came back in full force. I felt all 10 new holes and my crushed hand before blackness overtook me.

*******

It seemed as if I was dreaming but I could feel my body and there seemed to be another consciousness within me trying to communicate. I tried to focus on it, to speak with it somehow but it never answered me. My pain was different now, I had pain inside me, in places I shouldn't be able to feel, where there were no nerve endings. I focused on those pains and I realized that the pain was showing me something, it was like the pain surrounded some foreign objects and I could see their shape. There were no colors involved it was more like a collection of points of light surrounding something invisible, I saw the object by seeing its void.

The points of light were communicating to me through my nervous system and they seemed to be a collective consciousness of some sort, they didn't understand thought and I could tell that I could only give them very basic commands. It's like I remembered something I didn't ever think of, like the memory was implanted there for me to discover and I understood what to do.

The points of light moved the bullets out of my body, pushing aside tissue, muscle, fat and skin until the bullets were pushed out of my body.

*******

I regained consciousness and was in a haze. I looked down and saw bullet slugs and fragments on my skin and the wounds they were pushed out of were already sealing shut.

I got up tentatively, and limped out to the sidewalk, I could see the two gangsters running off down the street. I saw the man with the broken jaw unconscious and I leaned down and felt that he still had a pulse. The man I hit in the chest on the other hand showed no signs of life. The smell of blood and shit was prevalent, he must have shit himself when he died. I felt sick to my stomach and threw up all over the sidewalk.

When I recovered, I rushed back into the bar to see three people lying on the floor, all three looked like they got hit by bullets. I looked around for George, Tanya and Irene. They were all getting up from under the table shaken up but no worse for wear.

"You guys ok?" I asked the wounded lying on the floor.

"I'm ok just a little banged up. You got shot worse, how are you ok?" one of them asked.

"I heal fast."

Her eyes bugged out in disbelief, "You're that guy on the news!"

I crawled over to one of the unconscious ones and felt his pulse. Yep, he was dead alright. It hit me like a ton of bricks and tears started rolling down my cheeks. I was sobbing uncontrollably, my compassion for this man I never met overwhelmed me. Suddenly, I felt Tanya soothing me and rubbing my back.

I don't know who did this, it could have been the cartel or the Illuminati but it definitely was a hit aimed at me. The fact that the shooters were Mexican would have made me believe that the cartel was responsible, but I was betting that the Illuminati paid them for the hit.

The man teaching the drink lessons came up from behind the bar where, apparently, he'd jumped behind when he saw the gangsters pull out their guns. The third gunshot victim looked to be going into shock as he was shot in two different places.

"Tanya, get a first aid kit, if they don't have one then get one from my pack in the car," I said urgently, [Spanish] "Señor, please get some towels and some water." He didn't move right away until I said, "NOW!"

The man I was tending to was an overweight white guy, apparently married as what appeared to be a woman with a wedding ring was crying over him as his head lay in her lap. He had a wound to his leg and arm. It looked like his shin was shattered but his arm wound looked to be a through and through.

When the towels and a gallon jug of water came, [Spanish] "I need some Tequila for his wounds."

He ran off to grab a bottle of tequila and Tanya brought back a first aid kit.

The wounded man was unconscious so I didn't worry about pain killers but I needed to keep his leg wound from getting infected. I poured a little tequila over his arm wound.

"Tanya, gets some pads from the kit and put them on both sides of his wound and wrap them in gauze."

I took strips of his pants and made a tourniquet around his leg to stop the blood gushing. I then got my knife and tweezers and cleaned them off with a tequila-soaked cloth.

"Hold him down?" I asked some of the onlookers and 2 guys grabbed both of his legs pinning them to the floor.

I probed his wound looking for the bullet. I got really lucky, the bullet was a small caliber and didn't make it much farther than his bone. When I pulled it out it looked whole so I poured tequila over his wound and bandaged him as best as I could with gauze and pads.

The guy running the class had already called the police and ambulances were coming, but I needed to be gone. I left instructions to have the man keep pressure on the wound with another towel and we quickly ran out the back door. We found our way over to Tanya's SUV and got out of there, all the while hoping that a cop didn't pull us over.

"I need to get to the orphanage! If they have found us here in a random place, then they are sure to be staking out places I know. They probably already have my grandfather."

"We're going with you," Tanya said sternly, and when I made a move to protest she gave me this look that she wasn't having any of it. "Look Nate, you may not have time to 'procure' a car to get to the orphanage before they start hurting anyone, you need to leave now. Besides, I can drop you off a mile from there and wait for you, we'll be fine. If you don't come back we can call the police and get help or something."

"Fine! Let's get out of here then."

*******

As Tanya drove down the highway, I was in the backseat and reached into the back section of her SUV and grabbed a change of clothes and stripped and changed out of my bloodied clothes. I saw her checking me out a couple of times through the mirror, she didn't smile or smirk, her eyes were laser focused and the best way to describe her demeanor was grim. For the first time since puberty I felt no sexual desire, rather my mind was filled with rage and thoughts of revenge.

"They will pay for this!" I seethed, as I checked my knives.

I put on a tanned hoodie, brown sweatpants and the black utility belt and my steel toed boots, not a great costume but an all-black cool looking ninja suit would have stuck out against the mostly brown deep red dirt background. I knew I wasn't ready for them but I had surprise on my side I hoped.

"Listen guys, I am going to scout out the orphanage. They might have hostages so I will need to approach on foot. This is my fight so stay out of it. I don't want you getting in my way or dying on me, so you guys will need to hang back at the public pool."

The pool was south of the orphanage so I asked Tanya to pull into the pool's parking area. The pool, which hadn't been filled in years, looked to be abandoned. We pulled behind an abandoned shed in the parking area out of sight of the road, in case they had patrols.

I didn't know who they were or even if I was right and this was a mercenary hit, but if it was then they would have scouts and lookouts. If they were who I thought, then they would be ex-military types, experienced and organized.

"Stay here, don't call me for anything unless your life is being threatened. I'll call you if I can talk."

We quickly verified out walkies were working. They claimed to have a five-mile range, but we would be less than a mile away so hopefully even if they were crap they would still work over the short distance. I gave Irene my range finder and told her to look out for anyone approaching the pool area.

"George take the girls up to the flat rock we used to camp out at if there are any signs of trouble."

There were two ranches in between the orphanage and the pool, and mostly that consisted of vast flat grassland for cattle. The river that ran along the orphanage also ran past both ranches and the pool. I traversed up the middle of the riverbed as it had only a trickle of water in it and it lay lower down than the fields they ran along. Unless someone was in the river it would be hard to see me because the riverbed was lower down than the land surrounding it, also its banks made good hiding spots as there were constant boulders, nooks, crannies and protruding tree roots all along the river. The low hanging branches of the oak trees that lined the edges of the river would make it hard for a high perched spotter to see through. I doubted they had a big crew so they would have to spread their resources out to be the most efficient, that meant they wouldn't be able to cover every blind spot.

I pulled the hood over my blonde hair to keep a better camouflage and I covered my face in mud to keep my shiny white skin from attracting attention. I excelled at my Ninjutsu training as I was fast, agile, limber and had a good eye for detail and this is the first time I would use my training for anything real. When you're an excited teen just learning Ninjutsu, you get into a fantasy of being a ninja. You'll do anything to practice your skills so naturally took up Parkour to complement my training.

George and I would go on 'missions' growing up. Missions were just a challenge where we would have to sneak stealthy through the neighborhood, climbing on roofs and walls in order to complete a challenge, usually there was a time limit involved. It was almost like playing the game lava where you couldn't touch the ground and had to find a way across a room by staying on top of furniture and other objects in order to not touch the ground which had the imaginary lava, except it would be in the dark, on someone's property and we had to do it without anyone knowing we were ever there.

As I got close to the orphanage I saw a spotter on the east bank near the northern border of the ranch that directly neighbored the orphanage. He seemed to be smoking and had his back turned to me but I couldn't be sure that I could ambush him from the river fast enough before he alerted anyone. So, I backtracked a couple hundred yards then climbed up the hill side. The sides were steep and rocky but I had attempted to climb this same route when I was younger so I knew a good way up. I followed the ridgeline and came down to a spot out of his sight where they had a well sticking out of the ground that I could use as cover. I waited patiently for him to use his communications device and timed how long each increment between check ins was (10 mins) then snuck up from behind when he turned his back on me to keep vigil on the southern river approach; I grabbed his neck in a tight grip and slid my knife in his side between two ribs into his lung. He made a hissing squelching sound then a gurgling sound, as his lungs filled with fluid, he spat up blood. He tried to struggle for a few minutes, he punched my forearms trying to break free of my grip and he even tried for his gun but I pulled him backwards and kept him off balance and I grabbed his wrist with my other hand and twisted it snapping its bones with a sickening crunch.

He started going limp so I turned him to face me and all I saw was fear and regret. Then I stripped his body armor off. Killing someone is not like in the movies, they don't die right away, so I saw that he had some plastic tie handcuffs that cops use when they run out of metal cuffs and I set him down and cuffed him in case he had some life left in him. I took out his earpiece and the transmitter and put them on. I took his Glock 26 and hid it behind me in the waistband of my pants and stuffed the two remaining handcuff ties in my cargo pants pocket.

I took his Bushmaster ACR and his four extra clips, attached the clips to my belt and slung the rifle over my shoulder then ran across the riverbed. I climbed through the barbed wire into the neighboring ranch's field. The grass was about two to four ft. high and had a bull grazing in the middle of it. I was easily able to crawl through the fields heading northwest to the midpoint of the fence separating the ranch from the orphanage.

I saw a sentry making rounds around the church which was nothing more than a large square cinderblock structure with a flat concrete roof and had overhangs near the front and back. They must have had captives in this building because they also had a guard at the entrance facing the courtyard. I left my assault rifle and clips in the high grass because they would make too much noise and possibly get in the way of taking out the sentry.

I crawled out of sight of the guard and hid around a corner waiting for the sentry to come back around. I needed to think of a plan and take into account my increased speed, agility, strength and reaction time.

The corner I hid in was in shadows so the sentry would be walking out of sunlight into shade giving me a split-second advantage for a surprise attack that would hopefully be done silently. I pulled out one of my small boot knives as they had a long thin blade, they weren't good slashing weapons but they were great for stabbing like a shank. I flattened my back to the wall and stood a foot from the corner with my right arm raised up, my left hand held my dagger behind my back ready to strike. There were bushes close to the corner of the building so he had to walk close to the corner. I could see the overlapping boot pattern he formed when circling the building multiple times. I heard him approach and held my breath. I was lucky he was bored and not really paying attention. I quickly dispelled his boredom by grabbing the back of his head with my outstretched hand pulling him forward. He barely resisted before my dagger came up stabbing him in his eye socket. The dagger got wedged in his skull, so I kneed him in the stomach evacuating all the air from his lungs before he could cry for help. I followed up by pressing his head into the wall and chopping his neck with the side of my hand with enough force I heard his neck snap.

It was then that I heard the radio check. I reacted quickly and jumped up, grabbing the eave of the building, pulling and swinging myself in a high arch to the roof letting my feet softly land where the overhang met the wall to keep the noise down. Then I ran along the edge of the roof following the side of the building facing the fence that I came through and threw myself forward as if I was diving off of the roof, keeping it low so that as I passed the other eave I would only clear it by a foot. I grabbed the edge of the eave and let my momentum carry my body forward. By pulling against my forward momentum I swung down in a fast arch, my boot heel striking the guard in the face, slamming him against the wall behind him. I dropped down and saw blood everywhere, his nose looked gone, his teeth knocked out and to say he was dazed would be an understatement. Before he could react, my kickboxing instincts kicked in and I high side-kicked him in the throat. As that foot twisted to land, I twisted my body violently and jumped and spun a follow up kick with my other foot to his temple. The light in his eyes were out as he dropped dead.

I pulled the Glock out of my waist and ran into the room, my eyes adjusting to the dim lighting unnaturally fast, I noticed that everyone in the room seemed to move as if I were running a video at super slow speeds. I saw another guard in the back near where the pulpit would be during services. His assault rifle was pointed to the ground and he seemed to be in the middle of noticing me not yet reacting but I didn't give him the time my gun was aimed at his head. I am deadly accurate at 50 yards with a handgun, so it was no surprise when his brain matter was flung against the far wall behind him.

There were only little kids present in the church and all of them were huddled against a wall. Their ages ranged from four to nine and most of the older kids were most likely still in school. Maria was with them and when they started screaming she quickly shushed them and had them look away from the gore. Some of the kids recognized me but I hadn't been there in years so most of them did not. Even Maria didn't recognize me at first because of the mud all over my face but when she did she got up, ran to me and hugged me in relief and she looked like she was going to fall apart mentally.

I slapped her before she could relax, and she looked surprised and tensed up again.

[Spanish] "Maria, you need to get out of here now! You are not out of danger yet and you need to take the children with you to the ranch next door."

She looked like she was going to cry so I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek and said, [Spanish] "I'm sorry I slapped you but I need you to be strong, YOU have to help the children get to safety, no falling apart on me until you are safe. Understand?"

She nodded her head and got the determined look on her face that I needed from her. She had them lineup in two single file lines, there were 19 kids altogether including Maria. I grabbed the guard's assault rifle and his clips, I also noticed he had a silencer for his Glock so I grabbed it dropping my other Glock. I ran out to where the other guard lay and sweeping my gaze from the courtyard to the west to the road through the orphanage to the north and did not see any other mercenaries in view so I waved for them to run and said, "Go, go, go, go!"

The kids used to play a game where they would try to cross the fields to the other side. It is scary because there is a bull in the field, but after playing the game once they knew it was pretty safe as the bull was fairly tame so all of them crossed the fields like it was another game. I hoped they would be ok but I had other concerns. Somewhere an alarm was raised over the radio stating that four or their comrades were missing from roll call and all hands were to rendezvous at the courtyard to reconnoiter the church.