“Hurry up!” Amy called without looking behind her. Which was smart, turning you head to look behind you while running makes you prone to veer off course, as well as run into things you can’t see. Or course had she turned her head she would have seen that I was literally right on her heels. I had to make a conscious effort not to trip her up or step on her feet, which was difficult. The added weight from the man was giving me more momentum and she wasn’t running as fast as she could, I could tell.

“I’m as close as I can get and if you don’t speed up you’ll be following me.” My voice was strained, I hadn’t noticed how tired I was getting already.

“I’m trying to keep track of where we’re going, if we’re not careful we’ll run right back into that neighborhood.” Her voice was still even and her breathing was easy, like she wasn’t even trying. While she wasn’t running as fast as I knew she could we were still moving at a very quick pace, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed. “And if we hit a dead end, I don’t want to get turned around.”

“I can’t even hear sirens anymore.”

“There never were sirens. I think we got out fast enough that they lost us off the bat. They’ll probably have the area blocked off and search the city but we’ll have plenty of time to do our job.”

“Why are we running then?” I was tempted to slow down but caution was something I hadn’t forgotten. “Because if there’s no one chasing us, we could save some energy and find a place to tuck in and get this guy to talk.”

“We’re still running because I can hear an extra set of footsteps behind us. So unless that guy is running while you carry him, someone is following us. It’s not a cop though, a cop wouldn’t chase us alone.”

“Ugh, he followed me. I swear if it’s actually him I actually might change my mind and kill him.” The only other person that knew we were there and would be stupid enough to chase after us alone was Ryan.

“Who are you talking about?” I ignored her, if it hadn’t entered her mind I would have been surprised. She knew who I meant, she just didn’t like that I left the subject of my anger hanging in obscurity.

“Ryan, if that’s you back there you better say so or I will actually turn around and kill you!” I shouted with my head turned to the side as far as I dared. “I still have a knife and last I checked a knife is better than your little bat.” I’d actually almost forgotten about my knife. I’d held onto it after getting stabbed. I’d actually forgotten the knife I’d brought with me too, so I actually had two knives. It would be hard to reach the one tucked in my boot with the guy on my back though.

There was no response from behind us, but now that I was paying attention I could hear the footsteps. They were heavy and uncoordinated, whoever was following us was either drunk or didn’t know how to run. If I were chasing someone stealthily I’d do my best to match my footsteps with theirs so they wouldn’t detect me. For some reason I had the impression that Ryan was better than that. I could have been wrong, it was hard to tell how athletic he was since he was almost completely covered.

“Who else would even be following us?” I muttered. This entire job was just getting more and more ridiculous with every passing hour.

“I’m going to break and turn on them in the next alleyway we hit. Don’t go too far ahead of me or stop too quickly.” Amy grunted. We entered an alleyway just as she finished speaking and I didn’t have time to object before she stepped to the side and spun around. She skidded to a near stop before jumping to a wall using the rest of her momentum and dove shoulder first into whoever was following us.

I skidded to a halt further down the alley, nearly falling over in the process. Carrying someone was not helping my balance. I could see Amy from where I’d stopped despite the lack of lighting. I was amazed that she’d been able to tackle the guy and it looked like she’d knocked him out cold. She was an unstoppable force, even in handcuffs. Her bad side was not a place I wanted to be after seeing her in action.

“Who is it?” I called down the alley, my raspy voice echoed off the walls and quietly diminished with each reverberation.

“Some random dead head, must be another one of Harley’s guys.” Amy sounded just as confused as I was. “Guess he knows we’re after him now.”

“Well that wrecks our element of surprise.” I sighed, finally catching my breath. “Is he any less gone than this guy?” The guy I was carrying was still frozen holding tight to me. The run must have woken him up a little.

“Doesn’t look like…” Amy paused mid-sentence and turned her ear to the end of the alley we’d come from. “There’s another one. More even pace, much faster than this guy.” She didn’t have time to stand before the second pursuer rounded the corner and pointed a gun down the alley, the barrel aimed directly at Amy. “This is gonna hurt.”

A metallic clinking rang through the air, I heard the sound a split second before a metal chain came flying from out of view and wrapped around the gunman’s hand. I started running, slowly picking up speed, towards the distracted man but I was too slow. Something else had gone flying into his legs and a second later a hooded figure came into view diving feet first into the gunman, sending him sprawling out of view.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“I knew you were following us.” I groaned as I walked over to Ryan, who was probably thinking he just saved us.

“To be fair I was following these two. They just so happened to be following you, making your statement true but removes my intent from the equation.” What he was saying didn’t make much sense to me. I just faked a rude yet understanding expression as he got up. “A thank you wouldn’t hurt, I did just save your friend there from getting shot.”

“For the record I’ve been shot many times before, the only thing you saved me from was a few minutes of what I would call mild pain.” Amy had walked up beside me but was more interested in the gunman who was still conscious but looked to be in too much pain to do anything other than hiss angrily. “Your hood's down too by the way.”

“Yeah. I figured I’d just leave it down, no use hiding my face if you two have already seen it.” I had been avoiding looking once I’d noticed, but the hint of politeness in the gesture was stupid to begin with.

I could now tell with certainty that Ryan was in fact male. His gender had never really come into question but somewhere in my mind I thought him being a girl would have been an interesting twist. Apart from his gender, he was fairly nondescript, the kind of guy you could walk past on the street ten times and never notice he was actually following you. Brown hair, brown eyes, no facial hair or even stubble despite him looking old enough to have it. His face was as expressionless as his voice. I got the feeling he covered his face to conceal his lack of emotion more than his appearance.

“I get the feeling that this guy knows a little more than either of the absent minded junkies we found.” I finally turned to Amy and the gunman after staring vacantly at Ryan. He didn’t even seem to care that we just looked at each other silently for a good twenty seconds. “He certainly looks more responsive than everyone else we’ve run into so far.”

“He’s definitely not a druggie.” Amy knelt down next to him. “Are you?” She smacked him across the face with the back of her hand. I cringed. She didn’t have to hit him, he was already down. “Relax, he can’t really feel it, the majority of the pain should be in his legs after that bat. If anything I’m helping him numb it out.” Her explanation didn’t change my mind.

“Just don’t beat him up too much, we need him to tell us where Harley is.” The man started laughing through the pain on his face. A hint of anger was showing on Ryan’s face, it almost looked forced, but that made no sense.

“That’s why you want me?” He choked out, still laughing. “He sent me to kill you. He knew someone would come eventually. Said it’d be an agent of death, an unstoppable demon that could kill me in a second. Turns out it's just two girls and punk with a baseball bat.”

“I’m not actually with them. I don’t care if Harley lives or dies, I just want back what he took from me.” Ryan’s voice was cold, the subtle rage in his voice was a little scary.

“It doesn’t matter!” The man was hysterical now. “He’ll just kill all of you.”

“Why don’t you just tell us where we can find him then?” I gently removed the semiconscious man from my back and propped him against a wall. “So that we might more easily meet our timely end at the hands of the oh so terrifyingly powerful Harley.”

“There’s a warehouse across town.” The man had calmed down somewhat, at least enough to speak clearly and without laughing. Still, the sadistic look in his eyes never left. “It used to be used to store product and supplies for an auto assembly plant. The plant burned down and the company abandoned the property because it was deemed structurally unstable. The place is solid as a rock, they just want to avoid legal crap and discourage looters.”

“I know the place.” Ryan’s voice had returned to a blank emotionless tone. “There were a lot of looters scouring it a couple months back, from what I heard no one found anything worth selling.”

“I guess that means we don’t need you anymore.” Amy glared at the man who grew silent. “So what do we do with you?” Amy looked up to see Ryan and I exchange blank glances. “Either of you have a hair pin or something I can use to unlock these cuffs?” Amy held up her hands, I had almost forgotten she was handcuffed. They hardly seemed to hinder her at all.

“Here, I’ve got a shim.” Ryan reached into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out a long, thin, flat metal instrument and tossed it to Amy. “Stick the bent end into the keyhole and turn right to get the double…”

“I know how unlock cuffs.” Amy growled as she twisted the shim around and unlocked the first cuff. “Restraints these days are pathetic compared to what they used to use. Back in the day the shackles hurt more, had better locks, and weren’t as easy to get out of. Mass production has destroyed modern day security.”

“When was back in the day?” Ryan looked confused.

“In the time before innocent until proven guilty was a thing.” Amy tossed me the cuffs and I dragged the struggling man over to a street lamp. I brought the man I’d been carrying on my back over and looped the two sets of cuffs before cuffing the other man with his arms around the lamp post. “I’m a lot older than I look and I think we’ll leave it there before you impolitely ask my age.”

“You think that’ll hold him?” I asked, taking a step back to get a better look at my work. I wasn’t very convinced myself, but it was just a temporary solution.

“That’ll work, even if he escapes we’ll be done before he can do anything. The police are more likely to find him anyways.” Amy picked up the discarded gun that had been lying on the sidewalk this entire time before she finally turned her attention to Ryan. “Now take us to this warehouse or I shoot you.”

“Geez, no need to make threats.” Ryan looked oddly relaxed with the gun pointed at him. I was kind of used to it by now. Ryan was just odd. That he was relaxed in a situation where he might get shot was normal for him. At least it seemed normal to me at the time, I didn’t really know the guy well enough to say whether his behavior was actually normal. “I’m headed there anyways, you might as well come along.” He retrieved his bat and chain before leading the way down the street and towards what was hopefully our final destination of the night.