She wasn’t supposed to be here today. Paige, who appeared on the outside to be an ordinary twelve-year-old girl, had not been invited to Anthony Tate’s birthday party. Largely because her father had no idea that Anthony even knew about her, let alone that they had become very close friends over the past couple years. It was a friendship that secretly grew whenever she managed to sneak out and play with him and Cassidy. The three of them had become nearly inseparable, despite the difficulty in actually involving Paige. Even when she couldn’t be there physically, however, the girl still communicated with her two friends over the phone and online.
It had been during one of those online conversations that Cassidy had convinced Paige to sneak out of her home while her father was in a long meeting. Anthony was having a birthday party and they were going to go together. Paige would simply be Cassidy‘s guest, a friend from school.
Getting Paige out of there while her father was distracted meant showing up to the party early, but Cassidy‘s driver, Robert Parson, didn’t mind. After all, it wasn’t as though they couldn’t find a way to entertain themselves before the party actually started. He dropped the two girls off at the house, watching as they ran inside and greeted their friend at the door.
Over the next hour or so, the three children ran around the back yard or played in Anthony’s bedroom. The boy was obviously excited for his birthday, as he was finally turning eleven, like Cassidy. He was only a couple months younger than she was, but Cassidy often teased him about that just because his reaction was so fun. But now he would be eleven too, and ‘I’m eleven and two months and you’re only eleven and zero months’ didn’t carry the same weight as ‘I’m eleven and you’re ten.’ Not that she was ever mean about that, of course. It was just fun to wind him up. And considering how often said teasing led to one of them chasing the other around the backyard while shouting increasingly hilariously wild threats, Anthony ended up enjoying it as much as she did. Even if he would never admit that.
They played tag through the hedge maze in the backyard, though Paige took care not to use anywhere near her actual full physical capabilities. She wanted to have fun with her friends, not completely dominate the whole game. So she allowed them to outrun her, deliberately missed a few of her attempted tags, and took corners just noisily enough that they could hear where she was going. She also politely pretended not to notice Cassidy hiding in one of the hedges, waiting to ambush her, and squealed in very convincing surprise as the girl jumped out.
In all, the trio spent a very enjoyable hour together, while Anthony’s family’s staff set up the actual party on the back patio, near the pool. Soon, the smell of barbecue food began to fill the air, making the children start to circulate closer as their stomachs made themselves known. But Anthony’s mother chased them off, informing the children that they would be called when it was time. So, the three of them went to play around the boy’s treehouse in one corner of the massive yard. It was a truly impressive structure, amounting to a trio of buildings spread throughout three actual trees, with wooden bridges connecting them, two separate rope ladders at either end, and a small wooden elevator one person could sit on to be lifted up or down with the press of a button. There was also a working refrigerator and microwave in the main building so they could have snacks. Though in this case, the trio avoided that. Hungry as they were, Anthony’s mother had made it very clear that they were supposed to wait for the actual birthday dinner. And that was something the boy himself didn’t want to spoil. He’d been waiting for this for a long time. Anthony was always allowed to choose what they had for his birthday meal, and he’d chosen this barbecue set-up weeks ago.
Eventually, the three of them sat on one of the bridges connecting the buildings through the trees and let their legs dangle off the side. Anthony, sitting between the two girls, was going on about a trip his family were going to take at the end of the school year. They would be going to several places in Europe to visit some historical sites his parents wanted to see. Most children might not have cared about that sort of thing, but Anthony had always been a bit of a history nerd. Even though he was only just barely eleven years old, the boy knew more about most of both world wars than most high school students. He and Cassidy had a game where he would tell her a fact about the wars, and she would try to guess if he was making it up or not. Paige had joined in on this once they befriended her, but she contributed many historical North and South American facts, often involving geography as much as history.
Cassidy, meanwhile, called both of her friends nerds. But she still played along and had fun learning everything the two of them were sharing. Giving them a hard time about it didn’t mean the stuff wasn’t interesting and cool (not to mention terrifying sometimes), but still. She had to tease them.
Finally, Cassidy said she had to use the bathroom. Paige went with her, and the two of them ran inside, while Anthony meandered over to look at the table full of presents. He didn’t get too close, but Cassidy and Paige still heard his mother warn him not to touch them just yet and that they would be opening presents after cake and ice cream.
Giggling to themselves, the two girls made their way inside and used the bathroom (it had three different stalls, just as many sinks, and a pair of shower stalls as it was meant for the household staff to use) while chattering together about a TV show they both liked. Neither were paying any attention to the sounds of party preparation going on through the slightly open window. But that all changed a second later, as they were leaving the bathroom. That was when a staccato burst of gunshots filled the air, followed by a single, louder one that seemed to be fired into the air.
As soon as she heard that, Paige immediately grabbed Cassidy and yanked her back behind her, just in case. She tried to use her built-in wireless communications to contact emergency services, but couldn’t get through. Something was blocking calls to the outside. This wasn’t just a random attack, this was something worse. Much worse.
Cassidy was already blurting out a question of what that sound was, as a man came around the corner in the hallway. He saw the two girls and raised his weapon, mouth opening to shout an order. But Paige was faster. With one hand, she shoved Cassidy to the floor where she would be safe. Her other hand snapped out to catch hold of a painting on the wall, tearing it off and hurling the thing. The frame of the painting hit the man square in the forehead before he could react, knocking him to the ground with a cry as his weapon went off a couple times harmlessly into the nearby wall.
Before he could recover, Paige ran to him. Her small figure was almost a blur of motion as she grabbed the edge of a stone statuette sitting on a long shelf and slammed it down hard enough on the man’s head that he went still and didn’t move again. A trickle of blood leaked from where he had been struck.
“Paige!” Cassidy picked herself up and ran that way, stopping short. “Wha-what?” Her eyes were wide with horror as she stared at the fallen man.
Grabbing her friend by the hand, Paige dragged her into a nearby room. There was more gunfire happening outside, and elsewhere in the house. Through the large floor to ceiling windows in what turned out to be one of the bedrooms, they could see down onto the grounds one floor below. One of the maids was running across the grass just before another man stepped into view and shot her in the back. It was a sight that made Cassidy scream, but Paige covered the other girl’s mouth to muffle it, lest anyone else hear.
For a moment, the two of them stared through that window as the sight unfolded before them. It was a massacre. Any servants were being killed where they stood or ran, while the family members were being herded together down on the patio. All through the house, they could hear more gunfire and screams.
The entire place had turned into a war zone in the past few seconds. This wasn’t like the stories that Paige and Anthony told about historical battles. This was real, and it was… it was… bad. Cassidy found herself clinging to Paige as she made a weak, horrified sound in the back of her throat. No words would actually come out, aside from the occasional ‘no’ and ‘please.’
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The two of them both spotted Anthony at the same time. Their friend was being dragged by his hair as one of the men marched him over to his mother and started shouting questions about where someone was. But who were they--
It was Cassidy. The men were all looking for Cassidy. This whole attack, all this murder, the massacre, it was all because they were trying to find Cassidy. Realizing that as the man shouted demands at Anthony, the girl in question made a choked sob in the back of her throat. Then, without even pausing to think at all, she lunged toward the window, intent on shouting that she was right there and they had to stop hurting people.
But Paige knew better. That wouldn’t work. These men were here to kill everyone. So, she caught hold of Cassidy’s arm and yanked her back. When the girl protested, she put a finger to her lips. “No, Cassie. They’ll take you and they’ll kill everyone else. You stay here.” When the other girl’s mouth opened to protest, Paige spoke over her, voice firm. “Stay here, Cassie. I’ll get Anthony. I can help them, I promise. But you have to stay here, okay? Hide. As long as they don’t know where you are and the bad guys think someone else might know, they won’t kill everyone. They think someone might know where you are, so they won’t…” She grimaced. “Just… hide here. I can stop these guys. Please, trust me.”
Swallowing hard, Cassidy hesitated before reluctantly agreeing. Something about the way Paige was acting made her believe the girl when she said she could get Anthony and stop this. Maybe it was just her own terror and desperation, she wasn’t sure. But, in the end, she obediently crawled under the nearby bed and hid there with both arms over her head, trembling heavily.
Once she was sure the other girl was as safe as she could be given the circumstances, Paige made her way back to the door and paused there to listen. Two more gunshots rang out one floor below, near the pantry. It sounded as though one of the staff had tried to hide there, but it was just found. Meanwhile, she could hear a single set of footsteps approaching from the same direction as the man she had already put down. They came around the corner, and she heard the muffled gasp of surprise at the body found there. These men had come to commit a massacre. They weren’t expecting any real opposition.
More to the point, they weren’t expecting any real opposition from a child. So, as Paige came into view, the man jerked toward her and raised his weapon. But then he hesitated. Clearly this small, innocent blonde girl wasn’t the source of whatever had killed his partner there on the floor. But maybe she knew what--
The thoughts that were running through the man’s head were immediately cut off as Paige suddenly bounded forward. His mouth opened to blurt a command, but the girl jumped to the right. Her foot hit the long, narrow table full of pictures and knick knacks there, and she rebounded off of it to the left just as his gun was moving to track her first motion. He reflexively and unthinkingly fired a shot, which went through the wall above the table, right where she had been an instant earlier. Paige, meanwhile, bounced off the left wall that time, much closer to the man. While he was still trying to adjust his aim, she caught hold of his extended wrist with the gun. Her momentum carried her just past the man, yanking his arm along with her. As she landed on the floor, Paige was already sharply twisting the man’s wrist. A jolt of blinding pain shot all the way up his arm, and he stumbled down to one knee. His mouth opened to cry out, the gun falling from his grasp. But the incredibly strong girl’s fist collided with his throat with enough force that the man collapsed to the ground next to the other body. He too would never move again.
The moment the man was down, Paige crouched and grabbed both fallen pistols. Her head was cocked to the side as she listened intently, keeping track of everything that was going on. Anthony was outside, clinging to his mother while protesting that he didn’t know where Cassidy was. The girl herself, meanwhile, was still hiding under the bed in the other room, quietly sobbing to herself. But she would be okay. And so would Anthony. Paige was about to make certain of that. They had invited her to this birthday party. They were her friends. And like hell would she let these people, whoever they were, hurt her friends.
With one gun each hand, Paige began to make her way through the house. As she reached the next hallway over, a man with a shotgun turned to face her. His sight-line was too high, looking for someone taller, and she had already put a bullet between his eyes before he adjusted. Another man dove out of the room nearby, his own gun already raised to fire. But Paige had reacted to his arrival and twisted her body so the shot went wide. Her own, however, did not. The new arrival’s body fell limply on top of the other man’s, his gun clattering uselessly across the floor.
That sound was accompanied by running footsteps. Paige stepped aside from the open doorway, putting herself in the small space between a nearby potted plant and the wall. As the new man came through, she flung the door into him as hard as her considerable strength could manage. The door was strong enough to remain intact, but the man’s arm was broken. His gun went flying into the opposite wall while he staggered and cried out. Before he could recover, Paige side-stepped the door as it rebounded off him, moving right into view. The man had just enough time to see his attacker, even as she used the gun in her left hand to shoot him through the eye.
The girl was already pivoting back the other way as his body collapsed. Ahead of her were the two dead bodies from moments earlier, along with a window at the end of the hall. Her sharp ears were able to pick up the sound of the man outside losing patience with Anthony and his parents. She was out of time. No more doing this the slow way.
To that end, Paige began to sprint forward as fast as she could go. Reaching the pair of corpses, she hopped over them. In mid-leap, the girl extended her right hand back the way she had come, firing two quick shots without looking, simply by using the reflection in the window she was running toward. The first tore through the throat of one man who had been peeking into the room to line up a shot, then continued on to go through the mouth of the man behind him. The second, meanwhile, traveled all the way down the hall to hit the knee of another man who was running up them. He fell backward and began tumbling down those stairs, crashing into several other men who had been right behind him.
In the next instant, Paige reached the window. She pointed the other gun ahead of herself, firing two quick shots to break the thing just before launching herself through it. The window overlooked the patio, where the man in charge was standing with six men scattered around with all the dead bodies. Anthony was there, clinging to his mother while both cowered at the leader’s feet. His father was… oh, lying dead in the pool.
All the men involved looked up and over as the bullets came flying through the shattering window, followed by Paige herself. Before they could start to react beyond that, she had already twisted in midair and shot three of the men in rapid succession. Hitting the ground in a roll while they were still falling, her foot lashed out to kick one of the lounge chairs. It was sent skidding along the cement to slam into the legs of the fourth man, knocking him forward over it. The fifth and sixth men fired, but their shots were hasty. Paige continued rolling, allowing both bullets to ricochet off the ground where she had just been.
That put her directly behind the lounge chair and the man who had just fallen into it. She rose, dropping one of the guns in the process so she could catch hold of the chair to lift it up. The man was pushed along with it, right into the line of fire as both other men and their leader opened up. He took five bullets to the chest, while Paige used him as a human shield. Then she shoved him and the chair forward, sending both flying into the nearest shooter so he fell backward into the pool. The other thug took a bullet to the throat.
Their leader, standing right over Anthony and his mother, reached down to grab the boy by the hair. “Dunno who the fuck you are,” he snarled while putting his gun at the small child’s head, “but let’s play a little--”
That was as far as he got, before Paige put one bullet into the gun to knock it away from Anthony’s head, and a second right between his eyes. He pitched over backward, yanking the boy with him in the process. But Paige got there first, catching Anthony before he could fall on the corpse. She yanked him back, giving Anthony a quick, yet firm hug before shoving him toward his sobbing mother. Both embraced, sobbing in one another’s arms right there on the ground.
Hearing a splash in the pool where she had knocked the last man, Paige snapped her remaining pistol that way. But another shot rang out first. A shot from behind her. The bullet took that last thug in the face, knocking his body back into the water. Paige spun back that way, weapon raised in time to see… Cassidy’s driver, Robert. The large black man stood there, with Cassidy herself clinging to his shoulders.
Both Robert and Paige stared at one another with their weapons raised, before lowering them. Robert’s gaze passed over the scene, taking all of it in gradually before he spoke. “Well then.
“This is gonna be one hell of a report.”