Tilda and Calvin: An Underground Odyssey of Scandalous Delight

I'm going to die.

The man's face is right in front of mine and his eyes are like the sun and I can't look away.

"You like my boys, little girl?" he asks me in a voice that sounds like a snake made out of glass. I can't tell if he's talking to me or not because it's so low and raspy, like every breath is an effort. Suddenly, there's a groan of metal and dirt falling behind him, but the man doesn't turn around. He just keeps staring at me through the shattered window, his arms bulging from his pinstripe suit, his hands stained black with blood and dust. I can feel blood trickling down my face where he hit me with the butt of his gun, but I don't know how bad it is. My vision is too blurry to see.

"Hey," Tilda says from somewhere behind me, her voice shaking in panic. "Hey!" She touches my shoulder again and this time I hear her scream as the man turns from me to her. Her scream cuts off abruptly as a gunshot rings out through the shop and Tilda falls to the ground next to me.

I'm going to die.

I reach down for her hand, desperate for her to live even if I don't make it, but my fingers close on empty air as Tilda's body jerks into motion again with another shot. This time she doesn't move at all. I try to crawl toward her but there's something holding me down: a wooden beam across my back that must've fallen when the man shot up the wall above us.

The man stands over me now and grins at me with yellow teeth that seem too big for his mouth; they're stained red along the gums where he gnaws at them when he gets nervous. Tilda is dead beside me but I won't let myself cry until this man kills me too, because if he does then there won't be any point in crying after all this time spent running from him and staying safe in Calvin's home country of France.

"So you're Calvin's little whore," the man says in that same rasping voice as before and now I can feel something warm trickling down my back and soaking into my shirt. It hurts so much when I try to breathe that it makes me lightheaded, but when I look up into that terrible face again tears start streaming down my cheeks anyway because this will be it soon; this will be the last thing that happens to me before everything goes black forever -

There's another crash behind him, followed by a loud clang! that seems way too close for comfort where I am sprawled on the floor beneath the window sill. The man whirls around abruptly in surprise, spraying bullets everywhere as he does so - bullets that whizz past my head so close I can feel their heat - and suddenly there are two figures standing in front of him taking shots at him while one of them pushes against the beam pinning me down until it lifts off of my back enough for me to crawl out from under it.

It takes a few minutes for my vision to clear long enough for me to recognize Jovana helping me up while Carson goes after our attacker still shooting wildly at us both while we run out of the shop with our guns blazing back at him: two little girls in stolen dresses covered in blood just like their abuser who still hasn't stopped firing even though he looks like he might collapse any second now. His suit is torn up all over from where we hit him and blood is pouring out of one side of his chest where something must've hit his heart because he finally drops his weapon now and puts one hand over it while trying to keep himself upright with the other arm -

"Carson!" Jovana screams from somewhere far away as she runs back toward him after dropping hers on the ground "no!" She reaches for him but she's too late - too slow - she'll never make it in time -