Savage Rites – Episode 35&36

The first shot was deafening.

It didn’t sound like the pop of a firecracker. In the enclosed chamber of the ballroom, it sounded like the sky cracking open.

The bullet Nico fired didn’t hit Julian. It hit the Russian guard standing next to him, catching him in the throat. A spray of bright red blood painted the white of Julian’s tuxedo jacket.

Julian didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look at the dying man choking on his own blood beside him. He just looked at me.

“Kill them all,” Julian ordered calmly. “But bring me the Queen alive.”

Then, hell broke loose.

“Down!” Nico roared.

He didn’t wait for me to obey. He tackled me. His weight slammed into me, driving me into the hard marble floor. My head cracked against the stone, stars bursting in my vision, but Nico covered me completely.

Above us, the air turned into a storm of lead.
Glass from the chandeliers rained down like jagged diamonds. Bullets chewed into the plaster walls, the buffet tables, the flesh of screaming students.

Hundreds of bodies in black and silver surged toward the exits, trampling each other in a blind panic.

“Move!” Nico grabbed the back of my gold dress and hauled me up.

We weren’t running toward the exit. The exit was a kill zone. We were running toward the overturned heavy oak tables of the VIP section.

“Matteo! Dante!” Nico shouted over the roar of automatic fire.

Matteo was already moving. He had flipped a heavy banquet table onto its side. He was crouched behind it, a silver handgun in each hand, grinning like a maniac.

“Party’s started!” Matteo yelled, popping up to fire two rounds. A Russian advancing on our left dropped, a hole in his forehead.

Dante was quieter. He had retrieved two subcompact submachine guns from… somewhere. He slid across the floor, coming to rest beside us behind the table.

“Back door is blocked,” Dante reported, his voice flat. “Three tangos covering the kitchen exit.”

“Then we make a new door,” Nico snarled.
He looked at me. His face was streaked with dust, his domino mask gone.

“Stay low. Do not let go of my belt. If I stop, you stop. If I shoot, you cover your ears.”
“Nico, there are too many of them!” I screamed as a spray of bullets turned the wood of the table above our heads into splinters.

“I don’t care if there’s an army,” Nico said, reloading his clip with a sharp clack. “You are walking out of here.”

A shadow loomed over the top of our cover.
A Russian mercenary, wearing a full black, vaulted over the table. He landed right in front of me, raising a combat knife.

Nico was reloading. He wasn’t fast enough.
The mercenary lunged.

I threw my arm up—instinct, pure and useless.
The knife came down.

CLANG.

The blade struck my forearm. But it didn’t slice through skin. It hit the gold mesh. Sparks flew as the steel skidded off the Kevlar-lined scales.

The mercenary froze, confused.

That second of confusion cost him his life.

Nico didn’t use his gun. He dropped the magazine, lunged forward, and grabbed the man’s throat with one hand. With the other, he drew a jagged combat knife from his boot.
He drove the blade up, under the man’s jaw, into his brain.

It was brutal.

Nico ripped the knife out, hot blood splashing across his face and onto my gold dress. He shoved the dead body onto the floor to use as an extra sandbag.

He turned to me, his eyes wild, checking my arm.

“The mesh held?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I gasped, clutching my arm. It throbbed, a massive bruise forming instantly, but I wasn’t bleeding.

“Good girl.”

“We need to move!” Sloane yelled.

She had crawled over to us, her silver dress torn, her diamond mask missing. She was holding a small, pearl-handled revolver. She looked exhilarated.

“They’re flanking us on the right!” Sloane pointed. “Julian is directing them from the stage!”

I risked a glance over the barricade.

Julian was standing on the raised stage where the orchestra had been. He was leaning on his cane, watching the slaughter like a conductor. He saw me looking.

He pointed his cane directly at our table.
“Suppressing fire!” Julian commanded. “Pin them down!”

Five machine guns opened up at once.
The noise was a physical weight. The table began to disintegrate under the hail of bullets. Wood chips flew into my hair, stinging my face.

“We can’t stay here!” Matteo shouted, reloading. “We’re sitting ducks!”
“The service elevator,” Nico said. ” behind the bar.”

“It’s across the open floor,” Dante noted. “Thirty feet. No cover.”

Nico looked at the bar. He looked at the wall of Russians advancing on us.

He grabbed a bottle of high-proof vodka from the debris on the floor. He ripped a strip of cloth from the tablecloth and stuffed it into the neck.

“Matteo,” Nico said. “Light me up.”

Matteo flicked his lighter. The rag caught fire.
“Cover fire on three,” Nico ordered. “Run on four.”

“One,” Dante counted, raising his guns.
“Two.”
“Three!”

Dante and Matteo stood up, unleashing a torrent of bullets into the advancing line. The Russians flinched, ducking for cover.

“Four!”

Nico threw the Molotov cocktail.

It smashed into the center of the dance floor, directly in the path of the mercenaries. A wall of blue and orange fire erupted, creating a barrier of heat and chaos.

“Run!” Nico grabbed my hand.
We bolted.

We left the safety of the table and sprinted across the slick marble floor.

It was thirty feet. It felt like thirty miles.

Bullets whizzed past us like angry hornets. I heard one hit the floor by my heel. I heard another ping off a serving tray.

I ran in the heavy gold dress, the metal scales chiming. I slipped on a pool of blood someone else’s, and started to go down.

Nico didn’t let me fall. He jerked me up so hard my shoulder popped, dragging me forward.

“Almost there!”

We reached the bar. Nico shoved me over the counter. I landed on the rubber mats on the other side.

Nico vaulted over after me. Sloane followed. Then Dante.

Matteo was last. He was running backward, firing wildly.

A bullet caught him.

Matteo spun around, clutching his shoulder, and hit the bar.

“Matteo!” I screamed.

Dante reached over the bar, grabbed Matteo by his tactical vest, and hauled him over just as the spot where he had been standing was chewed up by machine-gun fire.

Matteo hit the floor, groaning. Blood was pouring from his shoulder, staining his white shirt crimson.

“I’m good,” Matteo wheezed, his face pale. “Through and through. Just a flesh wound.”
“Save the commentary,” Nico snapped. He checked the clip in his gun. Empty. He slammed a fresh one in.

He looked at the service elevator. It was ten feet away.

But standing in front of it was a massive Russian with a shotgun.

The Russian racked the slide.
He aimed at me.

There was no time to shoot.
Nico didn’t hesitate. He threw himself in front of me.

BOOM.

The shotgun blast hit Nico in the chest.
The force of it lifted him off his feet. He slammed backward into me, knocking the wind out of my lungs, and we both crashed to the floor behind the bar.

“Nico!” I shrieked, scrambling out from under him.

He was lying on his back. His tuxedo shirt was shredded.

But there was no blood.

He sat up, gasping for air, clutching his chest.
“Kevlar,” he wheezed, tapping the vest hidden under his shirt. “Ribs are broken. But I’m alive.”

Dante had already popped up and put two bullets in the shotgun wielder’s head. The Russian dropped.

“Elevator is clear!” Dante yelled.

Nico grabbed my arm. His grip was weaker, his face gray with pain, but his eyes were still burning.

“Get up,” he gritted out.

He dragged me to the elevator. He punched the button. The doors opened with an agonizing slowness.

We piled in. Matteo slumped in the corner, Sloane pressing a napkin to his wound. Dante stood guard at the door.

I looked out into the ballroom one last time as the doors started to close.

Through the smoke and the fire, I saw Julian.
He had stepped down from the stage. He was walking across the dance floor, stepping over bodies, walking through the flames of the Molotov cocktail as if they couldn’t touch him.

He looked right at the elevator. Right at me.
He raised his cane and pointed it at the ceiling.

Move two complete.

The doors slammed shut, sealing us in the metal box.

Nico slid down the wall to the floor, clutching his ribs.

I dropped to my knees beside him, my gold dress pooling in the blood and grime on the floor.

“We need to get you a doctor,” I cried, touching his chest.

Nico grabbed my hand. His fingers were stained with the mercenary’s blood, Matteo’s blood, maybe his own.

“No doctors,” Nico rasped. “We go to the Safe Room. Below the tunnels.”

He looked at me.
“He let us go, Elena.”
“What?”

“Julian,” Nico whispered, closing his eyes. “He saw the elevator. He could have ordered his men to blow the doors. He let us leave.”
“Why?”

Nico opened his eyes. They were filled with a terrifying realization.

“Because he wants the chase,” Nico said. “He doesn’t want to kill us here. He wants to hunt us down in the dark.”

The service elevator groaned to a halt. The doors slid open, revealing not a hallway, but a mouth of darkness.

We were in the steam tunnels.

Blackwood University was built on the bones of an old asylum and a prohibition-era smuggling route. The tunnels were a labyrinth of dripping brick, rusted pipes, and shadows that seemed to stretch forever.

“Move,” Dante commanded, stepping out first, his gun raised and scanning the gloom.

Sloane and I helped Matteo out. He was heavy, his legs dragging, his face a sheen of sweat.

“I’m fine,” Matteo mumbled, his words slurring. “Just… need a drink.”

“You’ve lost a pint of blood, you idiot,” Sloane snapped, though her grip on his good arm was tight and supportive. “Keep moving or I’ll leave you for the rats.”

Nico stumbled out last. He leaned heavily against the elevator frame, clutching his chest. His breathing was shallow, jagged gasps that sounded like tearing paper.

I rushed to his side, slipping my arm around his waist to support him. The gold chainmail of my dress scraped against his shredded shirt.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered.

Nico looked down at me. His face was pale, the adrenaline fading to leave behind raw pain, but his eyes were lucid.

“Left,” he wheezed. “Fifty yards. Iron door.”
We moved as a wounded pack through the dark. The air down here was cold and smelled of wet earth and copper. My gold dress trailed in the muck, heavy and ruined, but I didn’t care.

We reached the iron door. It looked like the entrance to a vault, rusted shut.

Dante moved to a keypad hidden behind a loose brick. He punched in a code. The lock disengaged with a heavy clank, and the door swung inward.

The Safe Room.

It wasn’t comfortable. It was a concrete box lined with shelves of canned food, weapons, and medical supplies. There was a metal table in the center and a few cots against the wall. A single bulb flickered to life overhead, casting a sickly yellow light.

“Table,” Sloane ordered, kicking a chair out of the way.

We hauled Matteo onto the metal table. He groaned, his head lolling back.

“Dante, secure the door,” Nico ordered, leaning against the wall and sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. “Then check the monitors.”
I stood in the middle of the room, torn. Matteo was bleeding out on the table. Nico was gasping for air on the floor.

“Go to Matteo,” Nico rasped, seeing my hesitation. “Sloane needs help.”

I ran to the table. Sloane had already ripped Matteo’s shirt open. The bullet wound in his shoulder was a dark, oozing hole.

“It went through,” Sloane said, examining the exit wound on his back. “Clean shot. No shattered bone from the looks of it, but he hit an artery.”

She looked at me. Her hands were covered in Matteo’s blood, but she wasn’t shaking.
“Elena, grab the trauma kit from the shelf. I need gauze, quick-clot, and iodine.”

I scrambled to the shelves, grabbing the red bag. I brought it to her.

“Hold pressure,” Sloane commanded, pressing a pad of gauze onto the wound. “Push hard.”
I pressed down. Matteo cried out, his body arching off the table.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Matteo.”
“Is okay, Princess,” Matteo gritted out through clenched teeth. “Just… don’t let Sloane kiss me. She bites.”

Sloane rolled her eyes, ripping open a packet of clotting powder. “If you die, Rinaldi, I’m stealing your car.”

She poured the powder into the wound. Matteo screamed, a raw, guttural sound that echoed off the concrete walls.

“Okay,” Sloane breathed, working fast to wrap the shoulder. “Okay. The bleeding is slowing. He’s stable.”

I stepped back, my hands trembling. My gold dress was smeared with red now. It really did look like I had been to war.

I turned to Nico.

He hadn’t moved from the wall. His eyes were closed, his head tipped back against the concrete.

I walked over to him and knelt down. The floor was freezing.

“Nico?”

He opened his eyes. They were hazy with pain.

“Status?” he asked.

“Matteo is stable. Sloane has him.”

“Good.” He tried to shift, and a hiss of pain escaped his lips. “Help me with the vest. It’s… compressing the breaks.”

“Okay.”

I reached for his shirt. It was already in tatters. I pulled the fabric apart, revealing the black Kevlar vest underneath.

“I have to lift it over your head,” I said gently. “This is going to hurt.”

“Do it.”
I grabbed the bottom of the vest. “One, two, three.”
I pulled.

Nico didn’t scream, but he stopped breathing entirely. His body went rigid as I removed the heavy armor up and over his head.

I tossed the vest aside and looked at his chest.

I covered my mouth to stop a gasp.
His entire torso was a canvas of violence. A massive, purple-black bruise bloomed across his ribs, shaped like the impact of a sledgehammer. The skin was unbroken, but the damage underneath was catastrophic.

“Broken?” I whispered, my fingers hovering over the injury but terrified to touch.

“At least two,” Nico grunted. “Maybe three. Breathing hurts. Moving hurts.”

“You need a hospital.”

“No hospitals,” Nico said. “Julian will have eyes on the ERs. We stay here.”

He looked at me, focusing on my face. He reached out and touched the ruby necklace, which was miraculously still intact.

“You didn’t run,” he said softly. “In the ballroom. You stayed.”

“I told you,” I said, tears pricking my eyes. “I chose.”

Nico’s hand moved from the necklace to my cheek. He smeared a streak of Matteo’s blood on my skin, war paint to match my lipstick.

“Julian,” he said the name like a curse. “Did you know?”
“No,” I sobbed, “I swear, Nico. I thought he was… I thought he was just a music student. I thought he was kind.”

“He is the worst kind of enemy,” Nico said. “The one who believes he is the hero.”

“In the library,” I realized, the memory washing over me. “When he kissed me… he was testing me. He was checking to see if I would betray you.”

“And you did,” Nico reminded me, though his voice lacked its usual bite. “You kissed him.”

“And then I told him to go to hell,” I said fiercely. “And tonight… he looked at me like I was a thing he owned. He didn’t care if I died, as long as he won the game.”

Nico managed a dark, pained smile.

“Welcome to the chessboard, Elena. Now you see why I keep the gun close.”

From the corner of the room, Dante spoke up. He was standing in front of a bank of monitors.

“Nico,” Dante said. His voice was tight.
“What is it?”

“The feeds,” Dante said. “I’m tapping into the campus security network.”

I stood up and helped Nico to his feet. He leaned heavily on me, groaning, as we shuffled over to the monitors.

On the grainy black-and-white screens, we saw the aftermath of the ballroom. Bodies were being moved. Police lights flashed outside.

But on one screen—Camera 4, the hallway leading to the basement access we saw movement.

“He’s coming,” Dante whispered.
On the screen, Julian was walking down the hallway. He was still wearing his blood-spattered white tuxedo. He was still carrying his cane.

He wasn’t running. He was strolling.

He stopped in front of the camera. He looked directly into the lens, as if he knew we were watching.

He smiled.

Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.
A heavy, brass key.

“How?” I whispered. “How does he have a key to the tunnels?”

“He’s a Volkov,” Nico said, his face hardening. “But before that… he was a Thorne. His father is a Senator. He probably has the blueprints to the entire state.”

Julian unlocked the door on the screen and stepped into the darkness of the tunnel system.

“He’s inside the perimeter,” Dante said, racking the slide of his submachine gun. “He’ll be at the iron door in ten minutes.”

Nico looked at the heavy iron door of the Safe Room. Then he looked at us—wounded Matteo, exhausted Sloane, me in a dress that weighed twenty pounds.

“This is a tomb,” Nico said. “If we stay here, he sieges us. We starve, or he blows the door.”

“So we fight?” Sloane asked,
“No,” Nico said. “We run.”

“Run where?” I asked. “We’re underground.”
Nico looked at me. His gray eyes were filled with a desperate, reckless plan.

“There is another way out,” Nico said. “The old smuggling route. It leads to the river.”
“The river is flooded,” Dante argued. “The storm.”

“It’s the only way,” Nico said. “We go to the river. We take the boat. And we burn the tunnel behind us so he can’t follow.”

He grabbed a heavy combat shotgun from the weapon rack. He winced as he lifted it, but he didn’t drop it.

“Gather your gear,” Nico commanded. “We are leaving.”

I looked at the monitor one last time. Julian was walking through the dark tunnel, tapping his cane against the pipes.

TBC