I blink, my thoughts spinning. How does he know Erik? What does he know about Erik? Who is he? Is he with the assassins? I try to wriggle my wrist free from his grip, and this time he lets go.

"Erik? I don't know who you're talking about." I start to turn, but he steps in front of me.

"Nice try."

Damn it. Maybe I should've focused my training on learning how to lie decently.

"Audrey, what's going on?" Spotting me, Justine starts to make her way from the other side of the boutique.

"Please. I'm simply looking for Erik," he sighs.

"Yeah, well, no one 'simply looks' for Erik," Justine says, standing next to me and crossing her arms.

Kol nods his head knowingly. "So you've known Erik for some time then? I'm guessing she's a newbie," he glances over at me. When neither one of us answer, he continues. "So, are you girls going to lead me to Erik or what?"

"Forget it," Justine spits.

"Okay. I guess I'll just go have a chat with that nice-looking policeman outside then." Kol begins to walk out of the store.

"No, wait!" I cry.

"What are you doing?" Justine hisses. "Let him go." She waves a careless hand, but my heart skips a beat as I stare at the cop outside, who strangely, hasn't moved from his position.

I push past Justine, but Kol has already made it outside. Justine follows in hot pursuit.

"Audrey, what is going on?" she questions in bewilderment.

I point towards the cop. A couple of pedestrians are passing by, but apart from that, the town is pretty much desolate.

"I don't think that's a cop," I tell her nervously.

"Hey!" Kol calls out, waving his hands wildly. "Boy in blue! Over here!"

A few pedestrians cast Kol annoyed glances, clearly believing him to be an up-to-know-good adolescent.

Little do they know what kind of ruckus this teenager is really causing.

"No!" I sprint up to him, gripping his arm desperately.

He looks at me, giving me a half-smile. Unfortunately, the man has heard him, and he turns his head, making his way towards us. He fingers what looks like a silver handgun on his belt.

"Damn it!" Justine curses. "We need to find Erik!"

"See? Now that's more like it," Kol agrees.

Justine glares at him.

"You have quite a tight grip, you know?" Kol arches an eyebrow at me.

I let go of his arm, mortified that I'm still holding on to it.

"We need to leave," I say quickly.

The two of us, plus our apparent 'new' companion, make our way swiftly down the street, attempting to keep close to pedestrians, in the hopes he wouldn't use his firearms if we are close to others.

I risk a glance backwards and find that a second 'policeman' has joined the chase, appearing from the intersection of two separate roads we had just passed. They wordlessly follow us, neither bothering to call out to us and their silence, more than anything, is much more frightening. What do they want? What are they waiting for?

With horror, I soon realise that this must have been the assassins' plan all along. Lure us away from the people living here and corner us somewhere no one would suspect to look.

Justine must realise this too because she swears under her breath.

"If Erik is waiting for us, he's probably waiting in his car." She shakes her head. "We're going in the complete opposite direction."

"Justine," I gulp, as one 'policeman' finally draws a gun out. "There's no one here," I say, stating the obvious. "They've done it. They've cornered us alone, and nobody will be here to see it when they..." Panic rises in my voice and I struggle to keep myself calm.

Justine suddenly sprints ahead and I follow at her heels while Kol keeps pace with me. We sprint in a zig zag sort of shape, hoping to throw the men off their aim. Two muffled shots are fired.

Kol glanced back.

Huh," he says, impressed. "Silencers, so no one can hear the gunshots. Smart."

Justine points up ahead to a rickety, wooden sign that stands before a thicket of trees, a dirt trail between them that appears to slope downwards.

"Maybe we can lose them in there!" she pants, and without hesitation, she steps onto the dirt trail, making her way downhill.

I glance backwards. Big mistake. The men, being not too far behind, take the opportunity to shoot at me. Luckily, I'm thrown to the ground before it hits me. Kol lands on top of me. I look up into his dark eyes in surprise.

"Keep your pretty green eyes ahead," he smirks, swiftly lifting me up with him.

"Audrey! Hurry!" I hear Justine shout further down the track.

I see a large hand coming in to grab me but I quickly step out of the way. Kol throws an impressive punch at one of them and the man drops his gun in surprise. With the other, he manages to twist the man's gun hand and trip him. Kol promptly picks up the two fallen guns and gives me a quick wink.

Who is this guy? I think in wonder, but I don't have much time to elaborate on the thought. Justine urgently gestures to make haste. Not wasting another second, I run down the track, Kol directly behind me.

At this point, the two angry men have picked themselves up and are in close pursuit once again. The trees and rocks are a blur as we race further and further down the increasingly narrow path, jumping over stubs of rocks and trees stumps. I almost trip on a tree root again, but manage to keep myself upright this time.

Kol stops abruptly, cocks one of the stolen guns towards the first man, and fires. Ducking too slowly, the bullet pierces his arm. The man clenches his fists in balls of fury, letting out a yelp of pain. The man behind pushes past him, as if his companion is a mere object in the way of his prey. We continue dashing downwards, Kol now firing blindly behind him.

"Is that safe?" I yell out to Kol, as he points his gun backwards and fires randomly.

"Well, we're not exactly in a safe situation to begin with," Kol replies, firing another round.

I check behind me and find that the other assassin had picked himself up and, clutching his bicep, begins to stumble towards us. I hear yells coming from the two men as Kol continues to fire shots every minute or so.

I have no doubt that the two men must have gotten pierced by at least one bullet throughout all these shots, but nevertheless, their heavy booted footsteps continue to chase us ever downwards. Another shot rings out and I hear one hefty body fall to the ground. I look behind and sure enough, the man who had was shot in the arm, has fallen to the ground, a pool of blood evident around his chest. The second is still tailing us but I can see two bloodstains on both his sleeves.

We finally make it onto the mostly level ground. Although my legs are burning from the exertion, we continue to run, not daring to stop.

"That's it," Kol abruptly comes to a stop.

"What are you doing?" I ask, alarmed.

"I've got two guns, and now there's only one of them." Kol indicates to the approaching man. "I think you can catch on to what I'm trying to say."

I stare at Kol. "You can't possibly be thinking of killing him."

"And why not? He tried to kill you," Kol points out.

I suppose he has a point, but killing just seems so... wrong. Why should we stoop as low as them? I think to myself, an image of Anita's blood-stained body appearing in my head.

"No," Justine argues. "We could take him to Erik. Erik would try to get the man to spill what he knows."

"Yeah? How on earth do you think you're going to manage to drag him back up this slope? What do you think are the chances of him cooperating?" Kol retorts, rolling his eyes.

"Watch out!" I scream.

The man is now standing about two metres in front of us. He grabs a knife hidden in his belt. With one swift movement, he takes a step forward and throws the knife. The three of us drop to the ground, but there's no mistaking the whooshing sound above my head.

Kol quickly stands up as the man lurches towards him. He knocks the back of the gun against the man's head, and he staggers backwards, dazed.

"I say he goes," Kol points the gun directly towards the man's chest.

"No, don't! Maybe we can get something out of him!" Justine insists.

I stare at the man's face. He seems to be in his late twenties, his face big and stern. His black hair is messy, almost greasy. His hazel eyes scan our faces, his gaze finally locking onto Kol.

In an accent, I can't quite identify – Russian? German? – the man sneers, "I will tell you nothing." Then he pulls a small, rounded object from within the pocket of his uniform.

"He's got a hand grenade!" Justine shouts, just as the man attempts to remove the plug. Before her can do so, however, a last shot fires into the still air, and the man falls to the ground, the hand grenade falling from his hands, the plug still inside. I tear my eyes away from the mass of blood forming around the assassin's chest. I look at Kol, half in shock, half in relief. Justine, I notice, also glances at Kol in surprise, but immediately gathers her wits.

"So, who are you exactly?" Justine looks at Kol sternly.

Kol simply smiles in return, a twinkle in his eyes. "I'm Kol Adamson, but that's not important right now. I believe we should be heading back to Erik? He'd be quite worried, wouldn't he?"

Justine shakes her head, pushing past the cocky boy.

"Just a minute!" Kol wanders over to the man he shot, dragging the body over into the thicket of trees, and dumping the body behind a large trunk.

"There. Unless people go walking behind trees, they won't know a thing," Kol dusts his hands off.

"But the stench of the body..." I start.

He shrugs. "Not much we can do. The assassins will probably find the body and dispose of it themselves. They have a thing about being discreet." He pulls the safety switch on both guns before bending over the dead body, searching through the assassin's belt of supplies. Looking disappointed, he stands back up again. "He didn't have much on him. I guess this guy wasn't really expecting to run into much trouble. His mistake."

I stare at Kol intently, hoping he'll go on and give away some clue as to who he is and how much he knows, but he doesn't. Instead, Kol flashes me a grin.

"After you," he gestures. "We'll have to do the same with the other body up the track."

Ignoring this last remark, I reluctantly pass by him and we make our way single file up the long and weary dirt path once again.

| Dedicated to DCSuperGirl |

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EDITED ✔