A Collaborative Fiction Story – Chapter 3

Baker’s Dozen Fiction Story – Chapter 3 by Ambrozya

Holding Angie’s hand tight, Forrest felt a surge of overwhelming emotions. In the midst of all this chaos, was this really happening? Would she really accept him for who he was or who he had been? Forrest didn’t get the chance to inquire further; a movement on his left grabbed his attention. He stopped abruptly and kept Angie behind him, protecting her.

“Have you seen that?”

“Seen what?” Angie replied coughing through the smoke.

“This.”

“What? I don’t see anything!” She replied bent forward, coughing some more.

As Forrest didn’t answer she lifted her head and saw what he was talking about. A man was standing with a gun pointed towards them. Angie tried to hide behind Forrest, her eyes still teary from all the smoke.

“We meet again,” said the man with a wicked grin.

“You know this guy?” asked Angie, still trying to catch her breath.

Forrest didn’t answer. The last time he remembered seeing a gun was when his older brother died. With all the noise, the explosions, the smoke, the run, the tanks and planes and the emotion of having Angie with him, Forrest just froze. At that moment, he didn’t know what to do. Not more than 8 minutes ago, he was sitting at his desk, wondering how his life would turn out without Chrissie and now he was running for his life and had a gun pointed to his head. Angie’s question finally made it through the fog of his mind.

“Eh! No. I don’t know that guy,” he finally answered after a good look at the chubby guy between two ages. A scar on his cheek gave the impression of a perpetual grin.

“I didn’t mean you,” said the man with a long sight. “I meant you girl!”

It was Angie’s turn to freeze to death. Even though she couldn’t quite see the man standing in front of them, she would always remember the voice.

“You know him?” It was Forrest’s turn to be surprised. Angie didn’t answer. In an instant, anger took over. She rushed to the man, screaming as loud as a vengeful harpy. Both men didn’t have time to make a move that she was already on him kicking and hitting. The gun flew across the roof, Forrest jumped to get it. His first reaction had been to stop Angie, but lucky for them he didn’t put much thought in that. Angie must have had her reasons and for now this man needed to be unarmed – mission accomplished. There would be time for questions later.

Forrest became aware suddenly that Angie had better fighting techniques that he would have thought. It couldn’t match the image of sweetness and frailty that he had of her. In a minute, their assailant was beat down on the ground, moaning. Angie took the gun from Forrest hands and pointed it at the man’s head.

“So I guess no one should call you ‘girl’…” said Forrest with a semi-smile. Angie caught the tender look in Forrest eyes. The tension in her body lowered and she took a deep breath.

“It’s my dad,” she finally utter from the tip of her lips like if she was spitting something rotten. Forrest was caught of guards. All along he thought his family history was messed up and he tried to hide it, Angie’s family story seemed to be more twisted.

“Well, what can I say? Not the kind of meeting-your-family I was expecting.” They both laugh, releasing more of the tension. “I’ll explain later, she started with pleading eyes. Right now, we may want to get the hell out of here.” Forrest sighed. “What are we going to do with him?”

“For all I care…”

Forrest bent over Angie’s dad. “What are you doing here, eh… what’s his name?”

“Ross…”

“So Ross, what are you doing here? Are you part of a bombing commando?”

Wiping the blood flowing from his mouth with his shirt, Ross looked at his daughter without any trace of anger. “I came to save…”

A helicopter buzzing over their heads cut his last words. Gun shots were heard around them and a bullet did a ricochet and brushed Ross on the shoulder. Angie and Forrest took him and quickly ran through the door from which they came in a few minutes ago.

“What the hell!” Angie screamed over the noise when they finally found a safe place behind a car in the parking garage.

“Dare to explain?” Gushes of blood ran on Ross’ arm. Forrest was tearing his own shirt, trying to make the blood stop.

“I… came to save you.”

“Why would you care about me after all these years?” Angie snapped.

“I heard of the attacks through a contact and was sent to stop it.” Ross took a deep breath, it wasn’t his first gunshot wound, but he was getting old. “Geez Angela! You can really throw a punch…”

Angie frowned. “Go on talk! It’s not like we have all day!”

“For the short story, started Ross staring at Forrest, I work for the NSA and…”

“And, he left my mom one day without even a letter or a phone call. He then reappeared 5 years later, like nothing ever happened, to disappear again after beating her up during a nasty fight. And the worst after that, she kept talking about you like you were the good guy.” Angie’s eyes were throwing bolts of fire towards her dad.

“Angela that’s not what happened. It’s maybe not the time to talk about this.”

“No you’re right it’s not the time. It will never be the time.” Angela turned her back to the two men and stared at the wall.

“Okay then, Ross continued, when I realized it was the building you where working in, I did a bit of research. Why would they attack a seeming low profile IT Company?”

Angie turned around. “So?”

“Your lover here might have a few bits of the story…”

“I know of his story Ross, tell us something new?”

“His father…”

Forrest suddenly felt sick. All he remembered from his father was that last look of hopelessness when he killed himself. “My dad hung himself like a coward…”

Ross grabbed Forrest’s arm and insisted. “Did he say something? Did he give you something?” Forrest tried to recall the last hours of his dad. On that dreadful day, Dawid, his father, started to clean up the house, arranging his papers. His mother was crying in a corner, inconsolable. Forrest always thought  it was because they had one of their epic fights. His mother wanted them to leave the country while they still had a chance and Dawid always refused.

“Yes! He gave me this.” From under his shirt, he showed Ross and Angie a pendant resembling a coin crushed under pressure – a piece of metal of irregular ovoid shape in braided leather.

“Did he say something?” Ross urged.

“Eh… Nothing much. He said something about a key to save us all. But I thought killing himself meant saving us in his own twisted mind…”

“That seems pretty useless,” said Angie inspecting the pendant closely.

“Angela my girl, some people are willing to kill to get rid of that useless thing…”

Chapter 1 by Joe Owens if you missed it.

Chapter 2 by Josh Magill