“Why don’t you? Rule 103: always have a knife. Don’t you know all the rules?”
I didn’t say anything.
“No one knows all the rules, Ethan, not even you,” Dona said, and I felt better using the knife to hit the red thing.
“What can you see—”
“AH!” Dona screamed. We all screamed when the car hit the brakes hard before hitting something. My back hit Ethan and the knife cut my hand.
“We stopped,” Ethan said, and I flinched hearing the gunshots. “Can you get it open?”
“Yeah.” I bit my lip, trying to not cry, pulled up the carpet, and then tugged the yellow cable. “Push up,” I said, pushing with one hand.
“Wyatt, you’re a fucking genius!” Ethan hugged me, lifting the hood only a little bit so he could see. “We need to run.”
“To where?” Dona asked.
“Doesn’t matter, just jump out and run.”
“Okay.” It was getting hard to breathe in there.
“One…” He counted, lifting the top more; the gunshots got louder. “Two…three!”
We pushed the hood up and the sun was right above us.
We saw men coming out of cars with guns.
“RUN!” Ethan jumped out, helping Dona. I hugged my hand to my chest and ran.
“What the fuck are you doing, go after them! FUCK!” someone yelled, but Ethan kept saying not to look back and to run and so that’s what we did, pushing people away from us and running past shops and stores. Everything was happening so fast. I was so tired but I didn’t stop running…until Dona tripped once we turned the corner into an alley. It smelled like poop and pee everywhere.
“DONA!” I almost fell over when I tried to stop turning. One of the men dressed in all back came up right behind her and took her.
“Let go!” I rushed to him and bit his arm.
“You stupid little fuck!” I put my hand over my head to stop him from hitting me but he never did.
BANG!
It was a loud shot. It echoed in the alley. The man dropped down onto the ground and then fell to his knees. When Dona and I looked up, it was Ethan. He had the gun the man had dropped and he had shot it at him. He walked over to him.
“Leave my brother and sister alone,” he said, and he fired again. The blood hit his face and it was like everything went quiet again.
“WE GOT THEM!” We all turned to see three guys at the end of the alley. Ethan held the gun up to them and they lifted their hands in the air.
“LEAVE US ALONE!” he screamed, standing in front of us.
“Ethan,” the first big guy said. He was bald but had writing on the sides of his head, and a big beard. “Your father sent us. We are Irish. We’re here—”
“I don’t believe you. Stay back or I will shoot!” Ethan said, holding the gun up again.
One of the other guys moved his hand to his waist.
“I SAID DON’T MOVE!” Ethan screamed.
“We just want to prove it okay?” another one said, lifting his shirt. I saw a giant C on the side of his stomach.
“You know what this is, right? I work for the Callahans, and that means we also work for you.”