As I emerged from the other side of the dust, I saw a man on a scrappy "throne".
"It was only a matter of time until one of you broke through... who are you?" He asked.
"Me? I'm just..." I held my tongue. "I was, an average person. Even after the bombs. Until you killed my cousin. Now I'm a machine, hellbent on destroying everything You've made." I looked at him, clenching my hands as hard as I could. He chuckled and jumped from his seat.
"Really kid? You came all this way because my men killed your buddy? People die all the time, get over it." He pulled a tire iron with a blade strapped to the inside curve out of the head of a nearby dead body. Josh lifted his rifle and aimed it at the man. I put my hand up and slowly pushed his gun down.
"No Josh... This is my fight." Josh gave me a worried look but backed off. "Go help the others with the hallway." He nodded and waked off.
"Whats your name, kid?" He asked me in his raspy voice.
"Xander... Xander McNeal. Let the name of your killer sink in." I grabbed a nearby baseball bat and gripped it in my hand. It was already dented and bloody, but it'd do.
"The names Rico. And you got some guts 'Xander McNeal' and it's to bad I'll to rip 'em out." He said right before he charged at me, swinging his tire iron axe wildly. All my instinct came in, and without even bring up my bat, I kicked him in the stomach on his ass. He was light, probably around a hundred and twenty pounds. Probably from meth use.
I now lifted my bat walked towards him. He was already back on his feet and swung at me again. I took a risky move and swung for his side, and luckily hit him before he hit me. He fell to the ground again, one hand propping him up, the other holding his side.
I decided to be honorable and let him back up. His joking mood was gone already, now he had a look of pure anger. He raised his axe above his head with two hands and charged at me once again. I swung at his right arm and it snapped backwards, but he ignored it and got me off guard with a swing down.
He hit. Just barley. A huge cut went from my forehead to my cheek. I now fell to the ground in pain holding my face that was gushing blood.
"You got cocky!" He yelled. "And you made me angry..." He smirked and cracked his arm back to place without a word. He raised his axe once more to try and hit my neck, but as he swung down, I hit the axe out of his hand with my bat. my right eye could only see red as blood flowed over it. I pressed myself up with my bat and looked at him.
He was right in front of me and hit me with a quick jab to my nose. My head flung back and I grabbed my nose with one hand, and out of primal fear, swung my bat with the other. All I heard was a "clunk" and when I opened my eyes he was on the floor. Not knocked out, but not getting up. I walked over to him and looked down at him.
"You see this?" I asked, pointing to my cut.
"G-go fuck yourself..." He said wearily.
"DO YOU SEE THIS?" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "THIS IS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT YOU DID TO MY COUSIN!" We sat and stood there for a few seconds and bent down and pulled my knife out.
"Your hurt pretty bad..." I said like I didn't know "Those aren't the types of hits you recover from."
He continued to just look at me saying nothing, wheezing on every breath.
"You know, I should leave you here to suffer..." I whispered to him
He took a long wheeze in and replied to me. "Why wont you then. Why wouldn't you want a cousin killer to suffer?"
I pressed my knife against his neck. "Because you're not the kind of lose end to leave untied." And with one swift motion to the left, it was over. My mission was complete. I stood up and left him gargling and drowning in a pool of his own blood.
I wiped my face off, though my right eye still had a tint of red from my blood. I walked back to Josh and Raymir. They ran up to my and kept trying to help me with my cut. I pushed them both off me and continued on my path.
"I'm fine." I said to them. I walked down the stairs outside of the building. There were a line of about twenty slavers left. Darrell walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"These are the last ones. What should we do?" He asked. I stood and looked at the nervous faces of the slavers.
"Do what you want..." I said slowly. Everyone around them started yelling including them as everyone tried to kill them. Darrell looked at me and shook my hand.
"I owed you that from when we met." He said with a smile. I shook his hand back, also smiling. "You're a good man..." He said. "When I first met you, I thought you were going to kill me. You'll always be in my mind, friends." I just nodded, since talking hurt the cut which Darrell understood I waved to him as I walked off with Aaliyah, Teejay, Josh, and Raymir following behind me.
We walked for the enter where we first came in. The cars were still there. I grabbed a random set of keys, which unlocked a large S.W.A.T. van. We all got in, Josh driving since he was the only one who knew how, and made our way south to Maryland.