Re: Mutt and Jeff
Ellen walked out of the bodega with a fresh cup of coffee. The car across the street was still there, but nobody was sitting in it. It wasn't much but it pinged her intuition, honed to a fine edge by her time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Either the occupants should have driven off now that they had their coffee, or they should have been sitting there drinking it.
She was alone on the street. Only moments ago it had been a pleasant feeling. The sudden disappearance of two random--seemingly random--bystanders--made all the difference. Whether they were truly bystanders with a nose for trouble or actively involved, she smelled an ambush.
She felt the sudden rush of adrenaline in the way her skin was suddenly oversensitive and too tight, and the throbbing of her pulse in her fingertips and temples. Anyone wearing thermal vision gear would have seen her body temperature spike dramatically too.
She abandoned the coffee without a thought. The fingers of her left hand brushed the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back as the coffee cup hit the pavement. Shit. No weapon. She was out in the open with no real cover unless she ducked backed into the bodega or around the corner.
Two shooters popped up from behind the parked car, one at the front, one at the rear. They had rifles. Ellen shifted her balance, ready to turn and bolt for the doorway of the bodega, knowing it was too little, too late--
--when a brilliant flash and deafening explosion stunned her. She blinked tear-filled eyes, blobs of color swarming in her vision. She heard the dull crack of rifles but nothing hit her.
Until she was tackled to the ground by someone. She threw a punch, but he'd already shifted out of reach to overturn a table between the two of them and the shooters. Ellen regained her feet, crouching behind the table next to her sudden ally.
The rifle fire grew louder as her hearing recovered. At least they had cover. Three alarmingly large holes appeared in the tabletop--and one round caught her in the bicep, punching through her flesh without slowing appreciably, given the way it dug into the brick wall behind them.
"Son of a bitch," Ellen growled. "Armor-piercing rounds." The table wasn't cover, it was concealment.
She felt the wound in her arm flare with blast-oven heat as it began healing.
Then the wall behind her exploded in a cloud of dust and shrapnel where the three rounds had been. "Explosive armor-piercing rounds? Who the hell are these guys!?"