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“You Fernando?” I ask, keeping my body as still as ice. The man’s brows jump in surprise, and I see the paranoia leaking into his eyes from here.

He’s not going to be much help like I had hoped. He’s buzzing too hard.

“How you know that, huh? You following me?”

I smile, baring all my teeth. “It’s what I do best after all. I heard you’re the main man around here. Running the show and all that.”

He shifts. The asshole can’t help but feel a little pride, I just know it. Like he’s doing something good in the world, when all he’s doing is plaguing hundreds of little boys’ and girls’ nightmares.

“I was hoping you could help me out, man.”

“Yeah?” he patronizes. “You think so? You think I’m going to tell you shit, man?”

He fires off another shot, this time next to me. Too close for comfort. Enough to feel the heat of the bullet. I still don’t flinch, and if anything, that pisses him off more.

I sigh. With his current state of mind, he’s useless to me. Just gonna have to kidnap his ass and wait till he comes down from his high.

A quick sweep of my eyes proves that I have about two seconds before the rest of the men start shooting, regardless of what comes out of my mouth.

Two seconds—that’s all it takes to stick my hand in my hoodie pocket and fire off a shot through the material, downing one of the men to my left.

The surprise of that move gives me a small window of time to upend the table and roll behind it.

Glass shatters from the ashtrays, and a gun falls off the table and discharges, eliciting shocked screams from the girls.

Fuck. If that bullet ricochets and lands within an inch of those girls, I’m going to let them stab me for sure.

No cries of pain follow, so I blow out a deep breath. Relieved, but no less pissed at myself.

Like clockwork, a stream of bullets impales the thick, wooden table. Lucky for me, most don’t make it through.

It’s too dangerous for me to return fire. I won’t be able to peek my pinky toe out without it getting shot off, and I refuse to endanger these girls even more and fire blindly. I don’t take shots unless I’m positive they’ll hit true.

The only thing I can do is wait.

It doesn’t take long for them to empty their clips.

I hear the rustling of clothing and muttered curses as they scramble to reload.

It takes even less time for me to shoot the remaining four dead, sans Fernando. I’m going to save him for later.

The bullets rip through their brains in such quick succession that their bodies drop at the same time.

“You see that?” I ask aloud, already knowing Jay is watching through the cameras.

“Fuck, it only took you eight minutes,” Jay groans through my earpiece.

“Five hundred bucks, fucker,” is my smug answer. A string of curses leaves his mouth, but I tune him out.

Fernando is spitting out his own colorful tirade as he scrambles to find another gun. I shoot him in the knee, the angry man collapsing instantly. Screams of raw pain and anger fill the warehouse, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was a little girl himself.

No—the girls in this warehouse are far tougher than he could ever hope to be. He's just a whiny bitch trapped in a man’s body.

I stand and saunter over to Fernando, enjoying the sight of him clutching his knee, blood bubbling from the wound and onto the floor. His face is red, full of murderous intent as he glares at me.

I ignore the look, instead surveying the copious amounts of blood streaking the cement floor. I don’t want the girls to have to step through it.

“Jay, have Ruby make a pathway for these girls.” Ruby is one member of the crew who comes in, explicitly assigned to handle the survivors and get them to safety. She’s a redheaded spitfire but turns to mush when she’s around any of the women or children we save.