014 Assassination Attempt
To liven the celebration by removing such a nuisance, the Queen ordered two half-drunk guards to drag me away from the palaces. They did so with no ceremony whatsoever. Their presence, brought more danger than if I groped my way through the streets alone. Nobody noticed me and the nonuniformed men as we moved farther and farther into the poorest parts of the city.
“Why we here?” I asked.
“Orders say take you to yer palace, girly,” the taller guard slurred. We plodded on for a while longer.
“We is here, girly.”
They stopped me outside a hovel which certainly was not a palace. Judging by the sounds of the night around me, I knew exactly where we were. Many of the assassinations and robberies I had committed occurred on this street. Waves of tangible guilt washed over me along with the foul smells of rotting waste and corpses.
They took me here to kill me. If I die now, no one will ever know.
Before I could react, a guard shoved me to the ground. The thin legs of the taller guard pinned my right wrist to the ground. The shoes were too thick for me to reach through and manipulate his emotions. The safety mechanism on his pistol clicked off.
“Don't keel her you idit. She be the Woethief. Lit 'er steal ar pain first.”
The barrel of the air-gun jabbed into my temple and soiled hands pressed against my face. The other guard's barefoot legs pinned both of my left arm to the ground.
“Do it, girly; take our pain.”
As hard as I tried, I could not manipulate them to avoid stealing their pain. They bore no anger toward me, which would have been easy enough to remove. Simple greed motivated them.
“Why should I? You still kill.”
“Yu'll liv longer if yu obey.”
An extra five minutes cannot induce me to bear your shame.
“Prom-ise I live.”
“Obey usss, girleee!” the guard with the gun hissed.
I channeled his anger into myself and he removed his pistol from my head. As soon as he did so, I twisted my wrist free and bit his neck. Howling escaped his fingers. With my newly freed hand, I punched the other guard in the throat. A bullet blew through my right kneecap.
While I clutched my emaciated leg, more thugs converged on my position. They all recognized me now and they wanted revenge for the scores of their comrades that I killed in the past.
More bullets collided with my body, by some miracle, they could not penetrate the fabric of my dress. I crawled away from the assault. A bullet shore off my right hand at the wrist. I collapsed.
Bootsteps thundered toward me. Pellets from a crank-gun whistled over my head. They tore through the bodies of my enemies. When they died, the woes I stole from them in the past dissipated from my body. The person with the crank-gun threw something into the crowd and the street filled with smoke. In their haste to flee the burning air, they trampled their wounded accomplices to death.
Massive hands cradled my helpless frame. My terror intensified as the tangible evil of my captor invaded my senses. He placed a foul-smelling rag against my face and I lost consciousness.
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