Chapter 10
In order to keep up from the boss who was rowing away from the port, Lewis and Garrett ran until the end of the platform. The boat had not gotten far yet so they still had a chance to rescue Beatrice.
In order to stop them, Garrett shot the boat with the howdah pistol. As Lewis remarked earlier, it had great firepower and high velocity. With Samuel's brilliant calibration, the bullet managed to put a massive hole on the boat to the area where the boss was.
The boss was surprised by it. He did not stop rowing but slowed down.
Garrett pulled the trigger again, creating another hole on the side. While at it, Lewis saw boats lined up. "I should be able to halt the escape."
From the platform of the port, he jumped from the first boat and swiftly ran towards the next boat. He did it continuously from one boat to another.
The boss was forced to pull out a gun to combat Garrett's gunshots. It was even smaller than the Beaumont–Adams revolver Lewis was holding. He shot at a great distance.
Without proper aim, the shot was missed. Garrett flinched in reaction. Then he saw Lewis jumping boat after boat.
He did not bother calling his mate out and instead thought he should keep firing shots as a distraction.
But this time, instead of puncturing the boat, he needed to aim at the boss since the former would not scare him anymore.
He also realized his next fire would have left him with no bullets left. That is why he had to succeed on this shot. He extended his arms again, took one deep breath and fired at the boss.
Because of the long distance, it was expected to miss. The boss flinched and was about to fire another shot.
Before he did, he was already tackled by Lewis who just jumped from the last and nearest boat. The tacke, however, threw them both to the river.
Garrett saw them getting thrown off the boat. He did not waste time as he jumped from boat to boat to get the imperilled Beatrice out of the boat.
Meanwhile, Lewis and the boss saw each other underwater. But the river was so dirty that they could barely see anything.
They started striking, pushing and strangling each other while underwater. Lewis began to struggle, bubbling from his mouth. The boss saw the chance to strangle him with full control. Lewis could not do anything other than trying to remove the arm that was strangling him.
And to make things harder for Lewis, the boss pulled out a knife and pointed at his chest.
Lewis saw the end of the knife. It was already in motion to stab his chest but he was just in time to stop it with both hands holding the boss's wrist.
Despite the unclear vision, he was able to recognize the knife. It was the same one he saw from the boss's house he infiltrated yesterday.
Annoyed by the resistance, the boss gripped the knife more tightly and tried to stab Lewis harder.
Each other's resistance went out of control when Lewis could not hold the knife any longer. The arm slipped through his hands and the boss's right chest got stabbed instead.
The strangle slackened as a result of the stab. The boss got hurt and Lewis took advantage of it to escape by pushing him further below.
The boss was not able to grasp Lewis anymore as he sank while Lewis quickly swam up to the boat.
Lewis held onto the boat and got up. He coughed repeatedly as he finally breathed air after the struggle underwater.
He got up the boat and saw no Beatrice. He assumed Garrett was able to get her out of the area already. He did see the revolver the boss dropped when he tackled him.
"I'll take this one." Lewis picked up the revolver and left the boat jumping to the nearby one.
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On his way to the escape wagon which he and Samuel owned, Garrett ran away while carrying Beatrice.
They reached the wagon that was hidden in an alley. The alley was safe at the moment, otherwise it would be located somewhere else. Beatrice was put down in the wagon and her hands and mouth were untied.
Because her dress was torn, Garrett took off his coat and dressed her with it.
"Are yer right, Ms. Thomas?"
Beatrice could not answer Garrett after everything that happened to her. It was like her ability to communicate was robbed. Instead of answering, she held onto the coat tightly.
Running footsteps were heard heading towards them. Garrett pointed the knife he used to free Beatrice's hands to the direction of the footsteps.
Those footsteps were Lewis's. Garrett put down the knife when he saw Lewis, whose clothes were soaked wet, stopped running.
"It's you."
"Yes it's me, Garrett. Is Ms. Thomas with you now?"
Garrett pointed backwards with his thumb and answered, "Ready to get 'er home."
Lewis walked towards the wagon. Beatrice's eyes were locked on him. She had never seen someone like him in London.
"Are you alright?" Lewis asked Beatrice.
"I asked 'er the same question but she ain't tellin' me."
"Right, of course. Right now, she has the inability to communicate, after everything they did to her for the most part."
Garrett went to the front seat to drive the wagon out of the alley while Lewis sat inside with Beatrice facing each other.
They got out of the alley and the wagon ran at its casual speed. Carriages of the Untamed and the police passed them by given the situation earlier at the port.
Garrett asked Lewis, "What happened to that bloke?"
"He got stabbed by his own knife, that's how I escaped. Although, I don't think he's dead yet."
Lewis looked at Beatrice again. He noticed her sights never went away from him.
"You never saw this face of mine before?"
Beatrice had yet to answer. Lewis looked deeply on her with his humane eyes.
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The boss finally reached the boat after sinking down. The golden knife remained speared on his right chest.
He held onto the boat and got in. As soon as he got in he fell with his back, feeling that painful sensation from the wounded chest.
He slowly removed the knife, released it immediately and patched the wound with his hand.
He slowly sat down and he looked up at the sky and mumbled.
"I can't let her escape..."