Chapter 32

One down. Six more to go.

All the others in the room had yet to make a move. It seemed they had yet to realize Joan wasn't the fool they made her out to be.

Silently, Joan crouched to the next pillar. She slithered across the floor, accurately striking the vagus nerve in the boy's neck. He, too, fell to the ground in an unconscious mess.

The others in the room were beginning to become restless. Where was Rem? She had entered, but she wasn't approaching Navier.

Mad Dog crouched behind a pillar, staring intently at the knocked out Navier. He frowned when he realized Rem's complete silence. Her footsteps didn't echo, and she was taking an awfully long time to approach Navier.

Cautiously, he peeked out of his hiding spot to see if Rem had made any movements. As he turned around the large pillar, he noticed her figure stealthily walking to where Jackal was hidden.

How did she make it so far without anyone noticing?

An unconscious body from behind the pillar Rem had just come from caught Mad Dog's attention. His eyes widened in shock. She'd taken two boys down without making a sound!

Mad Dog gritted his teeth as his trembling hands gripped the cold metal in his hands. He looked down at the weapon he bought from the Eagles. Sweat covered his freezing hands, and he looked back and forth between his gun and Rem, who was nearing the unsuspecting Jackal.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he solidified his will. Shaking, he raised his arms and pointed the gun at Rem.

Joan, who sensed some unnatural movement to her right, snapped her head around to look.

The barrel of an electron gun met her. Joan felt her heart rate accelerate as she stared at the gun. Its signature blue rings lined the barrel, and it was noticeably larger than the average pistol.

It was not only bigger but weighed significantly more. So heavy that Mad Dog struggled to even hold it up with two hands.

Bang!

Joan instinctively leaped backward. It was a relief that Mad Dog's aim was subpar since even if Joan attempted to evade, she wouldn't have been fast enough to.

A blue spark whizzed past her and slammed into the far left wall, causing vibrations to reverberate throughout the building. The ground underneath Joan shook unsteadily as she stumbled behind a pillar to take cover.

How had Mad Dog gotten his hands on an electron gun? Currently, they should be extraordinarily expensive. It wouldn't be until 20 years from now when reasonable restrictions and guidelines about the weapon's usage and construction would be established. At the current point in time, the minimum cost for an electron gun was 70k.

But no one in this district should've been rich enough to afford such a destructive weapon, so how did he?

Bang!

The pillar Joan hid behind trembled as a bolt of the electron gun slammed into it.

Joan paled. Although she was a superhuman, she couldn't outrun a regular bullet, much less a shot from an electron gun that traveled more than twice as fast as the typical round.

Should she run?

Joan glanced at Navier, who stayed unconscious despite the chaos ensuing. She gnawed at her lips as she looked between the open door and the Navier.

She had little time to ponder the situation. People moved from their hiding spots and were rushing at her from all directions.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted Jackal closing in on her. He pulled out a pistol from his belt loop and aimed it at her.

Joan gritted her teeth and internally apologized to Navier. She turned on her heels and ran at full speed, not caring if anyone was suspicious of her inhumane speed.

Her shoes pounded the floor, but the noise was drowned out by the ring of bullets and the electron gun's rumble.

Mad Dog gnawed at his lip as his trembling hands attempted to aim at Rem. But, his trembling hands, combined with her abnormally fast speed, made all his shots miss.

To make matters worse, he didn't want to hit any vital organs and have a death on his hands. But aiming for her quick-moving legs was more difficult than he imagined.

"Jackal, hurry up and catch up to her!" Mad Dog commanded. Jackal's speed was well known throughout the district. So why was the distance between him and Rem steadily increasing?

Jackal holstered his gun, giving up on attempting to shoot Rem. Instead, he focused all his energy into making his legs take longer strides. But no matter how hard his feet pushed off the ground, and no matter how long his strides were, the distance between him and Rem continued to increase.

Before he knew it, she was already out the door. Jackal knit his brows as he desperately gasped for air. He tailed Rem out of the abandoned factory, but the distance between the two had already become too large by the time he ran out.

Panting and exhausted, Jackal's lactic-drowned legs gave out, and he collapsed on the soil beneath him. How was she so fast?

As he fell to the ground, Mad Dog rushed out of the building with the electron gun in hand.

Bang!

Startled, Jackal used what little energy he had left to tackled Mad Dog to the ground.

"Bro, what the fuck are you doing?" Mad Dog roared angrily as his back collided with the soft grass.

"No! What are you doing?" Jackal deflected the question. "You're going to attract attention!"

"Jackal, take a look around! There ain't no one here!"

Jackal looked around. Indeed, the surrounding area was scattered with the occasional abandoned building, but besides that, the area was mostly dead.

"Still…" Jackal mumbled. "You never know."

Mad Dog growled. "Fuck! We lost her! This is your fault." He aggressively shoved Jackal off of him and slipped the large electron gun back into his pants, which created a noticeable bulge beside his waist.

Meanwhile, Joan's feet continued to carry her as far as possible from the building, even though she knew Jackal and Mad Dog had stopped chasing her.

Eventually, she came to a halt and placed a hand over her chest to steady her breathing.

"Shit! What do I do?" Joan asked herself. Never had she suspected that Mad Dog would be carrying an electron gun.

Without the proper equipment to defend against its destructive blasts, Joan would be endangering her life by confronting Mad Dog.

However, the more concerning thing was that such a young high schooler had just committed attempted murder. Joan shook her head to herself. Kids these days were violent.

"If he lands a shot on you, you're either going to have a missing limb or be dead," PK informed her.

"Thanks." Joan rolled her eyes.

"I don't think he knows just how dangerous that weapon is. Moreover, it's not commercially available right now and will not be in the future. How did he get access to it?" PK wondered aloud.

"I should be the one asking you that," Joan said.

Joan squatted down and pulled at the roots of her hair, desperately trying to think of a solution.

Out of nowhere, a familiar line appeared in her head.

"Don't be afraid to ask for help," was what she had told Isaac just a few days ago. Joan gnawed at her lip. But who could she even ask for help?

Who had enough authority to help Joan complete her mission without attracting the attention of authorities?