Dorian stood on the ledge, at the brink of precipice as he gracefully dodged the snipers’ bullets.
The hostiles opened up at once, shooting up at Dorian. So much for his team being soundless and invisible—if they were going to get out of this scrape, they’d better get damned deadly damned fast.
He reached out and felt the empty air in front of him. No guardrail protected him from the perilous drop. Dorian heard the bustle of the traffic several stories below, and a flicker of doubt undercut his resolve.
It was a loooong way down.
For a second he imagined himself splattered all over the ground.
Dorian took a deep breath, steadied his nerves, and then cartwheeled along the edge of the roof, his heart pounding in exhilaration. The toe of his combat boot probed the corner, finding the top end of a broken rain gutter that plummeted several feet down to the rooftop next door.
“Hmm,” Dorian murmured.
A crazy idea occurred to him. It was insane, but almost too daring to resist. He crouched beside the top of the gutter and tapped it with his finger to make sure it was sound and steady.
Probably.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 57 •
He stepped forward, placing one foot upon the top of the gutter. He licked his lips nervously, took another deep breath, and pushed off from the ledge.
Whooooosh!
Dorian slid down the gutter like an extreme snowboarder. His blood was singing in his ears, and a hot wind blew against his face as he zoomed down the rickety slide. Gulls and pigeons bolted from their perches in alarm, startled by the young man’s unprecedented descent. It rushed through him like an oncoming elevator as he tried to bail out as he reached the bottom, but he was going way too fast.
He jumped at the last second and with agility that would have sickened an Olympic gymnast, Dorian dodged the bullets and swooped low, hitting the ground in a crouch position like he was his childhood hero Spider-Man. He was smiling and threw up a victorious fist pump.
During times like these, Dorian followed three key elements:
Acceleration, speed, and of course, emotional self-packing.
Unpredictability and adrenaline are the byproducts, but he remembered to drive is to feel and to love is to live.
After sprinting across the rooftop, he launched his body and caught the gutter of the next one, shimmying down the drainpipe till he hung just above the roof level of the next building over. Bracing his feet against the wall, Dorian pushed himself backward, until the drainpipe gave way, jogging from its
DORIAN GRAY
• 58 •
building over toward its next-door neighbor, Dorian dropping onto that roof.
“There he is,” said one of the gunmen, trying to get a bead on the intruder. “SHOOT HIM!”
Dorian stood his ground as gunfire erupted around him.
Not a single bullet connected.
Dorian wasn’t even backing away. He simply twisted this way, that way, pivoted, and then leaned back as if he were a limbo dancer. With each movement, his confidence swelled all the more.
Two men emerged from an alley, and Dorian cut them down on the spot. Another peered out from behind an old train car, but Dorian blew the man away without blinking an eye.
“Report.” Henry said to Dorian’s earpiece.
Dorian had no idea how to respond to his request.
No, it was not a request. This was an order.
“Report now.”
The panicked gunman fired with a submachine gun as he came. Bullets strafed up the flattop in Dorian’s direction, whining off the concrete, and he threw himself aside, the rounds narrowly missing him.
Dorian came to his feet tugging the automatic pistol from his waistband, and returned fire. But he missed.
Then he emptied the clip, tossed the pistol aside, and lost sight of his target behind a cloud of smoke.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 59 •
CHAPTER SIX
To survive war, you gotta become war.
—John Rambo.
“You just couldn’t wait for the rest of us, huh?” Said a man coming out of the shadows, and several armored henchmen accompanied him.
Dorian holstered his weapon, knowing the stranger was not a threat. He turned around and gave the leader of the small militia a smile.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” Dorian said casually, without the trace of a sincere apology in his voice. “It was a first-come/ first-serve ass-kicking buffet, and I got tired of hanging out at the bar.”
A smile formed on Henry Lord’s face, and a light chuckle had escaped from his lips. “Good ol’ Dorian Gray. You always shoot first and never ask questions. Are you all right? Are you hit?”
“Nope,” Dorian replied, grinning, “still untouched like a mafia don’s virgin daughter.”
“Thank you for that lovely image, Dor.”
Henry had black hair cropped to the scalp, large brown eyes, and a quiet disposition. He was moving quickly in the shadows. Dorian kept a close eye on him as he advanced. Henry stopped in front of him and brushed him aside. He gazed over at the other side of the train yard. He was ever so vigilant.
DORIAN GRAY
• 60 •
“You think they’ll come?” Henry asked Dorian.
Dorian nodded, automatically checking his best friend’s temperament. Henry was standing ready on the blacktop, spare magazines at hand, and spare weapons as well.
“They’ll come,” Dorian said.
“Can we stop’em?”
“That’s our objective.”
“No offense, but what I heard from the—”
“That’s our objective.”
Henry shrugged. “All right, as soon as you see movement, blow them all to hell.” He hefted his long gun. “I get a decent shot with this!”
One more time, for reassurance, and to give himself something to do, Dorian made the rounds of his fire team, checked their sight lines and kill zones, and made sure everything had an abundance of weapons and ammo. In a fair fight, against an adversary such as themselves, no matter how well
