Vain (The Seven Deadly 1)

I ran around the building to help and noticed Mercy had been among the huddled. She was so small we thought she was a child. Two children ran and hugged me, crying.

I sank down to my knees. “Shh,” I told them as they wrapped their arms around my neck and waist.

Mercy grabbed theone wrapped around Karina and took the one already with her as well as mine. She ran with them to join the others who had already escaped and Ian escorted them. Karina took one of the soldier’s guns and held them at gunpoint. I raised my own gun to assure them they weren’t going anywhere.

While we waited, I drank the two men in. They were practically boys, seventeen at the most with bodies only on the verge of becoming men, really. Their faces still exuded innocence. They were a walking dichotomy. Baby faced assassins.

Back home, these boys would have been peers, with lives of their own. Lives unstolen by a psychopath and I almost found myself feeling sorry for them. Almost.

“Is anyone hurt, Karina?” I asked her, feeling out of breath.

“Not that I know of. Somehow, by the grace of God, the children came out of this unscathed. They’d opened fire on them almost immediately.”

I released a shuddered breath.

“I’m so sorry we weren’t here.”

“You were doing your jobs, Sophie. We all were. We were just a day too late.”

“It’s okay, though,” I told her. “We can leave tonight. Thank God the CHU’s are there.”

She nodded.

After a few minutes, Karina approached one of the boys.

“What are you doing?” I asked her, nervous.

“I’m checking to see if he has any other weapons hidden.”

I nodded, lowering my gun closer to their heads.

Karina patted the length of the first boy’s legs and lifted the back of his shirt to reveal any weapons. She made him turn over on his back and did the same thing to his front side.

“Nothing,” she said, relaxing a bit. “You,” she told the other one, “Move onto...”

But she didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence because the second boy lunged for the assault rifle around her shoulder, yanking it over her head. I raised my own to shoot him but the first boy pitched forward for me. I didn’t hesitate, shooting him in the head once and dropping him where he stood.

I turned to defend Karina, my friend, practically a surrogate mother to me, a surrogate mother to all the children there and someone I had grown to love so dearly...but it was too late.

The second boy had already shoved her to the ground, his rifle pointed at her chest and fired a single shot.

It was the only shot he would get because I raised my weapon and shot him twice in the head. I fell at her side, screaming but noticed she was still conscious. Absently, I heard stifled screaming voices come from the east.

“Karina?” I asked, more afraid than I’d ever been. “Hold on for me, okay?” I removed my button up and pressed it into her chest to slow the bleeding but within seconds it was soaked.

My shaking hands fluttered over her. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Karina’s bloodied hands stopped mine as she cradled them in her own. She looked at me and smiled softly, shaking her head for me to stop and closing her eyes.

“No, no, no, no,” I kept muttering under my breath, tears streaming down my face, waiting for Charles to find us. “Charles will find us. Charles will fix this.”

I cradled her beautiful head in my lap, held onto her tightly, as if I could tether her to my earthly world. The heat from her burning baobab tree warmed our bodies with such heat that the tears felt cool against my cheeks and chest. “Oh, my lovely, lovely, Karina,” I cooed, running my hands over her silky hair. “Oh, Karina.” A sob burst from my chest at her name.

Her eyes drifted open lazily and her face reflected her age for the first time since I’d known her. “Don’t cry for me, my love,” she whispered, raising her tender hand and wiping my face. She smiled softly, and it relaxed me instantly, even at that obvious hour of her death. “I’ve lived the most extraordinary life and I can genuinely say that I would wish this life on anyone. Even now. Even as I lay here staining the ground beneath us...” she coughed, and I held her tighter “...because it wasn’t what I had decided for myself.

“It was better. Better than anything I could have conjured on my own. So I’m telling you, my beautiful Sophie Price, don’t cry for me.” She coughed again and this time blood accompanied it.

“Karina, don’t leave,” I begged her.

“Promise me one thing,” she requested. “Promise me you’ll give it all to God and let Him decide it for you. He’ll gift you no regrets.”