THE ANGELES VICE

Dancing with death,part 2

pale green snake-like eyes, and in the rare dreamy magnetism way about her resting face that resembles a cheetah. Her interest in the foreigner at the bar dramatically increases from where it was when she first started following her around three days ago. This strange tattooed woman was just full of surprises; she couldn't quite figure her out yet.

" (What are you talking about?)"

" (You know exactly what I'm talking about.)

(Enough of your games, what is your name?)

"Maybe... I am wrong. Maybe... you don't know me and you won't remember me. But your family will if you don't leave,"," her smile vanishes and she puts the cigarette back in her mouth, squinting at the ticked-off captain who has now processed her threat and raises his gun again.. She quickly drops her cigarette into the ashtray and shakes her head, a light ticking sound emitting from the tip of her tongue against her teeth. (Maybe... I'm wrong. Maybe... you don't know me and you don't remember me. But your family will if you don't walk away. Put down your gun and maybe I won't kill you.)

.." Sasha mumbles as she slowly ascends from her chair in her humble corner by the large glass windows overlooking the deserted narrow street going downhill to her right. She saunters to the bar and moves in right as the man glances over his shoulder and nods his head at his men. She's quick to put a hand on the mysterious woman's shoulder and yell to the bartender for a Moscow Mule before her lips graze the woman's ear and she rushes out, " (How bold you are. Move fast, these guys are going to kill you.)Faster than one can blink, the leather knife on the bar top jabs into the neck of the short round man, and the gun that falls out his hand lands into Sasha's left hand, firing four explosive rounds into the heads of the thugs by the entrance to the bar. She hugs his body from behind, using him as a shield as she moves west of the bar, taking cover. The other woman barrels over the bar top and retracts her pistol hidden against her hip, racks the slide then springs to her feet to knock down.at least two guys before a machine gun forces her back into hiding. Bodies of the innocent fall, just like the glass bottles on the wooden shelf overhead and the beer bottles on the countertop. Everyone's screaming and hollering, but she's laughing; she got herself into yet another situation to threaten her life, she's drunk enough to fail the test of walking in a straight line, and her blazing cigarette is still surprisingly intact with her lips. The woman laughs some more as she gets up,falls onto her knees, then tries again and stumbles across the room to get to the other side where Sasha is, fortunately missing a couple of bullets."Hey you, are you crazy or what?!" Sasha shouts at her, stealing several glances to check on her while she takes care of the men pooling in from the entrance.

"You shot first!" she shouts back, barely able to maintain her balance. She sways and slaps herself awake, tripping backward onto a table, leaving herself vulnerable as she aims poorly and gets trigger happy, hoping to hit someone.Sasha rolls her eyes and lunges the captain's dead body into a teenager looking to earn his stripes and puts a bullet in both of them while on her way to drag the woman by her shirt and yank her out of harm's way. "Follow me!"

"Capture them! But alive, we need to know who they are and what they want with the boss!" one man thunders, waving frantically in the direction of the women fleeing the bar through the back as a squad of young boys and older men sprint after them."Capture them! But alive, we need to know who they are and what they want with the boss!"

Sasha let go of the drunk woman's hand to squeeze through a tight alley and bust through the heavy rusty back door of a rundown four-story building with her right shoulder, staggering forward with no time to run back out to collect the mystery woman. And no need, the woman follows and covers Sasha from front to back as she leads the way out to the front where they are met with more obstacles.Steep stairs, laundered clothes hanging off of lines, more stairs, people coming up those steps to get to the rainbow blocks of brick houses stacked closely on top of each other, bikes, and all kinds of dead ends that force one too many turns. How the drunken woman was supposed to navigate this kind of terrain? Sasha has no clue. But what she does know is that the woman does a surprisingly good job at keeping up and eliminating the army of cartel men chasing them down.Gunfire follows like the moon does a car racing down a highway, echoing throughout the overpopulated town, never quieting for more than two seconds. When you're running for your life and are just one breath away from death every step of the way, you don't stop when your lungs are burning or when your knees and calves are giving in. You stop when a heavy weight crashes into your body from a blindside, bulldozing you onto the concrete, knocking the wind out of you as though you had been struck By a freight train. The power struggle between Sasha and the obscenely large cartel soldier ends as quickly as it begins; bits of flesh, chunks of brain, and warm blood coat parts of her face and hair, and his body gets kicked off of her before she gets helped up by the foreigner. Her ears are ringing and she's out of it for a brief moment, nothing that the woman is saying registers, but the aggravated shouting catching up to them doesn't fail to penetrate and alert her.Still aware of the situation, both girls keep moving, barreling over stair rails and ledges onto private property, desperately seeking a way out of this maze barrio.