Cruel experience

*Trigger warning - violence*

The frosty drizzles from the gloomy clouds has deprived the night of it's warm, cozy mood and the rain friendly insects have gathered in large numbers in the air.

It's inadvisable to move at night especially if one is to take the highways. Nik should have waited till tomorrow, but he has missed his dad so much he loaded his luggage moments after he completed his exams. 

They ordered him to sit on a spongy grass beside a composed Grandma and he wonders what causes the composure; acceptance of faith or incognizance. Sometimes, the senses and the brain’s efficiency reduced at old age and he felt pity for her. He is relaxed, but only because he is a tough young man.

Feyer‘s rage amplified when the wimpy kid was dragged harshly from the bus. What money could they possibly get from him. He looks so fragile and scared.

Comparable to Andy, the little guy opposite her house. He comes every Saturday morning to listen to her Dagger girls’ experiences, but he’d scurried off when she gets to the sordid part, battle part.

She shouldn’t have boarded the bus, since it only contains the driver and a man at the passenger seat, she thought. Temerity has been her second half since she could remember.

 “Grandma, how are you so relaxed in this cruelty of a situation?” Nik asked as his hands conceal his upper lip for cover. 

She grinned and widened her lips all the way to the sides which creeped Nik out but he continues, “do you even understand our crisis? Are your ears working perfectly well?”

 Oh, my. She didn't know she's that old to have brain disorders and deteriorating senses. Feyer wanted to shut him up with her upper sign fist, the one where she’d focused all her inner vigor on her right fist metacarpals.

 Nik dropped the questions when he didn't get a reply and focused on his surroundings.

A few seconds later, a bus from the corner of the road came to a screeching halt few meters away. Five big men with big guns came down, displacing the chilly air with their heftiness as they stomped up to them.

The situation has not dawned on Nik until this moment. He had thought they were just armed robbers trying to instill distress in their minds with the stalling. Are they going to kill them all? 

Nik lost himself in his tensed mind, he didn’t realize Feyer draws out four pins from her pink crochet jacket.

Two of the extra men guide them with guns at their backs to a room in an uncompleted building and left them unsupervised to the next room.

An escape plan formed in her mind so she turned to the boy and whispers to him, “Hey boy, you probably won’t trust me but from the look of things, we’re as good as dead either ways so take up this chance.”

The boy squinted his face, a feeling of ‘i knew it, the old lady is not ordinary’ washed over him.

“I was one dagger girl’s movement leaders in the 1960s before it gained much popularity so you won't recognize me. As they claim, a cocky attitude is a danger to the crusade, but now is no time for history. Do you get me?” She rushed.

 Of course, she is a super-intelligent heroine. One of his dad idol is beside him, whispering. She is so full of herself, Nik confirms. What if your plan didn’t work, he itched to ask but decide against it. He shouldn't pull down his only hope.

 Feyer passed two crotchet pins to Nik, two in her hands as well.

“We’re taking them down with crotchet pins”, she said grinning, excited at the newfound adventure.

Nik believed his dad, his history teachers, and the papers then. No one except a cocky brat will want to take out a dozen armed, bulky men with crotchet pins. “Granny, this is not a dagger, it’s a crochet,” he begged.

 “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Good,” she says when he nodded.

“We are going to be rich,” one guy in the next room says, amazement dipping from each word he says.

“No, we are rich already,” the other one asserts. “Two million Naira for human meat. Are we that flavorful?”

Granny walked into the next room with feigned illness as she asked for a bowl to vomit inside. She moved closer to the one that offered her help and drives the two pin into his right armpit over and over until he dropped to the floor. The other guy advanced to hit her, but she's quick as she bent. One hit from Nik alone would weaken her, so she avoided to get hit. The two pins find their ways into his neck over and over until he gave out from the rapid loss of blood.

Damage to the axillary artery at the armpit means lots of blood loss that would eventually lead to death. Same with the carotid artery at the neck, she just has to do damages to them.

Body trembling, Nik picked up a gun on the floor and forwards it to Feyer. “Will you need this?”

“Drop it.” 

She tiptoed to the front entrance and counted seven men. With her heart in her throat, she moved to the back and counted five men. She's filled with trepidation but won't show it.

She clasped Nik's both arms by his sides and talks in a soothe voice, “The next phase might be a little tough. We are escaping through the back, but I can’t take them all with just two pins. I need you.”

“I’ve never been in a fight before. This might be easier if you use this gun, though.”

“I don’t know how to use a gun.” she groaned.

 “I don't know the fight ways either.”

 Feyer sighs. The kid is nothing but pain.

 She snatches one of her pins from his hand and kept it in her thin blonde hair, in case she needs an extra weapon. “Stay here.”

She staggers outside as if she's one minute away from dying and gasped saying ‘I need water’ repeatedly.

“How did she get here without Tony and Jerry stopping her,” one asked the others suspiciously.

 “no one was inside.” she slurred.

 “Sandy, go check the building for them,” He orders, pointing a gun at her head.

Feyer hoped he would find Nik relaxing quietly in the room. She didn't think this out well.

Nik hides at the left exit of the room the dead carcasses lie, ready to knit his veins together with the pin. When the guy enters, he stabs the guy’s back neck with the pin over and over till he plunged to the ground.

He picked up the gun on the floor and walked with resolution to the back and without thinking he shots three of them in the heads.

 Feyer pried the gun from the last man’s hand and jabs his back knee with the pins. The notion is to cause rapid loss of blood from the popliteal artery.

“What was that?,” she screamed, impressed. She grabbed Nik's hand, and they sprinted into the marshy forest, splashing water as they ran. They fell into holes and pick themselves up, but didn't stop.

 At sunrise, they ventured out into the highways, stopped a commercial bus which is almost filled-they didn’t want to repeat a cruel mistake–and dropped at the nearest police station.

 *

“Feyer, I still don’t know why you refused to go back to the Dagger girls. You would have made monumental history together,” said Nik’s father, Carlos.

After the unforgettable experience, Feyer and Nik’s Family become one.

In the living room, Carlos sat on the armchair and sips from his warm tea, Nik and Feyer play ps5 on the tv.

 “I regretted not going back. They were the only families I had,” She finally says.

 “You are now our family, Grandma Feyer,” Nik announces.

His dad confirms it, and they all had a wonderful evening.