I smile, baring all my teeth. “It’s what I do best after all. I heard you’re the main man around here. Running the show and all that.” He shifts. The asshole can’t help but feel a little pride, I just know it. Like he’s doing something good in the world, when all he’s doing is plaguing hundreds of little boys’ and girls’ nightmares. “T was hoping you could help me out, man.” “Yeah?” he patronizes. “You think so? You think I’m going to tell you shit, man?” He fires off another shot, this time next to me. Too close for comfort. Enough to feel the heat of the bullet. I still don’t flinch, and if anything, that pisses him off more. I sigh. With his current state of mind, he’s useless to me. Just gonna have to kidnap his ass and wait till he comes down from his high. A quick sweep of my eyes proves that I have about two seconds before the rest of the men start shooting, regardless of what comes out of my mouth. Two seconds—that’s all it takes to stick my hand in my hoodie pocket and fire off a shot through the material, downing one of the men to my left. The surprise of that move gives me a small window of time to upend the table and roll behind it. Glass shatters from the ashtrays, and a gun falls off the table and discharges, eliciting shocked screams from the girls. Fuck. If that bullet ricochets and lands within an inch of those girls, ’'m going to let them stab me for sure. No cries of pain follow, so I blow out a deep breath. Relieved, but no less pissed at myself. Like clockwork, a stream of bullets impales the thick, wooden table. Lucky for me, most don’t make it through. It’s too dangerous for me to return fire. I won’t be able to peek my pinky toe out without it getting shot off, and I refuse to endanger these girls even more and fire blindly. I don’t take shots unless I’m positive they’ II hit true. The only thing I can do is wait. It doesn’t take long for them to empty their clips. I hear the rustling of clothing and muttered curses as they scramble to reload. It takes even less time for me to shoot the remaining four dead, sans Fernando. I’m going to save him for later. The bullets rip through their brains in such quick succession that their bodies drop at the same time. “You see that?” I ask aloud, already knowing Jay is watching through the cameras. “Fuck, it only took you eight minutes,” Jay groans through my earpiece.