"How long will they take?" Jamie asked nervously upon hearing gunfire in the distance.
"Zz... We'll be at your location in a few minutes. What's your status?"
"My brother is holding them off, but I don't think he'll last much longer." Jamie knew his brother was leading the fight elsewhere to keep him from being exposed.
He felt ashamed, but Jamie wasn't a killer, nor could he shoot properly. If he interrupted his brother now, all his efforts would be in vain.
This immediately brought Jamie back to a childhood memory.
Maybe he was never the son most attached to the family ranch, not after witnessing his mother's death with his own eyes. It was all his sister's fault, and that was something he would always blame her for. She, on the other hand, felt that resentment and responded with hostility.
No one understood him; everyone drifted apart except for Dante, his beloved younger brother, who promised he would take care of everyone once he returned from his studies.
Among all his siblings, Jamie had always respected Dante. He was always the quiet one, always listening from the sidelines. If there was a secret, he knew it. If there was trouble, most of their siblings would turn to him.
Now that all his assumptions had come true, Jamie realized he had never been wrong as a child.
His brother was definitely someone they knew little about.
…
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The mercenary running toward the sniper point, far from the truck where Jamie was hiding, calculated the distance and knew he was barely a hundred meters away. Judging by his speed, he would reach Dante's position in less than a minute.
"Damn it, I have to do this!" As the mercenary approached the spot where he was hiding, Dante raised his sniper rifle once again.
He couldn't risk exposing himself while the others pinned him down in a single shooting spot. However, he knew perfectly well that if the mercenaries reached his position, he would die, and his brother would be killed as well.
Bang!
He fired, and the mercenary running toward him dropped to the ground.
Though Dante immediately moved away, the force of the incoming bullets forced him to flee back to the hiding spot he had left to escape.
In just moments, bullets rained down on his position, leaving him with no way out.
"Argh!"
Dante, now in cover, gritted his teeth in pain.
When the immense pain subsided a little thanks to the adrenaline, Dante could no longer feel the left side of his body.
He looked down at where he had been shot.
The wound was near his abdomen. A bullet was lodged in his protective vest, blood seeping out.
If it hadn't been for the vest, his abdomen could have been completely pierced. But even with the vest on, he had taken a serious hit.
The damage caused by rifle bullets and pistol bullets was vastly different. While a pistol bullet might leave some bruises, a rifle shot could break several ribs and cause open wounds, as was the case with Dante.
"Damn it…" Compared to the injuries he had sustained in Mexico, this time he was really hurt and would have to deal with the consequences.
He was in serious trouble, maybe even close to death.
If there was one thing Dante regretted, it was not having done things much better than he had so far.
He gritted his teeth and covered his wound just before he started crawling, holding onto his rifle.
Once again, he was grateful for choosing this particular terrain, which gave him enough space to evade the incoming fire and enough time to abandon his current hiding spot.
When Hawk and the others reached the place where Dante had been, he was already gone.
"Damn it! If we had a bazooka, a grenade launcher, or even just a damn grenade, this bastard would be dead already!" Hawk expressed his frustration upon seeing that there was no one there.
"What do we do?"
The gunfight had dragged on for too long; the gunfire was much more chaotic, and in these areas, one could distinguish between shooting practice and real combat.
"Find him, he can't be far."
But at that moment, bursts of gunfire rang out from a distance.
Shortly after, the sound of helicopter blades could be heard approaching from afar, followed by gunfire raining down on the mercenaries guarding the vehicles.
"Zz... We're under attack."
"Zz... They have high-powered equipment!"
Hawk, who was near where Dante had escaped, saw the two helicopters in the distance getting closer and shouted without hesitation, "Run!"
But it was too late. By the time they ran into the depths of the trees, the helicopters, equipped with machine guns, did their job and attacked.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bodies of the mercenaries trying to flee were torn apart by bullets that fell upon them like furious meteors.
Hawk, who had never imagined this, not even in his worst nightmares, ran with all his might.
But just like the others, he knew he was going to die.
…
"Shit, they arrived late…" Jamie had approached where the mercenaries were running. He wanted to support his brother and buy time so the help on the way could assist them.
As a brother, for as long as he could remember, when Dante gave an order, he had to follow it.
He could hear and obey it. Jamie knew it wasn't typical for Dante to give orders, but when he did, it was almost certain that he would take care of the problems no one else could solve.
That reminded him of when Dante bribed the doctors at a small medical center in the Indian reservation to abort their stupid sister Beth's baby.
Dante, much younger than them, solved the problem. After all, if the pregnancy was terminated, even if the mother was a teenager, it would take away the possibility of making the same mistake again.
The Indians didn't discriminate, they didn't ask questions, but they did take action.
That's why Dante acted, saving his sister Beth from eventually deciding to carry a baby in her womb.
And now, for the first time, Jamie didn't listen to his words. As soon as he saw things going south, he ran to help his brother.
"Dante, can you hear me?" Jamie gripped his pistol with trembling hands; he wasn't prepared to face situations like this.
"Dante, can you hear me?" The words got stuck in Jamie's throat when the gunfire stopped.
Just as he was about to lose his mind, he heard sounds behind a bush, and before he could even aim his gun in that direction, Dante's voice reached him: "Help me walk, I think I have some broken ribs."
"Yeah…" Jamie ran to support his brother, silently wondering if they had finally made it out of this crisis.