Human Nature (Book 4): Human Nature IV by Borthwick, Finlay (book recommendations website .TXT) 📗

Adela tried to nod, but instead, she vomited on the ground.

“Oh God, alright, okay.” Gwen was taken aback slightly by Adela’s throwing up.

“So—Sorry…” Adela apologised for the mess.

“It’s alright, sweetie, you’re fine.” Gwen reassured her, adjusting the dial on her radio in order to reach a direct channel to Erica as she did so, “Erica, it’s Adela. I’ve got her here at the hotel… She’s pregnant.” Gwen was obviously unaware that Erica already knew this.

Erica could be heard sighing on her end, “I’ve got enough injuries to be dealing with over here as it is, dammit!” Lots of screaming of groaning could be heard throughout the hospital over the radio, “Tina and I are quite busy right now. You’re on your own I’m afraid, Gwen!” Although Erica had not intended to come across as so rude, she truly did have a million and one other things to be attending to.

The Bandits were beginning to lose the attack.

“Darlene! Come in, Darlene!” Nolan’s righthand man who was still hidden in the brush at the front of the safe zone was desperately radioing around to get a feel for which of his friends were still alive.

“Isn’t she answering?” The other bandit, who was still returning gunfire, asked.

The righthand man blanked him. “Pascoe! Are you alive?”

The walkie-talkie returned static to him.

“For fuck’s sake!” He raged through the frequency, “Is anybody still fighting out there?”

The gunfire was becoming quieter and far less frequent now.

“We need to get out of here!” The other bandit panicked and tried to make a run for the tunnel.

“No, wait!” The righthand man tried to halt him, but he carried on running nonetheless.

Though he should have listened to his comrade’s warning, as before he could reach the tunnel, he had been gunned down by a barrage of bullets, leaving an innumerable number of holes in his corpse.

“God dammit!” The righthand man cursed as he continued with trying to reach his allies, “Please! Just—Just somebody respond!”

“They’re all dead.” Michelle declared, having snuck up on him with Rob from behind.

“Alright!” The righthand man dropped his radio and his gun and raised his hands to surrender. “You win, okay? You guys win! Just let me go! I promise, we’ll never come back! Heck—There isn’t anybody who even can come back! I’m the last one, alright?” He had neglected to remember Donna.

Michelle pretended to think, though she had already decided on a course of action in her mind, “I could do that, or—”

Without another word, and with a merciless expression, she pulled the trigger on the righthand man and blew his brains out.

Rob was slightly unnerved by what he had just seen, “Michelle! He had just surrendered!”

“Yes, but I wasn’t going to take a chance.” She stood by her actions.

Rob shook his head, “He was alone… Nobody was left to even fight at his side!”

“This is Michelle, one of the newcomers, I’ve just finished off the last one,” she radioed in, having ignored Rob’s rejections of her, “The fight’s over. They’re all dead.”

“Copy that, Michelle.” Mac acknowledged over the frequency.

There was now just one single bandit left alive: Donna.

With a strong feeling of valour in his heart and his mind, Elliot was able to navigate his own way down the basement stairs, aided by nothing and nobody more than his walking cane.

Donna watched Elliot with her usual poker face as he stopped walking abruptly at the other end of the basement and turned to face her as best as he could.

Elliot sighed, and without saying any words himself, he turned on his walkie-talkie for Donna to listen to:

“They left their minibus behind!” Tina jovially radioed in.

“Good.” Gwen responded, “We can smelt it down to scraps with the bodies of the fuckers who owned it.”

Although Donna was very much aware that this meant The Neo-Bandits had lost the fight, she maintained her stern poker face nonetheless, completely aware that Elliot was good at picking up on the emotions around him.

“You lost.” Elliot boldly declared. “How does that feel?” He asked in gloat.

Donna’s face wavered to neither anger nor comfort, though Elliot could feel her trembling heartbeat through the vibrations in the floor.

“Somehow, neither my mother nor Annabelle know that you’re down here,” Elliot noted, “Because if they did, you’d be brains out on the floor right now.”

And even after hearing this, Donna was unresponsive.

“If we were on opposite sides of the battlefield, I’d have killed you myself without a second thought,” Elliot gravely revealed to her, but his expression then lightened up, “But I’m not gonna kill an unarmed woman who we’ve already captured.” He reached into his pocket to produce a small knife, “The score’s settled. Gwen’s husband is dead. Kyle is dead. Nate is dead. Nolan is dead – We leave it at that, okay?” He levelled with Donna as he cut her free of her ties.

Now, her expression finally wavered; she looked at Elliot in befuddlement over the fact that she was still alive after all of her taunting.

“There’s a back exit just past the cottage,” Elliot slipped his knife away as he told Donna this information, “If you’re sly, you can slip out unnoticed and that’ll be the end of this.”

Without needing to be told twice, Donna jumped to her feet and dashed towards the stairs. As she put her foot on the first step, however, she halted momentarily, and turned back to face Elliot, “Thank you.” She told him a humane level.

Before Elliot could turn back to face Donna and tell her that she was welcome, she had already scurried off up into the house above.

Alek and Emile had remained untouched in their cottage throughout the entire ordeal, along with their new friend Rajan.

“Well, looks like that’s it then.” Alek remarked, having heard the