They can't Hurt You, Pete

Before June could answer, the call dropped as if someone had killed the signal in the hospital. June quickly trembled and fumbled getting his phone to unlock. He quickly searched the hospital and any news about it. After all, it should be reported just as it happened, right?

The silver Audi sped through the streets and took a turn at a dark corner. Lantis made the car invisible to the eyes of the humans and drove it over the curb to get to the other path leading to the hospital. Lantis had a frown on his face as he felt a sudden shock in his head. He held on his forehead: "I have failed you, June. It seemed that someone else is interfering with the flow of events…"

"Just drive to the hospital. Dammit, I can't find anything online!" June didn't know what to expect. Just earlier, someone on the set was almost run over with a rushing car; just a bit earlier, they were headed to a place where the demons who owed him were waiting. However, now that someone else decided to mess with June, the first person to be harmed… was his brother, who was so far away from him.

The very notion made him phone his mother. She should still be home, if not out with some friends. She was still living in her sister's house, away from that sick boyfriend. "Lucirien, can you send someone over to my mom? Please make sure she's okay."

Lantis reached out to hold June's shoulder. "Someone is constantly watching her. She had yet to report anything worth the pain. Listen to me, I can take us inside the hospital. We should find your brother."

Even if he said this, he could feel June's hesitation to believe him freely. The omnipotent image of the grand demon was breaking away at the very moment when Lucirien needed June to trust him. The silver Audi had already broken into the grounds of the hospital and had driven across the wide hallways of the dark building where the recovering patients were.

"June, we're here. Be careful. They cannot see us, but the demons can. Proceed low and with precision," Lantis whispered as the car pulled up to block the exit for the gunmen. When the car materialized again, June and Lantis could hear the popping sounds of the guns. June crawled on the ground to stay out of sight, while Lantis had vanished completely.

"Pete, hang in there… please hang in there…" June turned off his phone in case his mother called him back. He knew that it might make her go crazy if she couldn't contact June as soon as the news broke out to her face. More… when she knew the building that they targeted.

The actor had his experience with such scenes from his movies and other series he had done. However, unlike by then, anyone who would spot him could kill him with their guns. He was not even supposed to be there, yet if his dead body turned up—no, no, he couldn't die. He shouldn't… else, Freya would be left with only two tombstones for sons.

His erratically beating heart began to calm down as he saw the first few corpses that were gunned down by the armed men. He saw the fear and terror in their eyes, their mouths left open from screaming. He was even getting flashes of what happened in this hallway as soon as his palms touched the blood on the floor. It wasn't just a pair of nurses or a man carrying food to a recovering wife; there were tens of them.

June slowly went across, trying not to touch the blood on anything. However, with so many people and splatters around him, he had no choice but to contain the rage and revenge that built up around the dead. He had no idea if he should continue, but Pete's cries for his brother resounded again and again.

"Please don't do this! I didn't do anything to any of you!" June froze when Pete's voice echoed along the hallway. The actor slowly got to his feet and forced his legs to take steps closer, but he could only be rooted to his spot.

"It's all right. Scream out and call for your brother. Maybe, by then, you'd know what he got himself into…" someone spoke, attracting both the brothers' attention. "Do you even know who your brother is trying to trample? He was just a small-time actor, yet he thinks he can behave the way he wanted? Tch, what a joke."

Pete babbled, but he couldn't say anything. Even until the group showed up from the corner to find a suitable window to taunt the cops with a hostage, Pete didn't know what he was supposed to say. It didn't even help that they suddenly saw June in the middle of the hallway, painted with the blood that he had crawled through.

The younger brother murmured, "June?"

"Hey, you want me, right? Why don't you just take me and let him go?" June showed his hands to the gunmen. There were six gunmen, and one of them was holding Pete in a choke hold while a gun was on his head. There was even another at Pete's side. June then tried to smile. "Don't worry, Pete… I'm not going to let them hurt you…"

"How the fuck did you get inside?!"

The other gunmen pointed their automatics at him, but June didn't cower at the sight of their nozzles. Even if he was, he should at least get Pete out of the way. He could handle getting shot multiple times, but Pete was not Lantis's little, sweet child that was spoiled by demons. At least, June could be shot and not die no matter what happened to his body.

The leader looked at the man, his gun still deep against Pete's neck. "What if I say no? Who knows what kind of trick you have under your sleeve?"

Then, there was a malicious grin. "Also… who said this is a hostage-taking incident? How stupid are you to come here on your own?"

June felt a powerful chill grip his spine and made his body tremble. The two gunmen holding their guns against Pete fired them almost simultaneously that June's eyes watered. In a snap, time stretched as if something was pulling it apart as if in a zoom, fraction by fraction until it was almost stopping. June ran forward to take Pete as Lucirien continuously divided the seconds to save Pete from sure death.

"Pete! I'm—!" Swoosh!

Just as June managed to grab Pete's shoulders to pull him out of there, a black shadow drew itself from the ground. It was a black goo that ate up everything it touched… from the tile on the floor to June's forearms… to Pete's head. Blood didn't even splatter in the stretched time; June just had to watch how the black shadow unveiled a headless brother.

Break! The time stretch shattered in an instant. Lucirien used his power to crush the black imp instead. Its little scream was just like a yelp in the dark, too soft to wake June up from his nightmare.

Bang! Bang! The two guns fired off just as the stretch vanished, the higher gun killing the other gunman. None of them couldn't even react to the fact that June was already standing in front of Pete. It didn't help that blood and pain also exploded along with the side of Pete's waist.

The dead gunman's body exploded, as well as the others that Lucirien had killed in rage. However, Pete's body only fell to the side. June couldn't catch it; he didn't have hands to do so… neither did Pete have a head to hit the floor.