American variety show: Sniper Elite

Chapter 127 Rescue
Katalia huddled in the electrical room on the third floor of the parking lot, blood oozing from the gunshot wound in her left shoulder. Her entire left arm was numb and hung limply at her side.

She knelt on her right knee, tucking the stolen Glock pistol between her knees, her right hand trembling as she ejected the magazine—only two bullets remained.

She slumped against the wall, forcing a self-deprecating, bitter smile. Perhaps she was mocking her impending doom, or perhaps she was mocking her utterly foolish boyfriend.

That idiot man took photos of her while she was asleep. Even more ridiculous, these photos somehow ended up in the hands of the FBI.

She was already wanted for killing her father's killer, and those photos directly led the FBI to her hideout. As a result, she was surrounded by a SWAT team while she was asleep. If it weren't for her years of vigilance, she would probably be in a federal prison by now.

"Fuck!" Katalia cursed under her breath, her voice laced with the metallic taste of blood. She should have known that man was unreliable, but she never imagined he could be this stupid.

Katalia's vision gradually blurred, and the dimly lit electrical room distorted and deformed before her eyes. It looked too much like the musical instrument storage room from 23 years ago.

Memories flooded back, and she felt as if she had transformed back into that little girl huddled in the corner.

Back then, she would often hide alone in the theater's dark instrument storage room, fiddling with discarded, broken toys. Her foreign skin color made her feel ostracized, and the pain of losing her father left her feeling lost and helpless. Those broken music boxes and chipped xylophones were her only solace.

Until that day, the door to the storage room was suddenly pushed open. In the backlight, a boy stood there with his hands on his hips, like a hero who had descended from the sky.

"I'll protect you from now on!" His childish voice was exceptionally clear.

Young Katalia didn't fully understand the meaning of those words, but the look in the boy's eyes suddenly warmed her cold world. It was the first time she had felt the security of being protected since her father's death.

Katalia's consciousness began to blur, and the cold walls sent a chill through her thin clothes. The temperature of the electrical room seemed to overlap with that of the instrument storage room in her memory, that bone-chilling cold just like it had been 23 years ago.

Her fingers limply traced the Glock's barrel, as if she were vaguely waiting for a miracle. Would it be like back then, that boy who always stood there so confidently with his hands on his hips, suddenly push open this iron door and say that familiar phrase, "I've got your back"?
Outside the door, the sound of police officers' footsteps on the concrete floor grew closer.

Katalia gave a bleak smile, tears streaming down her gunpowder-stained cheeks. She slowly raised her pistol, the muzzle against her chin feeling cold and real.

She would rather have a bullet pierce her skull than walk into court in shackles; this was her final act of defiance.

Just as the trigger was about to be pulled, a screeching sound of tires tearing through the air. Katalia's finger froze abruptly; the sound came from the bottom of the parking lot, accompanied by a chorus of gunshots and shouts from officers.

She struggled to sit up, her bloodied back pressed against the cold wall. The sharp screeching of tires against the ground was rapidly approaching, interspersed with the booming of police automatic rifles and the shattering of glass.

The chaotic shouts over the police radio grew closer: "Intruder! West lane! Repeat, west lane—"

Before he could finish speaking, another deafening roar of engines erupted.

Katalia's chaotic thoughts were pierced by an absurd idea: Could it be that Salong, that madman, has come to save her again?
The deafening screeching of tires was almost upon them, and the shouts of the police officers outside the door abruptly ceased. With a loud bang, the iron door of the power distribution room was violently flung open.

A police officer slammed his fist against the door and then fell heavily to the ground in front of her, his limbs twitching uncontrollably.

Katalia used her last bit of strength to crawl to the doorway.

The scene before her eyes made her pupils shrink: a black Cadillac was drifting wildly in the parking lot, its tires scraping the ground, kicking up acrid smoke and tracing a perfect donut-shaped trajectory. The rear of the car, like a golf club, slammed into a dodging police officer, sending him flying through the air in an arc before crashing into a pile of cars in the distance. With a roar of its engine, the Cadillac once again spun in a perfect arc, screeching to a stop in front of the electrical control room.

The passenger door slammed open, pointing towards the doorway. From the driver's seat, the man wearing a clown mask yelled at her, "Get the hell out of here!"

That familiar, volatile tone—even through the mask, Katalia recognized who it was. Tears streamed down her face. This reckless madman had actually appeared out of nowhere at the most dramatic moment, just like 23 years ago.

"You..." she choked out, then suddenly found the strength in her body. With her bloodied hands pushing off the ground, she leaped up, rolled, and crawled into the passenger seat.

The moment the car door slammed shut behind her, the tires screeched as the Cadillac sprang forward.

Beta gripped the steering wheel tightly, his feet working in perfect harmony with the accelerator and brake, maneuvering the fully armored Cadillac CTS as if it were a living thing. The car drifted sideways through the hail of bullets, the muffled thuds of bullets striking the bulletproof glass mingling with the sparks flying from the metal exterior.

The CTS drifted down the three-tiered spiral track at a near-vertical angle. The intense friction between the tires and the concrete created long trails of smoke behind the car, its front always pointing towards the center of the spiral.

"Bang bang bang-"

The police officers in the lane had no time to react.

Some people tried to jump over the guardrail to avoid the impact, but were hit by the rear of the CTS as it swept past. Seven or eight figures crashed into the wall one after another, the dull thuds of bulletproof vests hitting the concrete wall echoing around them.

Katalia pressed herself firmly against the passenger seat, her bloodied fingers pulling open the armrest box to reveal the first-aid kit Beta had prepared inside.

She fastened her seatbelt and bit down on the sterile gauze between her teeth.

The car shook violently as it drifted. She gripped the medical scissors in her right hand and plunged them into the bullet hole in her left shoulder.

"Ugh—!" The muffled groan was absorbed by the gauze. Sharp scissors pierced the bullet hole in her left shoulder, churning through the flesh and blood, finally clamping down on the bullet embedded in the muscle. Katarina's forehead veins bulged, and with another muffled groan, the bloodied bullet clattered into the car.

The CTS was lurching sideways out of the parking lot exit, its bulletproof body scraping against the roadblocks and sending sparks flying. Amidst the jolting, Katalia tore open a sterile gauze bandage and roughly stuffed it into her bloody wound.

She took out a medical suture machine, aimed it at the flesh, and made three crisp "snap" sounds to suture the wound. Sticky blood stained the seat red.

The adrenaline needle pierced her shoulder socket, and the excruciating pain finally turned into numbness. Katalia spat out the torn gauze, her voice hoarse: "FUCKING HELL!"

"squeak--!"

The Cadillac CTS's tires screeched as it lurched through the asphalt, swaying wildly between the police cars. Sparks flew as the bulletproof body scraped against the police vehicles, and the rear bulletproof window was riddled with bullet holes.

Beta slammed on the gas, and the V8 engine roared. The car sped through the gap between the two police cars at nearly a 45-degree angle, its side mirrors flying through the air in an arc before crashing heavily to the ground.

"Hold on tight!" With Beta's roar, CTS broke through the last line of defense and charged out of the police encirclement, braving the bullets.

(End of this chapter)