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That explosion felt like it lasted forever. At first, there was a huge detonation, and the floor below them began shaking terribly. Those who weren’t thrown to the floor by the first blast couldn’t keep standing without holding on to something or someone. Eden was suddenly grabbed and pushed against the floor, her already injured body painful again, with Dante’s body covering her. The vibrations suddenly got a lot worse, and another boom resonated somewhere above. She understood that either it wasn’t just one missile or it had triggered some sort of chain reaction in the floor above.
The ruckus didn’t seem like it’d stop anytime soon. It was deafening, and she could hear some of the men shout or panic all around them. She tried to turn her head, noticing Circé who was also on the floor and covering her head. There was debris falling from above, but shielded by Dante, Eden hadn’t even realized until now. Some white smoke was spreading across the room, making her cough. One of the walls had probably been broken, making the concrete dust fly around and stinging her eyes.
Still, that meant the room had probably managed to remain intact; otherwise, they would have definitely been crushed by all the floors that had collapsed above. All she could do was wait, her body pressed between the floor and Dante. She could hear voices, a lot of ruckus all around them and above, and a high-pitched ringing in her ears, but there were two more sounds louder than everything else. Dante’s breathing and her own heartbeat, loud in her ears. He wasn’t just keeping her shielded; he weighed over her, one of his hands on her head. His body was larger than hers and covered her entirely. Eden wished she had some sensations left in her legs so that she could feel what was going on at the other end of her body, but for now, she was completely unable to tell. When she tried to move, he didn’t even flinch. Eden had a hard time breathing in this position, but she probably wasn’t the only one...
“Loir!” she coughed.
“Oh, my favorite Kitty is still alive! How is it? Did you lose a limb? Someone dead? Red pudding party?”
“Not that I know of... Ah... I can’t see a thing. ...Are they still attacking? What’s going on?”
“Well, they threw some very nice fireworks! I think the Core’s getting into the landscape design business because the Red Temple got rebuilt into a corner sushi shop...”
“What’s left?”
“A couple of kitties in a big metallic box, maybe a floor or two... I’m surprised, I thought everything would explode like in the movies, but it turns out a building actually collapses vertically! Can you believe that? Oh, those special effects. Well done, well done...”
Eden grunted into her arms; she was too tired from all this to take in any more of Loir’s very bad jokes. She just wanted to get out of this place, and for this to be over. She wanted to go back and take a shower... She got even madder when she realized she wanted to go back to Dante’s place. Since when had she become so used to his building, to his apartment, that she considered it her place to return to? Even worse, she was thinking about all that with the man literally lying on top of her. At least she was facing the ground, otherwise, it would have been truly unbearable...
Finally, it seemed to calm down above. Everyone remained silent in the room for a few more seconds, and then all got back up carefully. Some helped those who had been trapped under collapsed shelves, or injured by debris; Eden finally saw the bit of ceiling that had collapsed, spreading that white smoke and letting some things fall through. The Yakuza may have anticipated a lot of things, but not that they needed to actually secure things to the walls and floor... She felt Dante get up but heard him grunt, which was unusual. Eden frowned and turned around to see him, on top of her, looking around the room with his usual ice-cold expression. Strangely, the lights hadn’t completely gone out, some red lights taking over from the white ones, giving a strange, apocalyptic feel to the area. In that red-filtered vision, Eden almost missed the shining stain on Dante’s shirt.
“Dante…” she whispered, sitting up to grab his shirt.
He glanced down, looking a bit surprised to have her pull on his shirt, but Eden was already absorbed in his wound. A piece of metal broken off from one of the shelves had cut and pierced his upper right flank, and his shirt was wet with the dark red liquid.
“You’re bleeding...” she muttered, trying to see the extent of the injury.
Because his shirt was black and the lights around were red, she could only try and guess the actual size of the wound from the wet piece of clothing. Dante grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away from it.
“It’s fine,” he said before standing back up and placing Eden on her feet.
The wound didn’t look fine, but Eden didn’t get the chance to insist. Many of the mafiosos around them were getting back on their feet and grabbing weapons to prepare themselves. Eden glared at the hole in the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. It looked like a chunk had completely fallen off, covering all the people underneath and letting some actual sunlight in... meaning the surface was dangerously close.
“Loir, I need to know what’s going on at the surface.”
“Uh... The lawn’s been mowed?”
“Loir!”
“Seriously, Kitty, there’s just a little mountain of stuff, collapsed stuff, and broken down stuff! Most of the cameras were destroyed, and I can only see the itty-bitty window of what was just blasted! ...Oh, and a fire or two. I mean, either that or that tree just turned red...”
“The Core’s people?”
“Uh... Not a black suit in sight; they all ran away as soon as the rocket was on the way, to be fair. Let me see the other streets... Oh, a good old hacking of the street cameras. It’s funny how they watched all the streets around, but they got blasted like a birthday candle, hehe! ...Hm... nope, nothing going on... Oh, is that a real dumpling shop? Oh, Kitty, can you bring me back some Xiaolongbao? I haven’t had some in forever! Pretty please?”
“Looks like we can go,” sighed Eden.
She looked around, but no one seemed to have heard her except for Dante. All the mafiosos were still busy gearing up or packing all the weapons and leaving nothing on those shelves. Eden’s eyes fell on Circé, on the other side, who was still reading the documents. She had a lot of dust ruining her makeup and some blood on her exposed shoulder, but she seemed fine.
“I’m packing all these,” she explained as she grabbed several papers. “I’m coming with you guys anyway...”
Eden nodded. She wasn’t really sure what the agreement was about bringing Circé back with them, but she had visibly made up her mind already... For now, she was more worried about Dante’s wound, although he looked like the last person to care about it. In fact, she wished she could find a pack of ice or something for those ribs that were killing her on both sides... Her fight with Circé was definitely not going to be forgotten anytime soon.
“You’re bringing witchy back here?” squealed Loir. “No, no, no! I’d rather move back to my garage!”
“It was not your garage, and it’s now empty, remember? Your new toys?” sighed Eden, grabbing as many papers as she could.
“My pretties...” cried Loir in her ear.
