No. Fucking. Way.
Harrison sees me coming. A wicked, morbid smile spreads across his face as he pivots, redirecting the gun, aiming it at me. He’s not a marksman, though. He couldn’t hit a moving target if his life depended on it. He clearly didn’t get to practice his aim all that much as a private contractor out in the desert. I duck to the left and he doesn’t even bother to fire. He knows it would be a wasted shot. He plants his feet, bracing, as though, he’s getting ready for me, and I almost burst into laughter. He’s the same height as me, the same build as me, but we are not equal opponents. Not even fucking close.
I barrel into him, one arm already extended, hitting him in the neck. With my other arm I grab hold of him firmly around his waist. He’s winded, unable to breathe. At the same time he’s trapped, unable to escape me to right himself.
He makes a broken huffing sound as I take him to the ground.
These guys, these fucking idiots, posers like him…they’re all about the powerful right hook. That’s all they have in them. Me, on the other hand? I’m trained in Krav Maga. I’m a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I’ve been training in Muay Thai for as long as I can fucking remember. I’m so much more than a mean right hook. I’m a devastating chokehold. I’m a brutal roundhouse kick to the head. Basically, I’m way more than this fucker can handle, and he’s about to fucking die.
“Get…off…me…mother…fucker!” Harrison gurgles, straining as he tries to get the words out. I don’t get off. I jam my knuckles into his throat, making it even harder for him to breathe.
“Don’t! God, please, don’t!” Plato, still with his hands tied behind his back, is crawling towards us on his knees. “Don’t! Fuck, man, please, just back the fuck off!”
I’m so close to killing this fucker. So close to wrapping my legs around him, pinning him to the ground, and grinding his face into the dirt. I’d do it. I would finish the job in a fucking heartbeat, but then Harrison’s men are on me, eight rifles pointed in my face, and suddenly my death is upon me.
If this is the way I’m going to die, then so fucking be it. Plato risked his ass for mine. It’s only right that I hand mine over to save his. There’s so much going on around me that it’s hard to differentiate sound. I hear two or three of the guys priming their rifles, metallic clicking all around me, but everything else is just white noise.
“Release him. Now,” one of Harrison’s men snaps. He’s an American too, by the sounds of things. Another of them jabs me in the back with the butt of his rifle, hard enough to bruise. I know I need to let Harrison go, but I’m a stubborn asshole. A very large part of me would rather die than let him win this one.
“Sam, please!”
It’s not Plato pleading with me now; it’s Natalia. She arrives in front of me, dropping to her knees at my side, and she’s crying hard. “There’s already too much death,” she whispers. “Persephone was enough. Don’t you die, too. Don’t you fucking die. You’re supposed to take me away from this place.”
The words are like a slap in the face. I’ve daydreamed about asking her to leave with me sure enough, but I never thought she’d straight up ask to come with me when I leave. If I leave. I feel the fire draining from my body. Letting go of Harrison, I shove the son of a bitch forward, and he topples over, falling face first into the grass.
“You have no idea…how fucked you are now, my friend,” he rasps out. “Fernando’s not going to be happy when he finds out you’ve been messing around with his daughter. When he confirms you’ve been messing around with her.”
“Shut your mouth, asshole. You’re lucky I don’t try and stick something sharp and serrated up your ass.”
Harrison’s men draw closer. He’s mad. So fucking mad. Mad enough that I expect him to order one of them to shoot, but before he can say the words, an enraged shout goes up on the other side of the lawn. It’s Fernando. And he has his ball hammer in his hand.
The wolves appear to be done with their meal. Most of them have gone, vanished back into the forest. I see two of them slowly heading away from the house, melting into the shadows once more, leaving Persephone’s remains strewn across the lawn. Fernando is the epitome of madness; he stalks across the grass, smashing his hammer into whatever pieces of her he can find—a leg, stripped to the bone; the hollowed-out shell of her torso; her skull—and the sound of shattering bone fills my ears.
So. Fucked. Up.