“Helping where I can.”
Hopper lies on the ground, getting licked to death by dogs, while Bram crosses the yard. I switch to the exterior cam again when someone small darts out of the shadows. He’s got something big in his hand…a knife, maybe? He’s catching up to Bram awfully fast.
“Bram! Behind you!” I shout into the comms. “Armed. Might be another kid!”
The ladies behind me stir, and Bram spins, his gun pointed down.
“Oh my God,” he chokes. “Ant, you can’t be here!”
“Yes, I can!” he shouts, pushing past Bram straight toward the fight.
Holy. Shit.
My stomach bottoms out, but I refocus on the fight. They managed to kill another guy, and Anders, Charlie, and Erik are down to a single opponent each. Shit, there’s another one.
“Erik—behind you!”
I look on, helpless, as the man takes aim at Erik when Ant slides in behind him, slashing his Achilles. The guy falls like a sack of potatoes. Ant’s less than half the size of this guy, but he leaps onto him, knocking away his gun. Before the guy can regroup, Ant raises his arms above his head and brings the knife down with such violence that the man stills instantly.
Ant shifts, and…shit. The knife is sticking out of the guy’s temple.
More bodies are on the ground, and Anders and Charlie are taking care of the last two guys, but Erik, with a fresh kill on his hands, turns. I can’t see his expression very well from here, but I’m sure it’s something along the lines of shock.
“Holy shit,” he says, quickly closing the distance between him and Ant.
Holyfuckis more like it. The man beneath Ant isdeaddead, but Ant is not done. Yanking the knife from the man’s head, he begins stabbing the man’s face and neck.
Charlie appears to disarm his guy, killing him with his own weapon, then turns to the scene in front of him. Taking a chance, I switch from the exterior cams back to his body cam.
Ant looks like a feral beast, and even Anders whistles under his breath. “That’s fucked up.”
Erik is yelling for Ant to stop, but Ant is not listening. Finally, he catches Ant on the upswing, wrenching the knife from his bloody hands.
Stripped of his weapon, Ant forms his hands into sharp fists and begins beating the dead man.
“Ant! He’s dead! Stop…Ant!”
Ant, however, seems to be in a trance, and Erik’s words still aren’t getting through.
Finally, Erik wraps his arms around Ant and pulls him, still twisting and punching, from the man’s body. Even free of the body, Ant continues to fight against him, but Erik only holds him tighter. Everyone else is silent on comms while we listen to the tremor in Erik’s voice as he tries to talk Ant down.
“Ant, you got him,” Erik says, dropping his voice to a soothing tone. “Ant, please. I need you to stop now. Take a breath with me.”
That finally gets Ant’s attention.
Slowly, with a few more kicks and shoves for good measure, Ant gives up the fight and goes limp against Erik’s body.
Erik holds him for a few more moments before whispering in his ear, “I’m trusting you not to try to run or kill me when I let go.”
Ant takes two shuddering breaths before nodding. Erik sets his feet on the ground and gently turns Ant to face him. I switch to Erik’s body cam and…oh fuck. The way Ant looks up at Erik tightens my chest.
Sorrow, love, and rage are at war in his bloody expression.
I’m so enthralled with what’s happening on my screen that I don’t realize there’s a problem inside until one of the women screams.
Dropping the phone, I spin just in time to catch a huge guy cocking back for a vicious uppercut aimed right at me. He’s real-world fast, but I’m prison-yard fast and shift just enough out of the way for it to glance off my jaw.
Had I been just a bit slower, I would have been lights out. Even now, I’m seeing stars. There’s no time for pretty lights, though, and I gather my wits around me. As with all the other overgrown assholes, this one towers over me.
