The impact of his body against the Matthew’s slammed them both into the side of the ATV. He grabbed the gun, the grip hot against his palm, but before he could pull it, Matthew threw his scarred head back. His skull cracked against Javi’s cheekbone. The black flash of pain made Javi lose his grip. The gun hit the dirt, and Matthew lunged after him. He clawed his fingers as he tried to reach it. Before he could, Javi tackled him again.
The scuffle ended with them both on the ground, where they punched and gouged at each other with brutal enthusiasm.
Javi caught a punch to the ribs that shocked the breath out of him, but he managed to get on top of Matthew. The bony, stooped posture that Matthew adopted was deceiving—he was all wiry muscle, and he fought dirty. He grabbed Javi’s face and tried to dig his thumbs into his eyes. Javi tilted his head back enough so the dirty thumbnails gouged at his cheekbones. Then he got his fingers around Matthew’s throat and squeezed.
The sharp jut of the Adam’s apple under his palms gave, and the tendons strained under his grip. Desperate, whooped breaths hitched Matthew’s body as he gave up on Javi’s eyes and clawed at his hands instead. Broken nails tore the skin in welted, bloody lines.
Javi squeezed harder and smacked Matthew’s head on the ground. Matthew went limp under him, and Javi slowly loosened his grip and sat back.
“Stay down,” he rasped.
Instead Matthew whipped him across the face with the knotted end of a rope pulled out of the tarp. It caught the corner of Javi’s eye, and he lurched away with one hand clapped to his face as blood filled his vision.
He rolled over, and dirt scraped his bare shoulder as he tried to scramble back to his feet. Matthew got up quicker. Seen through Javi’s one good eye, he was a blurry figure as he staggered over and kicked Javi in the stomach. There was nothing left in his stomach to come up, but he retched painfully anyhow.
“I knew you didn’t care,” he yelled. His boot caught Javi on the hip with a sharp jolt of bone pain, and his voice screeched eerily around the inside of Javi’s head. “I knew it. All you care about is them. They killed my family, and all you care about is them. The rich. The greedy. The—”
There were a lot of things that went through your head when there was a strong possibility you might die. It had happened to Javi before, once or twice, and the general outline was always the same. Family, regrets, the wish that you’d told that one person that you really hated them. This time the thought that he should have kissed Cloister again slid through quickly.
Javi thought that was why he heard Cloister’s voice—it was an auditory hallucination caused by regret. He realized he was wrong when Matthew staggered backward, and his face sagged with desperation. He brought his hands up, and there was blood on his forearms. Then he decided to make a run for the barn.
He didn’t have a hope. Bourneville shot across the clearing like she’d been shot out of a catapult, all black fur and bared teeth. She hit Matthew square in the back and bowled him over. He hit the ground, rolled, and managed to come up on all fours. Bourneville knocked him back down, stood on his chest, and snapped and snarled into his face. Drool dripped on Matthew’s face as he writhed like a broken-backed snake.
“Stay still, and I’ll call her off,” Cloister snapped, his voice pitched to carry. He loped into view, coated in dust and breathing hard. “Stay. Still.”
Matthew tried to punch her instead. It was a flailing, ineffective swipe. Bourneville ducked, twisted like a cat, and sank her teeth into his arm. She snarled around the mouthful of flesh and shook her head from one side to the other.
“Stay still,” Cloister repeated, “or she’ll chew your fucking hand off.”
That time Matthew did as he was told. He went as limp as he could between the obvious shock and pain. His body trembled as he sobbed, but Bourneville was still attached to his arm, and a low, muffled growl escaped her clenched teeth.
Instead of calling Bourneville off, Cloister dropped to his knees next to Javi. He cupped Javi’s shoulders gingerly and then checked his body from chest to ribs.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Javi, you okay? You with us?”
Javi propped himself up on his elbow. He gripped Cloister’s bicep in his free hand and thought about kissing him, but before he could get carried away, he saw Tancredi stagger up to join them.
“Help me up,” he said instead.
Cloister helped haul him to his feet. He grasped the back of Javi’s neck, his broad palm rough and his fingers gentle. “You look like shit,” he said.
“I think I have puke in my hair,” Javi said.
Cloister showed him his hand. “It’s blood.”
“Oh. Good,” Javi said. He grabbed the edge of the ATV and sat down on the cracked vinyl seat. Nothing really hurt yet. The pain was somewhere under the pulse of energy behind his eyes. It would hurt later. He doubled over, rested his elbows on his knees, and decided to let Cloister get away with rubbing his shoulder. “I haven’t seen Drew.”
“We’ll find him,” Cloister said.
Tancredi came over with a bottle of water, and Javi took it with a grunt of thanks and poured it down his throat. It didn’t do anything to quench his thirst. The liquid just seemed to soak into his body and disappear. So did Cloister. When he looked back up, Cloister was pulling Bourneville off the sobbing Matthew.
“Good girl,” he praised the dog effusively as he pulled Matthew up onto his feet and cuffed him. Blood dripped down Matthew’s arm. “You did a good job, girl.”
Bourneville sat at Cloister’s feet and listened attentively to the praise. She tilted her head from one side to the other every time she heard the word “good,” and her ears flapped in the wind.
“We’ll find Drew,” Tancredi told him. She leaned against the ATV next to him and ducked her chin down to the radio to call in their location. “He’s going to be home with his family soon.”
Or he wouldn’t be, Javi thought bleakly. Him screwing up and walking in on Matthew without having a plan could cause a ten-year-old’s death.
