Mud resembling rusted blood splattered up as the gun landed in the space between Emilia and Stormy. Thunder rolled so hard across the heavens, it was as if the earth itself shifted beneath her feet. Jags of bright lightning momentarily blinded Stormy, but she heard the distinct sound of Lucas’s roar and knew the battle had begun.
Gripping the tranq gun, she waited for the effects of the lightning to recede. Then she searched through the downpour until she saw the three colossal figures battling viciously fifty feet away.
Witnessing the speed, the savagery, she understood why Lucas was so concerned about her safety. His father, his brother, they carried the same berserker-like rage inside them; they fought with the same kind of unrelenting madness.
Inching forward, she could more clearly see Emilia’s black locks plastered against her head, shoulders, and back. The black slip she wore left nothing to the imagination now. As if sensing her, Emilia looked over her shoulder, a twisted smile distorting her features. Dark excitement was alive in her eyes as she turned back to her husband and sons fighting.
No matter how fast the rain fell, that woman will never be washed clean, Stormy thought.
There was another bellow of rage, Lucas’s father was on the ground, scrambling to get up as Lucas and Thibideux literally tried to kill each other. There wasn’t any attempt at defense, only annihilation. Despite their size, despite the storm, their punches were hard and fast. Fists connected with ribs, jaws, noses, eyes.
Thibideux faltered but Lucas didn’t relent. He bellowed again, his moves becoming faster as he pummeled his brother, striking with such impact she feared he would put his fist through the other man.
Rising from the ground covered in grass and mud, Julian punched Lucas in his lower back. The hit would’ve lifted a normal man off his feet, made him cave on his wounded side, but Lucas grinned and swung his elbow back, cracking his father against the side of his head, sending him back to his knees. Lucas swung around and stomped his father in the chest, propelling him off the ground each time before he kneeled and punched him dead in his face.
Thibideux caught Lucas in a chokehold before he could hit Julian a third time. Stormy couldn’t tell what was blood, and what was mud streaming from the older man’s face as he struggled to his knees.
Emilia screamed when she saw the state of Julian’s face.
Lucas reached up, gripped the back of Thibideux’s neck, and flung him overhead. Thibideux was on his feet almost instantly and Lucas lunged, hooked his brother by the waist and drove him back into the ground. Julian rose to his feet, fisted his fingers together and slammed them into the back of Lucas’s head.
Lucas toppled over and Stormy took a step forward, but Lucas was up and hitting one man and then the other, taking as many hits as he landed.
The abuse these men endured would have incapacitated a normal human being long ago, but like the undead, the Beaumont men continued to rise, continued to fight.
When Thibideux was down again, Lucas reached out and grabbed his father by the throat, lifting him in the air as Julian tried to claw his way through Lucas’s arm to be free. Lucas did not relent or let go, continued to squeeze.
His father’s movements became less frenzied, his eyes lost their wildness and turned desperate as the life was slowly being choked out of him.
Emilia screamed and sprinted toward Stormy, stopping midway and kneeling in the mud.
Stormy frowned and looked back at Lucas. Thibideux was on his feet, punching Lucas in the kidney area but Lucas didn’t release the father. Instead he reached out and pulled Thibideux close and bit him in the area between shoulder and neck.
Thibideux screamed.
Emilia must have found what she was looking for because she stood and straightened her arms, aiming the gun Lucas had tossed earlier. She fired as Stormy lunged, tackling her.
The rain was weakening in intensity which must have allowed Julian to see Emilia go down and he renewed his struggle to break free of Lucas. Something metallic glinted in Thibideux’s hand and Stormy saw him slice Lucas’s forearm, saw Julian fall to the ground.
Stormy kicked Emilia in the face and the other woman went still. Stormy prayed she hadn’t broken her neck, killed her.
Julian and Thibideux tore into Lucas when he stopped them from getting to their downed matriarch.
They wouldn’t stop. They literally would not stop until one or all of them were dead.
Stormy pulled the tranq gun from her bag and aimed it in the direction of the three men still fighting, still trying to annihilate each other.
She fired, and Julian went down.
She shot again and Thibideux crumpled.
She aimed the gun at Lucas, whose gaze swung to her when his combatants fell. His eyes were unnaturally bright when they locked on her, his breaths rapid, his muscles expanding and retracting like a stationary bull sizing up its next victim to gore.
Maddened, he charged.
In that instant, she knew she wouldn’t do as he’d requested. She wouldn’t be the one to chemically imprison this part of him that destroyed to protect him, the part that contained so much anger, hurt, and innocence within itself.
Stormy lowered her hand and dropped the gun, braced herself as Lucas’s footfalls ate up the ground between them.He doesn’t even like to run, she thought with morose humor, closing her eyes before he struck.
