This was going to be ugly. But it was going to be needed.
“I have failed to splinter you two apart, I can acknowledge as much,” he said. “But in the end, I always get what I want.”
“Blood and murder?”
Lucius smiled wickedly.
“Anarchy. Chaos. The end of the Carters. And, most importantly, the delightful deaths of their loved ones.”
I couldn’t tell who lost control first. It all felt like a whirlwind as Lane and I both charged at Lucius. He was right. We didn’t want to kill him so quickly, so unsatisfyingly with a bullet.
We wanted his blood on our knuckles. We wanted his face dented by our fists. We wanted him destroyed by our own brute strength.
In a flash, I landed a punch on Lucius’ jaw as he kicked back Lane with a strike to his sternum. The blow sent Lane sprawling back to the ground, wheezing and catching his breath. Lucius just craned his neck and looked my way.
“You should have learned to only fight people your own size, you fucking midget.”
He punched me right in the eye so hard that I fell to the ground, reeling as I struggled to regain my vision. I felt a sharp kick to the ribs, my chest on fire. I regained my senses just in time to see Lane driving at Lucius, tackling him and slamming him against a nearby wall. With Lucius temporarily stunned, Lane wound up a hard right fist and connected right with Lucius’ jaw, sending at least one tooth flying in the air.
I rose as Lucius blocked his second punch and delivered a knee to Lane, then threw him in my direction. I dodged my brother, but it was clear we were not just engaged in a street brawl. We were fighting someone who knew how to fucking fight and was willing to do so until he collapsed.
“You want order and peace in this town, but we are all destined to bring about violence and madness!” he growled. “It’s in our nature! Our fucking blood!”
I moved forward, this time more controlled than before. Lucius feigned a left punch, which I swerved to dodge, and then threw a right hook punch that just narrowly missed. I threw my own left hook that collided with the side of his head, bending him forward in pain. I grabbed his head, rammed it against my knee, and then slammed him against the wall. I pulled him back to do so again, but before I could, he chopped down hard on my forearm, dropping me. He rose, kicked me in the sternum, and sent me back.
“I can do this all fucking day!” he said, laughing, even as blood spilled down his chest. “All fucking day.”
Lane and I both rose, but we were getting our asses handed to us.
“Just shoot him,” I heard someone behind us say. “He’s got nothing—”
“No!” Lane said. “He’s fucking ours!”
I refused to say anything, but I had a worsening feeling this wasn’t going to end well for us. Lucius may have been a dead man, but he could just as easily drag us down with him.
But this time, instead of attack him individually, we went after him collectively. Lane took him on the left, I on the right. I barely dodged him trying to kick me from the side before I got to his back, yanking on his hair so I could get him in a headlock. Lucius screamed in pain as Lane, having grabbed his wrist, twisted him forward. A sickening crunching sound came as Lucius howled with his broken wrist.
“It’s fucking over,” I sneered into his ear. “This is the death you—”
And then Lucius roared with the kind of primal fury I’d never heard before. It was demonic. That was the only adjective I could think of.
He pushed his weight back such that we both fell. I bore the brunt of it, my back slamming into the ground, his added weight driving me harder into the floor. He kicked Lane aside and then turned to me. He landed multiple punches in a row to my jaw with his good hand, laughing all the while.
“Finally!” he screamed. “I’ll fucking kill a Carter with my bare fucking hands! I’ll go to hell having—”
“STOP!”
The distant female voice got everyone, even Lucius, to freeze. As if the monster had left his spirit, Lucius looked to his right with a softened expression. I followed his eyes and saw Lilly, still seated, awakening, her hand covering her wounded shoulder.
“Stop this, now!” she screamed. “All of you! What have you done but killed, killed, and killed?”
She started sobbing.
“You love me, Dad? You really love me? Then stop this at once!”
“But honey—”
“Don’t fucking honey me!” she said, tears gushing down her cheeks. “It’s no wonder you try and shield me from the world. All that your world has is death!”
