My vision was blurred in one eye, making it seem like there were two of everyone no matter which way I turned, so I did all I could do with all that I had. Aiming the two guns left and right, I fired, my shoulders flinching hard as two bullets went flying out of either end. Cortez cried out again from one side of me, but the other side, the side where my head was the most fucked up… that was quiet.
Too quiet.
I was deaf there.
Just like Sutton, I was attacked from a lower angle, the arms of a thick bruiser wrapping himself around me and knocking my weapons out of my hands. That’s when it became the street fight it was always meant to be.
As I crashed hard on my ass, the wind poured out of my lungs and the fire began to spread through every muscle in my body. Roaring out at the head that was currently pressed against my chest, I swung and drove a fist into his kidneys as hard as I could, not stopping as I kicked up and tried to force him off me.
His own swing landed just short of my jaw, skimming the end of my chin and only managing to catch my shoulder. It gave me the leverage I needed as his body stumbled forward, having not connected where it was supposed to. As soon as hewas over me, I gritted my teeth together, grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face down onto all the rubble and glass.
It hurt. It really fucking hurt. I was too broken for it not to, but his wince of pain was addictive, and as soon as I’d heard it the first time, I needed to hear it again. Pulling his hair back and turning on my side to move from beneath him, I groaned and kept on smashing his face down as hard as I could. With each slam, I gained more power, more adrenaline, and more fucking desire to kill. The pain in my own body began to fade, being replaced by the need to survive and to rip the limbs off anyone who tried to change the ending to my story.
It happened so fast but so hard, it wasn’t long before his body went limp in my grip and I pushed him away from me.
I’d barely managed to turn my back on my enemies long enough to scramble to a stand when another threw himself onto my back, wrapping his arms around my neck so tight the pressure in my head became unbearable. Luckily for me, that one was young and scared. I could feel it. Even broken and out of fuel, I was still strong enough to snap his body in two if I had to, so that’s what I did. Reaching up desperately, I tugged on his grip in a jerky movement, throwing him over my shoulder before stamping on his chest and pulling his arms in a direction they were never designed to go. The cry of pain was almost as loud as the sound of the bones breaking, but I didn’t wait to give him any sympathy.
I was gone—in another headspace. There was that dangerous black around me again.
The bulb hung limply over where I’d been chained up, allowing just enough light to show the shadows in thedarkness. It wasn’t that easy for me, though. My eyes were tripling in size with every minute that passed by, and my body kept falling to the side no matter how much I tried to keep control.
I couldn’t see Sutton. I couldn’t hear Ayda. All I could see was Cortez and another man beside him.
I knew then more than ever that not all enemies could be seen.
Cortez was standing there with a knife hanging out of his shoulder, doubled over as he clutched at his ribs. The fact that the gunshot had caused some sort of damage made the small war smile creep up on my face again.
“I guess this wasn’t part of the plan, Chester?” I wheezed out.
He didn’t say anything at first, instead choosing to look at the man beside him as if he had a plan of escape written on his forehead for him to take advantage of.
“You may not have died the way I wanted you to, Tucker, but you will die today,” he growled back in my direction.
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, taking a step forward as I tried to hide the fact that one of my legs was now dragging more than the other. “I guess I was just expecting a little more from you. The show was impressive for a while. You gave good game. Now…” I stopped, holding my arms out to my sides and gesturing all around us. “Not so much.”
Cortez looked back at his brother, nodding his head in my direction for him to finish it. I knew the instruction he was giving without him having to say a word. My toe hit the head of the Emp who Sutton had shot with a dull thud, and I glanced down as discreetly as I could, watching as a pool of dirty blood framed the whole of my boot.
That’s when I saw it.
It was like we were in the middle of a western after all, and a small thought of Sutton flashed through my mind, and how much he would have probably enjoyed that moment more than anyone, no matter who walked out of there alive.
“Do it,” Cortez ordered quietly. The man next to him stepped forward, pulling his gun out of his cut and aiming it straight at me. I tried to move fast enough, but by the time I’d bent to grab the loaded gun by my foot, it was too late. A bullet was flying through the air in my direction and the pain as it pierced through the skin of my shoulder rendered me silent. I fell quickly, slipping in the mess of the dead and injured that I’d created.
I was all out of chances.
I could feel death getting ready to throw me over his shoulder and take me away.
The air around me became thick, like the walls were closing in on my life. I glanced around for the gun but I couldn’t see anything, and all my thoughts went to Ayda. I tried. I fucking tried… and I hoped that by some miracle she’d gotten free, ‘cause no matter how indestructible I thought I was, I knew a miracle was exactly what she’d needed. But we’d already had all our luck. By some grace of that fucked up guy everyone calls God, we’d already been handed too many miracles since we arrived there.
I just wasn’t expecting the final one to show up when it did, and when the sound of aggressive gunfire filled the air and the doors burst open like a stampede of wild animals had entered, I held my breath and waited.
The moment Iheard Jedd’s voice shout out for Cortez’s man to drop his gun, I knew it was time to start praying more often.
“I won’t repeat it. Drop the fucking gu—”
Bang.
His body fell hard and with no grace at all.
