My jeans feel like they’ve been soaked in concrete, hardening me to the spot. It takes concentration to get them moving, to buy me time, to get the chance for just one shot.
I fake running for the gate, for the house beyond, feinting back the moment the thugs chase me, lighter on my feet thanks to not being built like a bloody gorilla. Braxen strides forward, arm already recoiled, and I duck the punch I can see coming from a mile away, then land a solid blow into his upper abdomen, crunching upwards into his ribs.
I slide around his side, slipping an arm around his neck and punching upward again into his belly, then hooking his foot out so his weight lurches forward, a punch to the upper back, his kidneys, and he collapses further.
Then a fist crunches into my cheekbone, my head snapping back as muscular hands grab me from the side, tearing my grip away. Braxen falls to his knees, but my brief shot of triumph disappears as my arm is seized from behind, the grip so strong it feels like my bones splinter under the pressure.
I want another shot. To punch into his smirk and watch his lips explode as they crush against his teeth. It’s not too much to ask.
I try to slip out of the hold, use the few defensive moves my brain conjures up, but it’s too late and there are too many. Two men hold me to start. After a dozen blows hit me at full force, they only need one.
Fists crush into my face, my ribs, my abdomen, hitting me with such steady repetition that they gain a rhythm. Then the first boot stamps into my shin, the first kick twists my knee out of place.
After that, things get hazy.
I register some blows. The one that crushes my ear and sends a bout of tinnitus drilling into my aural canal at the same pitch as a dentist’s drill. When a heavy boot kicks under my right knee and I collapse to the driveway, the man who’d been pinning my arms letting go at just the wrong time to see me sprawling on the hard concrete.
The boot stamping on my head, crushing my skull between its heavy weight and the unforgiving cement underneath. A pebble catches just behind my ear, about as much fun as stepping on Lego.
I don’t notice them stop. Must be unconscious when they do because all I know is the force of blows and boots and then the soft hands of a man slapping my cheek, telling me to wake up.
Through bleary eyes, I stare at Braxen, wishing I had taken the gun. Wishing I had it locked and loaded, pointing straight at his heart, ready to take the shot.
“Nap times over,” he tells me even though I’m alert and blinking so he must know I’m already back. “Can you stand?”
Two men lift me to my feet, but they don’t work right. The left one folds over, the weight falling onto the side of my ankle instead. After a minute, he gives up trying and they prop me, sitting with my back against the garage door, instead.
Blood flows in a steady stream from my nose. Onto my upper lip, which is swollen enough that I can see it even when my eyes face forward. Down my throat, where it pools in my stomach, thick as syrup.
The vision in my right eye is obscured by more swelling. The left one doesn’t seem to register anything at all. I can’t lift my hand to check if that’s because it’s swollen fully shut or if it’s because of that part of my brain no longer functioning.
I’ve been in fights before, taken a few punches. Nothing like this.
Even the beatings I’ve seen Trent or Zach dish out over the years, according to contract, presumably exactly what the recipient’s deserve, don’t seem in the same ballpark.
For the first time, I get the sense I’m falling on the wrong side of the line between life and death. There’s too much pain to really feel it. I know it intellectually, know that it’s far worse than anything I’ve felt before, but I’m also so far removed from the equation that it’s like feeling no pain at all.
I could close my remaining eye, drift away on the cloud of pain-but-not-pain, and never show my face around here again. My brain seems keen on shutting down; someone up there is flicking off switches left and right, working in a frenzy, not keeping track of whether they’re linked to anything important.
A burp rises in my throat and when it bursts into my mouth, it’s full of blood.
Swallowing blood down, vomiting it back up.
Yeah. Nothing to see here folks.
My consciousness spins down to a tiny tube of light, my head bouncing between hyper focus and the fuzzy cotton wool of deep sleep.
Then the hand slaps me across the face again. So hard, my teeth cut open the inside of my cheek. More blood. I try to spit it to the side and end up with it dribbling down over my bottom lip.
“Can you hear me?”
I puff out another bubble of blood, then attempt a nod. The action tugs at some muscles which would prefer to be left alone, and I’m not sure how visible the gesture is, even though he’s crouching so near.
You can’t die, you stupid shit. You left Em bound and gagged. Want her to die of thirst?
A serious spurt of adrenaline pumps through my system at the thought, straightening my spine where physical assistance had failed. I try to get to my feet, miss, try again, and eventually lever myself upright with the help of the garage door.
Braxen steps forward, toe to toe with me. His eyes rake across my face, and he smiles, an expression without the slightest trace of humour.
