Cian nods and very slowly holsters his gun again. “Fine.”
I turn back to Hawk, who has finally shaken off the daze from being kneed so hard in the face. “What the fuck?” he gasps, trying to push himself up onto his knees.
I immediately kick him in the shoulder and send him back to the ground, then I pull the gun from my waist and aim it at him. “If you don’t want to die right this second, then you’ll think twice before getting up again.”
“The fuck?” He spits blood and speaks thickly with a broken nose. “Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the fucking point,” I snarl as I grab him by the bicep and haul him upward. “Now either you start walking or I’ll start testing how many bullets I can put in your internal organs before you can make any more stupid remarks, understand?” I press the barrel of my gun against his kidney and he flinches and raises one hand.
“Alright, alright! Fucking psycho—” That earns him a solid punch from Cian, and Hawk reels back into me with a wet gasp. “Stop hitting me in the face!”
“Then don’t fucking speak,” Cian growls, then he turns to see that the bodyguard on the floor has woken up.
Dazed, he rubs one eye and then stares at the two of us with wide eyes.
“Fuck. We better bring him.”
“We could just kill him,” Cian mutters as he grabs the bodyguard by the scruff of the neck and hauls him upright.
“Not here,” I warn him. “We don’t want to draw attention. Not yet, at least.”
Together, while keeping our weapons trained on our respective captives, we use the fire escape to make it down to the ground. Twice, Hawk tries to make his escape, and twice, I get him in a headlock and threaten to throw him to the ground. I’m not against dragging him unconscious, and since I overpower him each time, he quickly believes that I’m capable.
“You’re gonna die for this,” Hawk spits through another mouthful of blood as we make it to the busy street below.
The street is flooded with people from the hotel as well as curious onlookers from the surrounding area. Given the panic in the crowd, it’s easy for us to force Hawk and his bodyguard to keep walking until we make it across the street and into the mouth of a dark alley.
“Ain’t that a concern?” Hawk glances back at me with a cold glare. “Or you got a fucking death wish?”
“Shut up,” I snap, shoving him forward hard enough that he stumbles over himself.
“Death wish it is, then.”
“Keep talking,” I warn him. “And when we get to where we’re going, I’ll start with the fun pliers. Maybe then you’ll say things I wanna hear and we can have a nice conversation. Until then?” Raising my gun, I shove it between Hawk’s shoulder blades as we exit the alley and head toward a stone bridge that crosses over a waterway. “I like silence.”
Just behind us, I hear the impact of a fist against flesh and turn to see Cian flooring the bodyguard in one punch. “Walk!” Cian yells as he drags him back up to his feet.
“He doesn’t wanna do that.” Hawk makes it to the middle of the bridge and turns to face me. “Gonna shoot me?”
“I only need your mouth working. I don’t need anything else.” In a flash, I lower my gun and shoot Hawk directly in the foot. He falls with a scream and his beaten face twists in pain while he clutches at his wounded leg.
“What the hell? You crazy fucking bitch!”
“Like I said, I don’t need all of you. In fact, maybe that’s how we’ll start our conversation. Did you know you don’t need all these limbs in order for me to get what I want? I can cut them all off and the more you piss me off, the less I’m inclined to give you the brief, sweet relief of the unconscious sleep blood loss might give you.”
“You bitch?—”
We all flinch suddenly as an enormous explosion rips through the hotel we were just at. From the bridge, the hotel sits inwardfrom the waterway and several streets away, but we have the perfect view of the entire building exploding in several balls of flame that stretch upward into the night sky. My heart stills in my chest as the explosion spreads outward and consumes the closest streets in sweltering heat, fire, and debris.
Did… did we do that?
All those people in the street… there’s no way they were all Hexagon, but the fire department, the people who ran to help, even the waitstaff… all those innocent lives. There’s no way our fire caused that, did it?
As my stomach writhes with panic, heat from the explosion finally reaches us along with waves rushing past in the water below from the force of the explosion. It’s enough to force me to take a step backward. There’s no way anyone close to that hotel survived.
I stare at the inferno until my eyes burn and then a throaty, wheezing rush of laughter catches my attention. Looking down, Hawk holds onto the railing of the bridge and laughs roughly in between wet coughs and groans.
“What’s so fucking funny?” I snarl, raising my gun to press the barrel between his eyes. Before he can respond, a yelp of pain rises to my right. I spin and my heart leaps up into my throat.
