62
ballet of brutality
Lorien
He drops the gun no doubt from the shock of what just happened. His body knows what his brain can’t yet register.
I kick it away with my shoe and reach for it, fire licking my insides at the movement. I hold the heavy warm metal, the weight of which wants to drop the nose or whatever it’s called.
Seamus takes two steps to the side, moving for the SUV.
“Don’t.” I point the gun at him. I wave it, just like I’ve seen in the movies. I have no clue what I’m doing but they don’t need to know that. “On your knees.”
“You don’t mean to?—”
I squeeze a round into the dirt that seems far away and feel the reverberation all the way to my shoulder. My ears ring, my nostrils burn from the stench, and I really don’t want to do it again.
“Don’t test me. I have had a day.” I glare at him until he complies though his eyes dart to the SUV more than once.
“Toss your cellphones.” I point at the ground with the barrel.
Ever so carefully ballpoint pen man reaches toward his pants pocket.
My eyes hover between his freakishly slow movements and Seamus eyeing the vehicle.
“I won’t ask again,” I parrot the words of the would-be rapist with my eyes locked on his.
He reaches for his pocket as his lips pull wide in the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen.
There’s no warning. There are no beeps or dramatic, long-drawn-out moments. In the blink of an eye, the car behind me explodes.
I crumple and everything inside me vibrates. I’m deaf from the pressure on my ear drums and blind from the smoke and dust sprayed everywhere. My skin burns as if I got too close to a bonfire, and worst of all, I’m thrown facedown onto the ground from the force of the blast.
If my ribs were merely cracked before, they’re broken now.
And to think I was thankful that he hadn’t hit any internal organs with his kicks. Rib bones are certainly poking into flesh they shouldn’t be. The pain is acute, and I might even black out from it.
Correction.
I did because when I come to, Seamus holds a phone to my face and a gun to my head.
“… that’s right. And come alone.” I think that’s what he says. I’m reading lips as much as anything, only I’d think he was screaming from how red in the face he is.
And as if things couldn’t get any more chaotic, bullets whiz and a hollow thwap has the other man hitting his knees beside me. His left leg is blown out at an odd angle and…
… the ballpoint pen protrudes from the back of his neck at his hairline, having gone all the way through when he faceplanted.
I killed him.
I killed a man.
The only person who knows is the only other one who could be accused.
And that man holds a pistol in his shaky hand, looking around in panic with no means of escape.
Liam
Lorien crumples just as Briggs drops.
