I blow my irritation through my cheeks. “Or ye could show up shirtless with your axe over your shoulder and ask if they need their logs split. Always works on me, Paul Bunyan.”
Seth snorts. “Not denying it.”
While they bicker like old ladies at the market, I slip away. No one’s watching me. Just proves how much they’d be lost without me. I chuff a quiet laugh, duck, and pull my cleaver from its sheath. My silenced Glock’s already cocked. My cleaver primed. No ceremony. Just work.
Bulky figures roam the woods, patrolling. My veins fill up with bloodthirst.
This is how Rory Conor takes the edge off.
Quick and quiet, I come at the first guard from behind. Big, dumb oaf doesn’t even turn. I slice through flesh and bone. He goes down with a gurgle. Blood sprays my hands, warm and wet.
Second guard—silent and quick bullet to the brain.
I strip both bodies for ammo and weapons. Always wondered why movie heroes leave fully loaded guns behind like they’re allergic to efficiency.
I move like a beast with rabies and a bad attitude, stacking bodies, messy but quiet. Each kill gets me closer to the front gate. Closer to her.
If it were Sethy boy and me, we’d be crowing and cackling, working wild.
Then I reach into my bag and see my babies—two hand grenades, fat and gleaming in my hands like they know what’s coming.
In my ear, Seth breaks through: “Where’s Rory? Rory?”
I grin. Pull the pins. Toss them straight at the gates. “Heads up, lads. Early delivery. Merry Christmas, ye filthy animals.”
Boom.
The explosion thunders through my body. Fireworks flare across the sky, steel screaming. Guards scatter like roaches under a kitchen light.
Vincent mutters, “Never mind.”
I key into the comm. “If that doesn’t pull attention from the east wall, I’m an English harp player,” I smirk, remembering what Briella once said to me, my black heart raging for her.
So close, I can almost smell her.
If there’s one motherfucking mark on her, I’m splitting that religious shite’s carcass open and strangling his balls with his own intestines.
“Rory, get your William Wallace–impersonating ass back here. Now,” Seth barks.
“Aww, wood boy, ye miss me?”
“I mean it, Rory?—”
But I’m already moving. Trees shift. Boots pound the earth. Guards coming fast. I’ll take out every goddamn one of them.
“Sorry, Lads,” I mutter, raising the automatic rifle I swiped. “Time for Big Red to take care of some business.”
And get my woman back.
I cut the comm before Seth can go full lumberjack on me. Gunfire erupts. I become a hailstorm of lead, teeth-gritting and glorious. Bullets rip through bodies. My cleaver swings wide, catching throats, clavicles, flesh, and bone. Blood sprays warm on my face, soaks my fatigues.
Then—
Pain. Like lightning on my spine. My body locks, legs buckling. Fuckfuckfuck!
I go down hard, getting tased. Again. And again, until I’m twitching in the dirt, the smell of ozone and blood thick in my nose.
“Bring him to the Prophet,” someone growls.
