Finally, August turns and, seeing I’m not there, grins.
“Ah, the amuletdoeswork. The Führer will be pleased.”
I keep my silence and allow my anger to sharpen my focus, causing the member of the God Men behind me to become manic. He jumps to his feet and lunges wildly. He merely tackles the air in front of me instead, putting him in a vulnerable position.
With his rib cage exposed, I tighten my grip on my father’s switchblade and press the button. Before he knows what’s happening, I shove the blade between his ribs until the hilt reaches his shirt. I withdraw it just as quickly and he falls to his knees, holding his side, before collapsing onto his back. Blood gurgles up from his mouth and splatters on his cheeks until he finally goes still.
My breath remains barely a whisper when I grab the dead man’s gun from his holster on the other side with trembling hands. I fight to temper the roiling in my stomach.
Bes was good enough to incapacitate his own captor, pointing his gun at August.
The man himself hasn’t moved, nor has he wiped the grin off his face. Even when I say the incantation again and reappear, pointing the end of the Luger directly at him.
He’senjoyingthis.
August laughs. “You could pull that trigger, but it won’t stop the wheels that have been set in motion from turning. Change is coming, Miss Hawkins, and the world will be made better for it.”
My hand flexes on the grip.These God Men have no sense of self-preservation. It makes threatening them nearly impossible.
He continues. “However, if you don’t let me go, if you kill me, my men will kill your father. His work is important—so important that no one else understands it but me. If I’m gone, they’ll have no use for him.”
Dammit. It should be no child’s burden to hold their parent’s life in their hands. But, while he’s been a shit dad, that doesn’t mean I want him dead.
Finally, I speak. “From the smell of the gasoline, I’m assuming our car is no longer serviceable.”
He shrugs. “What can I say; I like to be thorough.”
“Not thorough enough.” I gesture with the gun toward the ground. “On your knees.”
Once he’s planted firmly in the mud, Bes comes up behind him and slams the gun into the side of his head. He slumps to the side, unconscious.
I turn on him. “What the hell, Bes? I had more questions for him.”
“We can’t be sure if anything out of his mouth has been the truth,” he reasons. “Besides, even if he wasn’t lying about your father, it’s not as if he was going to divulge where they’re holding him captive. There was nothing more we could learn from him.”
I grit my teeth, abandoning my anger. “I hate it when you’re right.”
At that, I tuck the gun into the back of my pants and throw my arms around him. He immediately anchors me to him, one arm around my waist and the other gently grasping the back of my head.
I speak softly into his chest. “I thought this was the end.”
He doesn’t say anything, only tightens his hold around me and presses his lips into my hair.
Knees trembling, I extricate myself from him and pull Cec into a hug too.
Cec squeezes me tight. “No more of that self-sacrificing shit, alright Hawkins? That’s not how we do things.”
I smile at him. “Whatever you say, old chap.”
“Hurry,” Bes says. “We don’t know how long he’ll be incapacitated for.”
“Give me the gun,” I tell him.
He glances over at me only for a second. “Why?”
“I meant what I said about Anders deserving a jar on the wall. We’re taking him back.”
Brow furrowed, Bes hands me the gun without argument. When I see him again, it’s to drag Anders’s body across the ground and toward the only working car.
