I hear shouting, wrestling. A grunt.
Bang! A gun goes off, a dull orange flash illuminates a vignette—Nico on the floor, wrestling with Pugli; Jakob lolled to one side, peering up at the descending cylinder, now less than a foot from his head.
There's a distantpingof the bullet ricocheting off something overhead.
Bang!
I hear the chair slam. I drop to my knees and crawl forward toward Jakob. I hear Pugli and Nico grunting as they wrestle on the floor, but my focus is on Jakob.
"Jakob?" I whisper.
"Brys?" His voice is faint. "Hey. Heyyyy. Hi. You're here too? Fancy that."
I follow his voice, patting the floor—grit, dust, filth, hard-shelled creepy-crawlies wriggling under my hand. I shudder in revulsion but keep patting and searching until my hands find the lip of the pedestal.
I hear commotion—a beam of light sweeps the space, several of them.
"No!" A voice snaps. "You'll hit Nic!"
No one can do anything.
I hear a soft grunt of pain, then a loud yelp. A beam of light shows Pugli on top of Nico, whose head is half on the pedestal. Pugli is throttling Nico with both hands; Nico has a knife in his side, hanging and waggling as he thrashes, trying to dislodge Pugli, who, despite being older and far less fit, is nonetheless big and strong enough to give the wounded warrior a real fight. Pugli is bleeding from several places, the severity of which I can’t determine.
I can tell the others are trying to find a shot, but Pugli and Nico are thrashing and writhing too much for a clear shot.
The cylinder above grinds lower and lower, the top now inches from Jakob's head—he's slumped over as far as his bonds will allow, buying time.
I scramble onto the pedestal but quickly realize I have no way of cutting the zip ties, and there's no time to find anything.
"PUSH HIM!" someone shouts.
Jakob groans again, low and weak—the press is touching his head, bending him slowly in half.
I'm out of time. I grab the nearest part of the chair and throw myself backward. The chair's feet scrape on metal, and I hear Jakob growl a pained sound, and then the weight of the man and the chair topple off the pedestal—not far, perhaps eighteen inches or two feet. Metal clangs on concrete.
I catch another split-second glimpse: Nico has dislodged Pugli, but they’re both rolling around on the press platform, tangled up and impossible to figure out who is who. I see Nico's hand flash, yanking the knife out of his side, flash again—Pugli shouts, a tense gurgle of agony, and then Nico is rolling away as the press lowers and lowers, now less than a foot above the platform.
Pugli isn't so fast.
I hear something crunch, and a scream, but my view is blocked by the press. I hear a gun go off, an automatic rattling, a short burst—ping-ping-ping. "GET HIM!" Nico screams. "FUCKINGKILLHIM!"
I lose track of what’s happening as I scramble across the floor, still on my hands and knees, toward where I saw Jakob fall.
I find flesh—cool, clammy. "Jakob?"
"B-Br…"
"It's me. Hi, hey. You're okay."
"Deh…debatable."
"Are you…Are youjoking?"
"Ow." He mutters something, but it's not English.
"Jakob?"
"Chair. I don't like the chair anymore." His voice is so faint, so muzzy and pained—delirious.
