Chapter 13 Skeletons #3
No body at the tower. No body in the yard. No body among the surrendered Wolves inside.
Spur was in the building. Somewhere.
I looked at Logan. He looked at me. The rifle on his shoulder. The Desert Eagle in my hand. The Ka-Bar and the custom throwing knife on my belt.
"I'm going in." I drew the Ka-Bar with my left hand, the blade resting under the Desert Eagle in my right. "Stay behind me."
"Right behind you."
I turned to the Phoenix teams. "Secure the prisoners. Hold the perimeter."
Then we walked into the smoke.
LOGAN
The corridor was dark. The overhead lights had blown during the RPG blast, leaving only the emergency lighting—dim orange strips along the baseboards that cast just enough glow to see shapes but not details.
The smoke from the front entrance drifted through the hallway in lazy currents, stinging my eyes and coating the back of my throat.
The compound smelled like burning wood and scorched metal and the acrid chemical bite of spent explosives.
Underneath it all, the smell of a place where men had lived—leather, engine oil, stale beer.
Diego moved ahead of me. The Desert Eagle in his right hand, the Ka-Bar beneath it in his left, both arms up in the two-weapon carry I'd seen him use at the cattle ranch.
His steps were silent on the concrete floor.
His body low, weight forward, the combat posture drilled into both of us and never forgotten.
I held the rifle against my right shoulder.
The left one throbbed with every heartbeat—the graze pulling against Kai's bandage, the muscle beneath it hot and swollen.
I could move the arm. Couldn't raise it above my chest without the pain spiking white.
The rifle stayed on the right side. I aimed where Diego didn't.
We moved through the building in unison. The training surfacing from muscle memory without conscious thought. Diego aimed left at every T-intersection. I aimed right.
"Clear."
"Clear."
We pushed deeper. Past a storage room—door open, shelves overturned, ammunition boxes scattered on the floor.
Past what looked like a bunk room—mattresses, personal gear, the leftovers of men who'd lived here and left in a hurry or hadn't left at all.
Past a bathroom where a pipe had burst from the blast and water pooled across the tile, our boots splashing through it.
"Clear."
"Clear."
The building groaned around us. The structural damage from the RPG was working its way through the frame—I could hear it in the walls, the settling creak of a building whose load-bearing capacity had been compromised.
Small pieces of drywall and insulation drifted from the ceiling.
The emergency lights flickered orange once, twice, then held.
Diego paused at a heavy wooden door at the end of the main corridor. The door was closed. No sound from the other side. He looked at me. I nodded.
He lifted his boot and kicked.
The door slammed inward. Diego swept left, I swept right. The Desert Eagle tracking one arc, the rifle tracking the other.
We had arrived at the common room.
Large. Thirty feet across, maybe more. Leather couches scattered in clusters.
A bar along the wall—bottles still on the shelves, some of them cracked and leaking from the blast. A pool table in the corner, the felt dusty, the balls still in the rack.
The emergency lighting cast the room in dim orange.
Shadows pooled in the corners and beneath the furniture.
The smoke was thinner here—enough to see across the room, not enough to see clearly.
I scanned every shadow. Behind the bar. Under the pool table. The spaces between the couches. Nothing moved.
"Clear," Diego said.
I lowered the rifle a fraction. Took a breath.
The blow came from above.
Something struck my forearms from overhead—hard, fast, the impact slamming both arms downward.
The rifle flew from my grip and clattered across the concrete floor.
White-hot pain detonated through my left shoulder as the force traveled through the graze and into the damaged muscle.
My knees buckled. I staggered back three steps, my vision blurring, my arms hanging.
I looked up.
Spur dropped from between two ceiling beams. He'd been holding himself above us, wedged into the joists, his massive frame suspended by arm and core strength alone, waiting.
He landed on his feet with a heavy thud that shook the floor—cat-like for a man his size, his legs absorbing the impact, the rifle he'd knocked from my hands already scooped up in one smooth motion.
Diego was spinning back toward me. The Desert Eagle coming around fast.
Not fast enough.
Spur swung the rifle like a bat. The stock connected with Diego's hands—both of them—with an impact I heard across the room. The Desert Eagle flew from his grip and skidded across the concrete, spinning, coming to rest twenty feet away near the pool table.
"FUCK!" Diego's voice, raw with pain. But he didn't stop. The knife was still in his left hand. He slashed in a wide arc toward Spur's midsection. Spur raised the rifle sideways to block—too slow. The blade caught his right backhand, splitting skin to the bone.
Spur roared. He swung the rifle once more and the butt hit the blade Diego held, sending the knife spinning across the common room. Spur quickly followed with a front kick that connected with Diego's chest, sending him stumbling back three feet.
Spur straightened. He was damaged—his right side scorched from the RPG blast, the leather on his shoulder melted, the skin beneath it angry and blistered.
His swollen eye was nearly sealed shut, the left side of his face a mess of purple and crusted blood.
His beard was singed on one side. His right hand was cut deep.
But he was standing. And he held a rifle in his hands between Diego and me.
My rifle. In his hands.
I didn't think. The rage—the blind, animal fury of watching this man hurt Diego for the second time—took over. I launched myself forward.
Spur saw me coming. He had time to shift the rifle toward me, but I was already past the weapon's range.
I hit him at full speed, driving my good shoulder into his midsection.
The collision drove him backward two steps.
Not enough. He was too big, too heavy, too rooted.
His knee came up into my stomach and the air left me in a rush.
But I'd done enough. Diego was moving.
He came in fast while Spur's attention was split. The knife was gone but his hands weren't. He drove a straight right into Spur's jaw—a clean shot that snapped the bigger man's head sideways. Spur staggered. The rifle's aim wavered in his injured hand.
I roundhouse kicked the barrel of the rifle, throwing the weapon out of his hands. It spun across the concrete and disappeared behind a couch.
Spur backed toward the bar. No weapon now. One hand bleeding badly. One eye sealed. Burns across his right shoulder. And still smiling. The same smile he'd worn on top of me when his hands were around my throat.
"Two of you." His voice was a low rasp, damaged by smoke or the RPG blast or both. "Should've brought more."
Diego circled left. I circled right. Two against one. The common room our arena, the orange emergency light turning everything to shadow and ember.
Spur threw the first punch. A right cross aimed at Diego—fast, devastating, the full weight of his frame behind it. Diego dodged, barely, the fist passing an inch from his jaw.
The swing left Spur's side wide open. I drove a straight kick into his floating ribs. I felt the bone flex under my boot. Spur grunted, and twisted toward me, swinging a backhand fist that slammed against the side of my head and sent stars across my vision. I stumbled sideways, blinking.
Diego hit him while he was turned. A combination—short hook to the body, straight to the jaw. Spur absorbed both. His head rocked but his feet stayed planted. He grabbed Diego by the shirt, yanked him forward, and headbutted him.
The crack of skull against skull was sickening. Diego's nose erupted. Blood down his chin, down his shirt.
I came back in. Threw a roundhouse kick aimed at his midsection.
The kick connected hard—my shin slamming into his ribs with enough force to bend him sideways.
But Spur caught my leg. His massive arm clamping around my calf, trapping it against his body.
Before I could pull free, his other foot swept my standing leg.
I hit the floor. Hard. The impact drove the air from my lungs and sent a bolt of pain through my injured shoulder that whited out my vision. But I kept my eyes open. Always on the enemy.
Diego had recovered. Blood streaming from his nose, his hands raised in a boxing position, ready to face Spur once more.
I was already up. Spur had his back to me, facing Diego. I didn't announce myself. I jumped.
My hand found his earring. One of the thick metal rings in his left ear. I grabbed it with my full fist and pulled downward with every pound of force my body and gravity could generate.
The ring tore through the cartilage with a wet rip that I felt in my fingers.
Spur roared—an animal sound, guttural and deafening—and his head followed the downward force, bending at the waist, his hands going to his shredded ear.
Blood poured through his fingers, running down his neck and into his collar.
I kicked him in the face while he was bent over. My boot connected with his jaw. The angle was wrong—glancing, not clean—and the damage wasn't enough. Spur recovered fast and came up swinging.
The uppercut caught me under the chin. My teeth slammed together. My vision went to static. The room tilted. I staggered back, my arms out, fighting to keep my feet under me.
I kept my eyes on him, using the sight of my enemy as an anchor while the room spun around me.
Spur straightened. Blood from his torn ear running down his neck.
Blood from his reopened hand dripping onto the concrete.
The burned shoulder oozing beneath the melted leather.
One eye sealed. And still standing. Still smiling.
"I'm going to make you and your knife friend die slow." The words came through blood and broken breathing. "Make it last. Make it—"
A wet crack silenced him.
Spur went still. His head tilted forward. The smile froze. His eyes—the one good eye and the swollen slit of the damaged one—went flat. His arms, which had been raised in a fighter's guard, dropped to his sides and swung like dead weight. His knees unlocked.
He fell forward in one motion. He hit the concrete facedown with a thud that shook the bottles on the bar shelf.
Behind where he'd been standing was Diego.
His right arm was extended. Stretched out toward the space Spur had occupied. His stance was wide, weight forward, the throw still visible in his shoulder and elbow. Blood covered the lower half of his face from the broken nose. His eyes were dark and locked on the body on the floor.
I looked down.
The throwing knife was buried in the back of Spur's skull. Lodged deep, the handle protruding at a slight angle, the blade sunk past the hilt, past bone. A perfect throw. From fifteen feet, through smoke and bad light, into a target that had been moving a second before it hit.
The room was quiet. The emergency lights hummed. The fires in the courtyard crackled through the broken windows. Spur's blood poured out of his head, spreading slowly across the concrete.
Diego lowered his arm. Wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His chest heaving.
I looked at him. He looked at me.
"You okay?" My voice came out thick. The uppercut had done something to my jaw.
"No." He stepped forward. Reached down and gripped the handle. The blade resisted—lodged deep in bone—and he twisted hard, the wet scrape of steel against skull filling the quiet room. The knife came free with a wet sound. He wiped the blade on his jeans. "But he's worse."
He sheathed the knife. Crossed the room to where the Desert Eagle and his Ka-Bar had landed, recovering his weapons.
Then he walked to me. Stood close. His hand found the side of my face—the palm rough and warm, the thumb resting against my cheekbone.
The same touch from the kitchen. The same touch from the first night.
Blood on his fingers, on his face. His eyes were holding mine with an intensity that made the room disappear.
"Don't ever get taken from me again."
"I'll work on that."
His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Close enough.
He dropped his hand. Turned toward the door.
"Let's finish this."