CHAPTER 32 IN THE SNAP OF GOD’S FINGERS #2
Byrne's machete sliced air where Cole's head had been a millisecond before.
He slammed the rebar into the soft underbelly where ribs met gut with a force that sent shockwaves up his forearms. The killer gasped—a wet, bubbling sound—doubling over as pink froth speckled his chin.
Cole followed with another blow to the temple, producing a moist, meaty thunk that vibrated through his bones like a tuning fork struck against concrete.
The machete clattered against the concrete, but the monster before him refused to die.
Byrne convulsed, vomiting a slurry of blood and bile that splashed hot across Cole's boots.
Then—impossibly—he straightened, his face a crimson mask, his remaining eye contracting to a pinprick of pure hatred.
His fist exploded forward with locomotive force, detonating against Cole's jaw with a crack that echoed through his skull like a gunshot.
Cole's consciousness fractured into white-hot shards.
The rebar slipped from his nerveless fingers, clanging against the floor as his body plummeted, skull bouncing off concrete with brain-rattling force.
Byrne crashed down onto Cole's chest, driving the last oxygen from his lungs in a strangled wheeze.
Each of the killer's volcanic breaths showered Cole's face with hot arterial spray and fragments of shattered teeth.
The machete rose skyward in a trembling arc, its edge catching light like a lightning strike frozen in time.
Cole stared up at death incarnate—at his own reflection warped in blood-slicked steel—as Byrne's face contorted into something beyond rage, beyond humanity—the raw, elemental mask of slaughter itself.
Blood and tears distorted Cole’s vision, twisting his visage of the monster on top of him. Every part of him screamed in pain, each attempted struggle scoring his lungs with unbearable agony, ripping away his breath.
“Wanna know a secret?” Byrne wheezed, grinning, crimson bubbles popping between his broken, bloody teeth to spill over his lower lip in strings of drool.
“I kept Ezra alive after our dad went to prison.” His chest hitched with a rattling laugh that sprayed bloody spittle on Cole’s face.
“For years, I raped him and tortured him until he finally went insane… then I raped and tortured him some more.” His grin stretched into sinister glee, madness glaring back from his one watery eye. “I made him suffer for you.”
Cole's entire body convulsed as if electrified, horror seizing every muscle from his core to his fingertips.
The question clawed through his mind—was this sadistic fuck lying just to watch him break?
His jaw muscles spasmed uncontrollably, his chin quivering like a child's despite his desperate attempt to maintain control.
Hot tears carved glistening trails through the mask of blood caking his face, mixing with crimson before dripping from his jaw in pink droplets.
“Wanna know another secret?” Byrne leaned down, his mouth against Cole’s ear. “He’s still suffering for you. You get to die knowing it’s all your fault. Every scream. Every plea. His living nightmare—it’s your fault.”
No… No… No!
Cole let out a guttural cry and bit onto Byrne's already mangled ear with a savage snap that sent shockwaves through his molars.
Copper flooded his mouth as he ground down, feeling cartilage separate from flesh with a wet, tearing resistance.
Byrne's scream hit a frequency that shattered through Cole's eardrums as the killer wrenched backward.
The ear ripped—not cleanly, but in jagged, meaty chunks that clung to Cole's teeth like raw hamburger.
Blood erupted between them in a volcanic spray, painting Cole's face and throat.
Byrne's howl transcended human sound—a primordial shriek that seemed to vibrate the factory's very foundations.
His face contorted beyond recognition, skin pulled so taut over bone that veins writhed beneath it like parasitic worms. The machete rose in a trembling arc, Byrne's tendons straining against his skin like steel cables about to snap.
Cole's forearm shot up—a final, futile shield against death—as something exploded from the darkness.
A human freight train slammed into Byrne with bone-shattering force, the impact so violent that Cole felt the concrete vibrate beneath him.
Both men crashed across the floor in a tangle of limbs and rage, the machete skittering away with a metallic shriek.
Cole's vision cleared through a red veil of his own blood to see the Egyptian's massive arms locked around the killer in a vise that made Byrne's spine bow backward at an impossible angle, his face contorting in silent agony as something inside him audibly cracked.
Each constriction forced wet, strangled gasps from Byrne's throat as the Egyptian's eyes burned with cold, reptilian focus.
Cochise’s arms were the size of most men’s thighs, and he used them now, locking the killer’s neck in a chokehold so tight the bastard’s remaining eye bulged so far out of his head it seemed about to pop.
The two men slammed into the wall and, for a moment, neither moved, locked in a display of mutual destruction.
Cochise’s teeth were bared, lips curling in a silent snarl.
Byrne flailed, heels kicking wild, but the Egyptian only cinched tighter, muscle popping and glistening with sweat.
“Hold him!” Cole tried to shout, but his voice was more of a croak; the inside of his mouth was hot and thick with a metallic taste.
He staggered to his feet, groping for the rebar as his vision tunneled.
The pain in his body screamed with every movement, but he willed himself closer, steps sliding and uncertain.
Cochise’s face was set, intent, and terrifying, arms locked like steel cables.
Byrne bucked, blue at the lips, eyes rolling white.
Cole shuffled forward on trembling legs, the rust-flecked rebar clutched in his blood-slicked fist, knuckles bleached white against crimson.
His lungs burned with each ragged breath as he raised the jagged metal, ready to finish it—when a gunshot cracked from the far door: a sound like God snapping his fingers, so loud it seemed to vacuum all other noise from the universe.
The Egyptian's body convulsed as if struck by lightning, his massive frame suddenly puppet-like as his arms uncoiled from around Byrne, and he collapsed with a bone-rattling thud that Cole felt in his marrow.
Shock and horror crystallized Cole's blood, every muscle locking in place as if he'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and throat before the scream tore free from some primal place beneath his ribs: “NOOOO!!!”