43. Lincoln #2
Would he stop at Cali and me, or would he end up killing everyone here tonight? I hoped Andrew had enough sense to run. Take off and drag Harper along with him.
“This is your last chance to move out of the way,” Claudio ground out. I guessed killing me really hadn’t been a part of his original plan.
Cali whimpered from behind me.
“You’re a fucking coward?— ”
I didn’t get a chance to finish my reply.
Claudio pulled the trigger.
The deafening bang rang out, drowning out Cali’s blood-curdling scream. Pain seared through my ankle and my leg—despite the valiant effort to keep me standing—buckled.
Claudio’s expression darkened, frown lines etched deeper into his stubbled face. “I told you to get the fuck out of my way.”
Then he shot again.
Cali’s scream ricocheted off the walls again, shattering what was left of my heart. Her face twisted in agony as she threw her hand over her left arm. Bright red blood began seeping through her fingers.
“Stop!” I cried, trying to push myself up from the grimy floor.
Claudio treaded closer, arm still extended, gun in his hand. But now, a slow, crazed grin began to spread across his face.
When his finger pressed down on the trigger a third time, nothing happened.
I held my breath. The gun had jammed.
“Cali,” I said, dragging myself closer to her hunched and shivering frame. “You need to run. You need to get up and run .”
Heavy tears glistened down her cheeks.
My fingers threaded into the cage behind her. “Please,” I begged, wrapping my other hand around her good arm and pulling her up with me. “Andrew’s over there. He’ll get you out. Run,” my voice grew louder as I heard the metal of the gun clanking behind me. “Run!”
With shaky legs, Cali darted in the direction I was pointing. I didn’t turn my head until she reached him, the two disappearing into the shadows.
I went to return my attention to the present danger.
Claudio was adding more ammunition to his handgun when I finally spotted Harper.
She had slunk along the grey walls, inches from where the gun-wielding madman stood.
Claudio’s fiery gaze refocused on me. He hadn’t noticed the woman approaching him from behind.
The gun was repositioned in my direction once more. “I’m not going to stop until she’s dead,” Claudio promised, approaching. The yellow of his teeth flashed under the spotlights.
I swallowed, heaving as I fought to keep myself upright. The pain in my ankle was debilitating, radiating up my leg.
“I guess I’ll just have to get you out of the way first,” he taunted. “Then they’ll have no one to protect them; not Cali, not your mother, or Sadie.”
What happened next played out in seconds.
Harper grabbed hold of the barrel of the gun and gave it a firm twist. It dislodged from Claudio’s grasp, a misfire sounding as it clattered to the floor. Without hesitation, Harper kicked it across the empty room with the heel of her foot.
“Fuck!” Claudio roared, gripping his wrist with his other hand.
I didn’t hesitate. As soon as he was unarmed, I used the cage behind me and threw myself across the room, ignoring the agony in my ankle and landing a blow to the side of Claudio’s head.
He tumbled to the floor, and I went down with him, creating a more equal playing field.
Blow after blow, the sound of flesh hitting flesh reverberated throughout the Pit, along with the satisfied crunching of bone .
I don’t know how long I sat there, on top of him, before Andrew appeared next to me. He wrestled me away from my sperm donor’s limp body.
“Lincoln,” he called, breaking through my blind rage. “Lincoln, stop. I said stop!”
My chest rose and fell erratically as I allowed Andrew to drag me away from Claudio, who was now unconscious. The cold concrete seeped through my blood-soaked sweatpants as I tried to catch my breath.
“I should just kill him right here, right now,” I seethed, nostrils flaring as I considered what the weight of the gun would feel like in my hands.
Andrew crouched in front of me, blocking my view.
“You’re not going to do that,” he said, his voice a lighthouse in the middle of a turbulent sea. “You’re going to get up, and we’re going to go find Cali. She needs you. And she sure as hell doesn’t want you to end up in prison due to the hatred you have for the pathetic sack of shit behind me.”
Cali .
“Where is she?”
“Harper got her out. I told them to meet us by my car.”
Andrew held out a hand to me, and I took it.
He hauled me up to my feet, snaking his arm around my back as I stumbled onto my good leg.
The fight in me had sizzled out, leaving me with a mixed bag of emotions to unpack as we stumbled through the dark tunnels that led out of the basement.
I could feel the heaviness of it all crashing down on me.
I guess Andrew could sense it, too.
“You should really lay off the protein shakes,” he said, grimacing under my weight.
Despite the events of the night and the throbbing pain, I exhaled a laugh as Andrew guided me out of the Pit one last time.