25. Dino
25
DINO
I let them march me to the house.
It’s my only fuckin’ choice. I need to make sure their eyes are on me, and not on Johnny and Luca, who haven’t been frog-marched out of the jungle yet. I hope that they somehow managed to escape the guards, but it seems unlikely.
Who knows.
Maybe they got fuckin’ lucky.
Like you did?
Fuck.
Outside, in the courtyard, Benicio is waiting.
“What the fuck did you do?” he says, looking at the Russian.
Volkov sneers. “I found him. Walking outside. Alone. After going into the dungeon.”
Aha.
This dumb motherfucker doesn’t know what I did .
Souza sighs. “If you brought me out here because you have a suspicion that is unconfirmed, spare me, Russian. And somehow, you convinced my men to follow you? I do not appreciate that move,” he growls. “You should have consulted me first, without the use of my own men against me. Fucking Russians,” he sneers. “You, just like your father and uncle, are not thoughtful.”
Heh.
Good to know neither one of us is gonna give him the respect of his name.
And, that he thinks Volkov is dumb as a rock too.
Time to cause some chaos.
“You brought me here because I was fuckin’ walking?” I sneer at the Russian. “You’re stupider than a fuckin’ chicken with its head cut off, shit-for-brains.”
“Silence!” the Russian roars at me.
I laugh. It’s a rasping, halting sound, and I know it sounds fuckin’ inhuman.
Remind me to thank Elio for making me sound like one scary asshole.
“You’re so fucking dumb, Russian, I bet you couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were on the fuckin’ heel.”
Benicio’s eyebrows raise.
Volkov’s English is not quite as good as he thinks, and he definitely takes a minute to process that one.
If I can get him to hit me, then I can start the kind of fight that’s a good distraction. With a good enough distraction…
Hope flickers in my chest.
With a good enough distraction, I might be able to get Marisol out of here too.
“Oh, you didn’t understand that shit? I’d give you a penny for your thoughts, but I’d probably get some change back.”
Volkov growls. “Shut the fuck up.”
“No way, motherfucker. You’re gonna have to make me shut up. Unless you need a fuckin’ minute to figure out how?” I taunt.
I don’t miss the ghost of a smile crossing Benicio’s face…
Or the thunder in Volkov’s.
“You. Be. Quiet,” he rumbles. He takes another step toward me…
Almost.
I’m not restrained or anything. But if I can get him to throw the first punch, then I can start a fuckin’ riot with his big dumb body.
And that’s the fuckin'vision.
“Yeah, I’ll bet you want me to be fuckin’ quiet. Because it’s hard to listen to words, isn’t it, big guy? Yeah, giving you brains was about as useful as puttin’ a fuckin’ screen door on a submarine…”
That does it.
Volkov howls, coming at me with a punch. I dodge, rolling under him, the mud coating my back as I move toward the circle of guards .
Volkov is big. I wasn’t fuckin’ kidding about that. But big means slow. Big means inertia.
And in mud like this?
Big is a wide fuckin'door for an accident.
Volkov manages to pivot and comes in after me. The mud squelches under his feet. Directly behind me, I can practically feel Benicio’s apprehension.
Which is exactly the fuckin’ point.
Bearing down on me, the Russian snorts like a pissed-off bear. I see him raise his fist in almost slow motion. Wait. Wait. Wait….
Now.
I dodge to the side.
The punch that he had for me sails forward, though, and goes straight for Benicio.
I hear the guards yell.
Rolling to my feet, I grin.
The guard nearest Benicio jumped in front of him. He might have been talked into this shit by Volkov, somehow, but right now, his primary priority is the man who pays his fuckin’ bills.
The Russian’s meaty fist lands on the guard.
Which prompts another guard to move forward, swinging his fists.
Which brings another guard in…
I grin.
Yeah.
Complete fuckin’ chaos.
As the guards go after Benicio, the rain pelting us all, I quickly move backward. If I can sneak around to the side entrance, provided it’s not underwater, then I can get in through the pool door, and get Marisol…
“What the hell is going on?” I hear a clear voice ring out.
My heart sinks.
The scene in front of us seems to pause. Benicio, from his safe position behind the melee in front of him, stands.
“What are you doing out here, Marisol?”
We all turn to look at her.
My heart stutters.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
Even just wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeve sweater, she’s fucking stunning.
Mine.
I want to rip everyone’s eyes out just for looking at her.
Moretti’s ugly fucking face, however, ruins everything. He steps in front of her, glaring at the crowd.
Benicio moves to the steps, standing next to his daughter. “This is not for you to see,” he says.
Marisol holds her chin up. “I think I want to see who is causing all of this chaos, if it’s someone that I’m going to chain myself to for life,” she says in a clear voice.
It strikes me then, that even though I have this urge to protect her and I want to take her away from all this …
Marisol is kind of a badass.
All five-foot-two of her is glaring at the lot of us like she’s a fucking queen. Her head is held high, twin braids containing her riot of curly hair, and she glares down her nose, making her dad’s men visibly cringe.
I quickly squash the grin that’s forming at the corner of my lips.
My girl.
She’s so fucking brave.
I don’t think I’ve given her credit for that before, but now…
I will.
“Marisol,” Benicio says, exasperated. “Go back inside. You’ll catch your death in the rain…”
Huh.
His tone seems genuinely concerned.
I blink.
Does Benicio Souza actually… care about his daughter?
The whole situation is bizarre. The Russian and the guards are frozen, mid-fight. Moretti has wandered over to them, his feet squelching in the mud of the courtyard like the rest of us.
And Marisol, standing on the patio, a queen surveying her kingdom.
“Father, I…”
Marisol pauses.
The hair on the back of my neck stands straight up as a rumbling sound reaches me. It sounds like… thunder. Except it ’s a lot louder. And the ground under my feet is starting to shake, ever so slightly.
What the fuck is this?
Everyone turns, looking around, but I’m the only one looking at the house when I hear the creak of trees screaming as they’re being moved.
Then, I fucking know exactly what’s going on.
Mudslide.
“Marisol!” I yell. I take a step toward her. She’s less than ten feet from me, and I know that I could get to her if I just…
Before I know it, I’m punched in the ribs by something solid, and my world turns dark.
I’m tumbling.
Over and over, the world rotates around me. I tuck myself into a ball, just trying to keep the rocks that I can feel pelting me from hitting something important.
My mind offers helpful images of being stuck through by a tree branch.
I’m in a mudslide.
I never in my life thought I would be in a fucking mudslide. Not once.
And here I fucking am.
I have to get out of here before I’m buried.
I have no idea how to do that. I don’t know what’s up. I have no idea if I’m pointing down.
I just fuckin’ pray, and start moving .
The air is burning in my lungs by the time my fingers hit something that feels like air.
I pull myself up, coughing the dirt out of my mouth as I come up to the top of the river of mud that’s cascading around me.
Fuck.
The world is still moving. I sip air before taking another huge pull with my arms. I need something to hold onto. I need…
A tree appears next to me, and I grab it, hauling myself up on the trunk.
The mud, at least, appears to be slowing down. It’s solidifying around me, and while that’s not a good sign, at least I can crawl out around it.
I think.
The tree feels solid underneath me, which is fucking good. I pull myself up, trying to survey the surroundings.
The rain, and the darkness, make me completely lose sight of everything, and my heart squeezes with terror.
Marisol.
I have to find her.
I have no fucking clue where I am or how far away from the house I am. The mud must have exploded over the house, and I don’t know if it’s buried or swept away or…
Fuck it.
“Marisol!” I scream.
Silence greets me.
“Marisol!” I scream again .
I have no fucking clue which way to even go. The house should still have some electricity… it’s not on a grid, but a generator, and that’s housed in a building pretty far away. In theory, I should be able to see lights.
Peering into the darkness, I look around, calling Marisol’s name. I don’t see shit, and I don’t want to cross the river of mud…
I hear something.
Any concern that I have about the shifting mud underneath me is gone as I scramble, hand over foot, toward the source of the sound. “Marisol,” I rasp, hoping against everything that she’s fucking there, in front of me.
The rain makes it so hard to see. So fucking hard. But scouring the mud in front of me, my eyes catch movement.
I wade over to it.
A hand is sticking above the mud.
I fall to my knees, digging around it. I pull, hopeful that it’s her…
The ugly face of Benicio Souza fills my view.
He gasps, the rain leaving rivers down the mud on his face.
I lean back.
Marisol was right in front of him. If he’s here, then…
“Boy,” he says, coughing up mud. “Drakos.”
I look at him.
Benicio’s lungs are heaving, and I know instinctively that something’s wrong .
He’s dying.
I don’t know from what, but I can tell from the look in his eyes that he knows it too.
“Benicio…”
He shuts his eyes. “You’re the father. Of my grandchildren,” he wheezes.
Fuck me.
I’m not about to lie to a dying man. “I am.”
“You’re not a Drakos.”
“I am, actually. They just don’t know it,” I say.
His eyes flutter open at that, and I have the brief satisfaction of knowing that I managed to surprise Benicio Souza. “Interesting,” he manages.
I don’t say anything.
I’m not really interested in what Benicio has to say. But when he coughs, I turn my attention back from scouring the mud.
“She’s… by house…”
I lean in.
“I pushed her under the eave of the house,” he wheezes. “Should be okay. The mud… took me. Not her.”
Hope flutters in my chest.
I stand, ready to wade through the rapidly solidifying mud and find the house, when he grabs my ankle.
I look down at Benicio.
He blinks. “Save her,” he whispers .
Then, his face goes slack, the rain gathering in his open mouth as he rasps.
I’m not sure what to do. This feels like… an anticlimactic way for him to end.
But I have to find her.
Turning to where I think the source of the mud came from, I wade forward. I fight every step of the way, thick pools of it sucking at my feet, threatening to drag me under. There are trees and rocks and what look suspiciously like bodies in the muck, but I don’t give a single fuck about them.
Marisol is the only thing that matters to me.
Finally, I see something. In the darkness, something starts to look suspiciously like a light.
The house.
I stride forward.
As I get closer, the mud dragging at my legs, I hear something that makes me move a whole lot faster.
A woman, panting and struggling.
And the growl of a man.
Fucking hell.
I fight forward.
The house is demolished. The light that I’m seeing is a flickering porch light, halfway sunk into the mud.
But the roof, a corner of it, and part of the space that overlooks the courtyard where we were just standing, remains strangely untouched .
And underneath it, I see two shapes.
One is undoubtedly Marisol.
And the other…
Has his fucking hands on her.
After that, I don’t think.. Rage, pure and clean, powers me through the mud. My body feels like it’s possessed by something that I can’t quite name as I race toward her.
I’m going to kill him.
I reach her just as she falls.
The man is just one of her father’s goons. I don’t know who. Don’t give a fuck. Because as soon as I lift up one of the large rocks that the mud brought forward, it’s all over for him.
I crack it across the back of his head, blood mixing with the mud that’s soaking us, and he tumbles down.
Right across Marisol.
She screams, and I grunt, pulling him off of her. The mud is thinner here, clearly at the edge of the lava-like mud flow, and the man gets to his feet quickly.
His eyes narrow at me. “You,” he hisses.
I heft the rock again, and I come after him with a ferocity that I never have had before.
The fight doesn’t last long. He’s down quickly, and when I smash the rock into his face, the assorted blood and gore assures me that he’s dead.
I stand up .
Marisol is staring at the body.
Quickly, I move in front of it. “Marisol, don’t look.”
“No,” she murmurs.
She moves forward, pushing me to the side, and grabs the knife off of his belt. To my surprise, she takes it, raises it over her head…
And stabs the body.
Straight through his heart.
I blink.
Slowly, Marisol stands. Her eyes are practically glowing in the dark, and her chest is heaving.
“Dino,” she pants.
“Yes?”
“Get me fucking back to my children.”