Chapter 40 #2
Shapes move in the smoke. I catch one too late and fist cracks against my jaw. The force sends my head snapping to the side. I swing blindly and thankfully, the bat connects with something solid enough to earn a grunt from a voice I recognize.
“Nice try, Cal,” I cough.
A stronger fist that has to be Khoza’s, drives into my ribs and knocks what little air I’ve got left out of me. I stumble back, wheezing again. I nearly get my footing when he slams his knuckles into my temple.
“Fuck!” I scream. My vision swims as the hits mix with the smoke and whatever shit they jammed into my vein.
“Bloody hell,” O’Malley laughs, the sound muffled by his mask. He pulls another pin and drops it at my feet. “You gonna let ‘em beat up on you like that?”
“How many?” I cough, fingers clawing at my throat. “How many of those do you have?” The bat crashes down onto the toe of my boot as more yellow washes over me.
Focus, Barinov.
Fucking focus.
A shadow rushes at me from the right. I pivot into it, my shoulder slamming forward as I grab onto fabric and yank hard.
“Shit,” Cal grunts as we go down together.
I don’t give him time to recover. My fingers hook under the rim of his mask and rip it free before he can stop me. I jam it over my own face just in time as the next round of O’Malley’s smoke rolls in. The burn begins to dull. Not gone, but enough that I can fucking catch a breath.
Cal gasps, hands wrapping around his own throat in a panic as he fights for air.
“How’s that feel, fucker?” I snarl through the mask.
I push to my feet, lungs dragging in steadier air as I grab the bat again and swing low, aiming for legs instead of heads this time.
Someone drops. Not about to stick around to see who.
A red flare bleeds across the sky, a neon sign pointing the way. I break into a sprint. The pounding of the guys’ footsteps fading behind me as I burst through the final wall of smoke.
I reach the treeline and collapse against the rough bark of an oak, ripping my mask off to suck in the cool air. My damn lungs screaming with every inhale.
“That was fun to watch,” a low, honeyed drawl echoes though the shadows as Caleb Briggs steps into the light. He tips his hat to me. “Howdy, Barinov.”
I blink hard, trying to claw my way through the suffocating burn of O’Malley’s smoke.
Two cowboys flank him. Or maybe four. My lungs are pleading for oxygen and my vision is too damn fuzzy to lock onto a single target.
All I see is a shifting, repeating blur of flannel, dark denim, and snake-skin boots. Same build. Damn near same everything. Except the one on the right is a little taller, and the other one’s got a ball cap turned backward instead of a Stetson.
I wipe my face with a shoulder, but the world stays tilted.
“Let me guess,” I cough, pushing off the tree. “Your brothers?”
The one on the left flicks his wrist. A whip cracks through the air like a gunshot. The tip of it slashes across and bites into my bicep.
“Fuck!” I grit my teeth as the heat flares. “The hell was that—”
I don’t get to finish. The taller one on the right moves with the fluid speed of a rattle-snake with a lasso circling through the air. Before I can duck, the rope cinches around my throat. Fucker yanks and I’m dragged forward like a goddamn steer.
“Tell me, Lex,” Briggs says, his boots stomping toward me. “The hallucinations started yet?”
“‘Cause if so,” the one who whipped me mutters with a cruel glint in his golden-brown eyes, “we’re about to have a lot more fun.”
“Fuck,” I choke out, desperately shoving my fingers between the coarse hemp and my windpipe. “You.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Briggs huffs. “No worries. We can fix that.”
He nods to his brother holding the rope. “Hang his ass up, Ty.”
The word what dies in my throat as Ty tosses the loose end over a thick branch and pulls. My boots leave the ground. I’m dangling on my tiptoes, the rope digging my own fingers into my damn neck. My visions frays, shadows curling in my periphery.
“You made it through Mac’s smoke quicker than we planned to be honest.” Briggs paces in front of me as the three of them watch me struggle.
“Figured your mind would’ve started eating itself by now.
” He leans in, his voice dropping. “But that’s alright ‘cause we brought you a little something to speed up the process.”
The moonlight catches the needle of a syringe.
“W-what?” I wheeze, my toes frantically scratching at dirt for a purchase that isn’t fucking there.
Briggs jams the needle into my neck. A flash of heat floods my system, blurring my vision and sending a lighting-bolt of agony through every nerve ending. He nods again. Ty yanks the rope harder and hoists my body fully into the air.
“Dead man swinging,” the one with the ball cap laughs.
My hands claw at the rope while my feet kick at the empty air. The three of them laugh at my desperation. I manage to lash out, my boot aimed at Briggs’s face, but he catches it mid-air. He drives his elbow into my knee with a crack, sending a fresh wave of fire up my hip.
“Fight it, Lex!” Briggs snarls, his face inches from mine. “You want Bella back? Then you have to fucking fight it.”
I lock eyes with him. The world now spinning in shades of red and black. He nods to the one clutching the whip. As the guy rears back to skin my ass alive, something inside me finally snaps.
The fear is gone. Replaced with the image of our girl chained to that bed. I yank my fingers out from under the rope—letting it crush my throat—and grab the hemp above my head with both hands.
I pull.
And pull.
I pull with every ounce of rage I have left, my vision going pitch black as the blood flow to my brain stops. I heave downward. A primal sound tears through my crushed throat until I hear a CRACK.
The branch gives way. I crash to the dirt in a heap of rope and broken wood.
“Finally,” Briggs laughs, kneeling in front of me as the next flare hits the sky. “Thought Knox was gonna tell me to cut your ass down.”
???
“Lex,” Bella’s soft voice pierces my ears. “Baby, it’s time to wake up.”
“M-malyshka?” I whisper, my voice is barely there as my eyes drag open. “Is that… is that you?”
“It’s me.” She’s kneeling in the dirt beside me dressed in a black silk gown. Her fingers brushing the damp, sweat-soaked hair off my forehead. “It’s me, Lex.”
“How?”
“I got away.” Our girl smiles as she cradles the back of my head. “I got free.”
I reach up, my hand shaking with a tremor I can’t fucking stop as I trace her cheek. She feels real. Her cherry-vanilla scent washes over me.
“You’re here…”
She nods, tears slipping down her cheek. It feels warm when they splash on my skin.
I blink.
The warmth vanishes. The cherry-vanilla scent is quickly replaced by the stinging scent of damp earth. Bella dissolves into nothing and in her place stands a figure draped in shadows. A hood pulled low, black silk swallowing every inch of his identity.
“W-where is she?” I whisper, the words scratching my throat.
The hooded man doesn’t answer me. He turns his head and points toward the forest.
“Bella!”
The scream tears out of my lungs. I shove to my feet, muscles screaming in protest, and charge into the treeline. I don’t feel the branches whipping at my face or the roots catching my boots.
I see our girl again. She’s fifty yards ahead, draped in white. The sheer fabric blowing in the wind. Her feet are bare against the forest floor. She looks like an angel lost in hell.
“Bella! Wait!”
She glances over her shoulder and tosses me a smile that tastes like a goodbye before vanishing behind another massive oak. The hooded man following closely after her.
“Fuck!”
I push harder. My lungs burn and my vision is warping at the edges. The trees twist into gnarled, reaching fingers that try to pull me down. The forest breathes with me in a pulsing nightmare.
Bella’s there again.
She’s standing between two ancient pines, wearing her black and burgundy Trifecta uniform. She’s waiting for me. Relief slams into my chest so hard it nearly drops me to my knees.
“I’ve got you, malyshka. I’m—”
My hands pass through nothing. She shatters like a mirror, her image dissolving into a million shards of glass as they cut into my flesh.
“No! No!” I spin in a frantic circle, my heart slamming against my ribs. “Bella!”
There.
A flash of white. The echo of her laugh mocking me from the darkness. I chase her deeper, the trees closing in until the canopy blots out the moonlight. I run until I can’t feel my legs. Until the world is nothing but the sound of my own breath and the ghost of her laugh.
Suddenly, the trees break. I burst into a clearing bathed in the sickly red glow of a dying flare.
Bella’s standing in the center. She turns, her eyes wide and full of love. She reaches out a hand, and for a heartbeat, I think the nightmare is over.
Then she thins. Fades into the mist. Her form stretching and darkening until she’s gone. Standing in her place is the same eerie, hooded figure, silently waiting for me in the center of the kill zone.