Chapter 38 #3
Drea darted around like the Flash, using her small stature and quick speed to dart in and out, slicing and dicing. She never let herself get too close, maintaining a safe distance away from whoever she was attacking as she ducked and weaved, her curved blades carving into flesh as she ran past.
I threw an uppercut and the man’s head snapped back.
Drea ran past and kicked him in the stomach.
Then she was off again, running circles around me, lashing out at anyone coming at me from behind.
She stayed close, ducking under my leg when I threw a kick, or crouching under my arm when I threw a punch.
She was like a snake, her movements swift and fluid as she bent her body like a contortionist to work around my strikes.
I blocked a kick to the head, yanked out a knife and stabbed him in the thigh and then the chest in two quick blows. I spun, hurling the blade through the air. It sank deep into another man’s throat, his body flying back from the force of the blow.
A fist came flying towards Drea’s face. I gripped it in my palm and twisted it. He cried out in pain. Drea sliced her knife across his stomach and I headbutted him.
We worked in tandem with each other, like we’d done this a thousand times before when in reality, this was the first time we’d ever fought alongside each other.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at us though.
Drea and I were perfectly in sync, feeding off one another and using our strengths to cover each other’s weaknesses.
Drea threw both her knives, impaling one of the blades deep into one man’s chest and the other into another man’s leg. She looked over her shoulder and winked at me.
Of course the woman would be enjoying herself .
She tapped her back and it only took me a second to understand what she wanted.
I gripped the back of her shirt tightly and spun her through the air. Her foot smashed into a man’s face as she hollered a war cry, blood and teeth flying.
Someone rammed into me with the force of a car.
Drea’s shirt slipped through my fingers as I smacked into the wall.
Swift punches to my kidneys made me grunt out pained breaths.
My eyes widened when I saw a fist from another attacker coming right for my face.
I yanked my head to the left and the fist went into the wall right where my head was a second ago.
I was still being pinned to the wall by the man who tackled me, his fists driving into my ribs and making pain explode inside my body as the other man wrenched his arm out of the wall and prepared to hit me again.
A knife burst through his forehead, the tip of the blade staring me right in the face as blood splattered all over me. As he fell I glimpsed Drea in the background, her hand still hovering in the air from when she’d thrown the blade.
Panic set in when I saw someone creep up behind her.
I wrapped myself around the man who was holding me to the wall and spun us to the floor in a quick Jiu Jitsu move, holding him in a Rear Triangle Chokehold, my legs curled around his neck.
I yanked out my last knife from my ankle holster and sent it flying.
The blade whistled through the air and lodged itself firmly in the shoulder of the man sneaking up behind Drea.
I twisted my legs, breaking the man’s neck. I got to my feet, fists up and eyes running across the room for the next attacker, but there was none. All that was left was Scraggly Hair, his eyes burning with rage as his gaze swept across the dead and bloody bodies of his men on the floor.
He pointed his machine gun right at me. “I don’t give a fuck if he wants you alive, I’m gonna fucking kill you,” he hissed, pulling the bolt back and arming the weapon.
He?
Drea moved to my side and I pulled her behind me, using my body to shield her from Scraggly Hair’s line of fire. She tried to fight me on it, but I kept my grip on her forearm tight and unrelenting.
He was too far away to try charging him. I’d be dead before I even made it one step. The look on his face was one filled with anger and vengeance. He wanted me dead. Fine. But I had to think of a way to give Drea a fighting chance.
“I’m going to shoot you and then fuck your woman on your dead fucking corpse,” Scraggly Hair threatened, the gun shaking in his hands from how enraged he was.
“Maybe I’ll keep you alive so you can watch first, huh?
Watch her take a real man’s dick. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
” He tried to look around me to see Drea, but I stood taller, not allowing his eyes to even glimpse her.
The hilt of a blade hit my palm. Drea passed me one of her knives. I gripped it tightly. I just needed one opening.
“Yeah, we’re gonna have a good time,” Scraggly Hair continued, unzipping his pants. “I think a bullet to the stomach should do it. It’ll take you a few minutes to die from that, so you can writhe in agony while you watch me fuck—”
Bang!
Scraggly Hair choked, his eyes shooting wide open as blood seeped out from the centre of his chest. He looked down in disbelief, his body swaying before he fell face first onto the ground.
Behind him stood Dayton, a handgun shaking in his hands, smoke billowing upwards from the barrel. His face was frozen in shock, his eyes plastered firmly to the man he’d just killed.
Did no one in the house fucking listen?
I couldn’t be too angry though. He did just save my life.
Drea stepped out from behind me, taking in the scene quickly. “Go Dayton!” she cheered, pumping her fist in the air.
The smallest hint of a smile touched Dayton’s lips.
“Yes, yes, good job,” I said, rolling my eyes as I walked towards him. “Now, give me that thing before you—” my words died as a knife plunged straight through Dayton’s throat.
Shock paralysed me. For a moment I couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
All I could do was stand there, my eyes wide as I took in what just happened.
All I could see was the look of pure pain on Dayton’s face before he fell to his knees.
I ran for him, catching him before he hit the floor.
Drea went after the guy who’d stabbed him while I held Dayton in my arms, looking down at him in disbelief.
What the fuck just happened?
The blade went right through his larynx. Blood poured out of the hole in his throat quickly, forming a puddle around us.
Fuck. FUCK!
My hands shook as I tried to figure out what to do. How to save him, even though I knew it couldn’t be done. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes, his mouth opening and closing like he was trying to speak.
“It’s alright kid. You’re going to be fine. Try not to talk.” I ripped fabric from the sleeve of my shirt and tried to apply pressure to the wound, but it was hard. The harder I pressed, the more he choked.
Blood seeped out of his mouth, spilling down his chin. “I…don’t…want…to…die,” he cried softly, each word a struggle to get past his lips.
My heart fractured. “You’re not going to die. You hear me? You’ll be fine. It’s okay. I-I’ll fix this.”
How? How can you fix this?
Nik and Lukyan appeared, bloody and bruised, helping Drea carry the guy who’d stabbed Dayton. I briefly noticed Tatiana was there, too.
“Fuck,” Lukyan exhaled, looking down at Dayton.
“Call the doc,” I barked. The fabric I held to his wound was completely drenched in blood. There was too much blood. I couldn’t contain it.
Nik’s eyes darted from my hands to my face. “Zander.” He knew what I knew. What I was refusing to allow myself to believe. There was no saving him.
“Call!” I roared, my anger climbing. It was building higher and higher, the pressure getting too much to hold back.
Dayton gripped the front of my shirt like a newborn clinging to their mother, tears streaming down his face.
“Please,” he choked out, “…hurts,” he gasped.
His breathing turned into painful pants, small whimpers falling out of his mouth.
His eyes were wide, his body trembling. I’d never seen him so scared before.
He was looking to me to save him. To make it all better.
To make the pain disappear. To protect him.
Guilt, pain and anguish gripped me hard, squeezing my heart. I felt helpless, like I’d failed him.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I repeated it over and over again, like the more I said it the more chance I had of it being true.
Dayton’s cries never eased. He cried right up until the moment he took his last breath.