Chapter 23 #2
Damien lowers his window two inches before they can wedge it, leans out, and shoots the first man in the thigh.
The man falls, yowls, and then goes silent when Damien fires again.
The others flinch back on instinct, then surge forward, six at once, faces shadowed and grins bright where the light catches teeth.
Damien empties the first magazine quickly.
Three men drop and two more stumble, blood blooming dark across jackets.
The sixth flattens against the front quarter panel and lifts a grinder, its blade screaming an inch from Damien’s arm.
Damien kills the engine with his free hand and twists sideways, firing through the narrow gap until the man pitches backward with a guttural sound.
The smell of hot metal and the iron tang of blood floods the air.
The rear window blows inward when a pry bar punches through the corner and the tempered glass gives up and becomes glittering rain.
I cover my face with my forearm and feel pellets hit my skin.
A hand snakes through the new hole and gropes for the lock.
I swing the gun up and slam the muzzle into the knuckles, and the hand jerks back with a curse.
Damien glances at me and gives the smallest nod. He swaps magazines with a swift, sure motion and fires again through his gap, each shot loud in the confined space.
They keep coming because there are more of them than bullets in his gun and because the sight of their own men bleeding writes a simple script in their heads. They fight or they die.
Someone drags a wheeled jack to the side and starts cranking.
The car lifts a fraction and then settles again when Damien fires down at the mechanism and shatters a tooth.
A second grinder screams to life at my door.
A thick-gloved hand plants near the handle.
Heat blooms against my leg as the blade chews into the seam of the frame, and the smell turns coppery and bitter and hot.
The phone under my thigh vibrates. I cannot reach it without losing the grip on the gun.
Damien leans farther out and shoots left, then right.
The slide locks back on empty. He goes for the last magazine and comes up with it already half-seated.
A black-gloved hand darts through the small opening he made to shoot.
It catches his wrist in a grip that looks like it belongs to a machine, not a man.
Two more hands clamp onto his forearm and elbow.
He snarls something low that I have never heard from him and rips his arm back with a strength that would break smaller bones.
He almost makes it. Someone slams a knife into the outer rubber seal by his elbow and wedges it.
The blade on my side bites deeper and sparks jump like fireflies that only know how to burn.
“Stay down,” he commands.
He fires the last rounds across the hood and hits another man in the throat.
The final bullet catches a shoulder and spins a body into the street, where it rolls and lands heavily.
The slide stays back. Damien reaches to the console, grabs the spare magazine from the narrow slot, and fails to seat it before a hand punches the window wide and latches onto his collar.
Then they all come at once. The door latch snaps.
The weight of bodies makes the door groan outward.
He braces a boot to kick it shut and takes a crowbar to the shin.
He grits his teeth. He almost clears the threshold.
An arm snakes under his and pins it. Fingers dig into his hair and the side of his face.
The magazine slips, clatters once, and disappears under the seat.
I scream his name. The sound rips my throat raw.
I throw the door lock with a slap and feel the frame give when they peel the metal like a tin lid.
I lunge across the console and catch his sleeve, fingers locked hard enough to bruise.
I beat at the hands that hold him with the gun gripped like a hammer, metal on bone, metal on knuckles, metal on whatever I can reach. They laugh at me.
Someone catches my wrist and twists. The gun drops into the footwell.
A palm clamps over my mouth and smashes my head back into the seat.
A sour cloth rams between my teeth before I can bite, and the gag pulls tight.
Rope. Tape. I taste adhesive and sweat and something sharp.
I bite down anyway until my jaw pops and the man curses and tightens the knot.
Damien roars. He plants both feet, twists, and throws two men off balance, then surges forward.
He gets one boot to the ground and pulls his shoulder free.
He rocks another man back with a headbutt that cracks cartilage.
I feel hope shoot through me hot and bright.
Then a loop slips around his neck from behind.
He sucks a breath and gets his fingers under it before it can cut.
Two more men drop their weight onto him and drag.
The loop tightens anyway. A knee hits his spine.
He goes to one knee and he is still fighting when they haul him over the threshold and into the street.
I claw at them, flailing without aim. I hit whatever is there.
Fingers, shoulders, ears. I claw and scratch and bite through cloth and taste the filthy rag in my mouth and swallow it down to keep from choking.
I get a handful of hair and yank and someone screams and shoves me back so hard my head slams the doorframe and white sparks burst across my eyes before the light fades.