Chapter 49 #3
Lara stepped forward. As Devon turned to face her, she swung her arm. Her fist connected with his mouth, mashing his lips against his teeth. Devon’s head snapped aside, and he tumbled to the dirt, sending up a small dust cloud.
Rage muted the pain in Lara’s hand, which throbbed distantly. “It was you all along, you son of a bitch!”
Chest heaving with heavy breaths, Devon pushed himself onto hands and knees and spit blood into the dirt. When he looked up, fury shone in his eyes, and he held Lara’s gaze as he wiped the blood from his mouth and slowly stood. “Best watch what you say, bot slut.”
“Or what? You going to run and tell the gearheads, like you told them about Kate?”
A collective gasp washed over the crowd.
“What?” Gary grated, stalking closer.
Lara pointed at Devon. “He’s Warlord’s rat. How else could he live so easy, never lifting a damn finger, while they always know who broke the rules?”
“Is it true?” a young woman rasped. Her face was pale beneath a layer of grime, and the two smallest fingers of her right hand were missing. Lara recognized her as one of Devon’s past lovers.
Though he puffed up his chest, Devon couldn’t quite keep his voice steady as he spoke. “Are you going to believe this cunt? This fucking traitor?”
“Only one traitor here.” Steve crossed his arms over his chest, fixing his steely glare on Devon.
Gary growled. The sound grew into a bellow of rage as he charged Devon, tackling the man to the ground. He punched wildly as they rolled.
Devon forced a boot between them, kicking Gary backward, and scrambled to his feet. He drew a knife from his belt and turned his wide, wild eyes to Lara. “You fucking bitch!”
Before he advanced a single step, the soldiers placed themselves in front of Lara, rifles raised, bringing him to a halt.
“Drop your weapon,” Captain Cooper commanded.
“Don’t shoot him,” Lara said. “He’s not worth throwing our chance away.”
Devon stared at the barrel of the captain’s gun. Steve lunged at him, grasping Devon’s arm with both hands and twisting, wrenching a cry from him and forcing him to drop the knife.
“You’re all going to pay for this!” Devon tore free of Steve’s hold. “Do you think you can defeat Warlord?” He laughed, exposing his crimson-stained teeth.
Without looking away from Devon, Gary stooped and picked up the knife.
Retreating toward the crowd, Devon leveled a finger at Gary and shook his head. “Stay the fuck away from me. You’ll all be dead before—”
The crowd closed in around him, seizing his arms and legs, grabbing fistfuls of his clothing and hair.
“What the fuck?” Whatever anger had been in Devon’s eyes was replaced by a sickly gleam of terror. “Let go of me!”
He thrashed, but the people held tight, lifting him off his feet and forcing his limbs wide.
Gary slowly walked forward. “You killed them.”
“No! Get the fuck awa—” Devon’s words were cut off by a cry of pain as Gary thrust the knife into his gut.
Ripping the knife free, Gary plunged it into Devon’s abdomen and chest again, and again, and again, covering his hand and forearm in blood. “You stole their lives, you bastard. You took my babies from me, took them from me!”
The crowd was eerily silent.
Devon’s eyes bulged, and the tendons on his neck stood out. He lifted his bobbing head to look Gary in the eye.
“I hope there’s a hell, so you can fucking burn in it.” Gary slashed the knife across Devon’s throat. It left a thin red line at first, but that line soon split wider, and blood poured from the gaping wound to pool on the ground.
Gary stepped back. His arm and chest were splattered with blood, his shoulders rose and fell with his ragged breaths, and a furious light burned in his eyes. The kind, sweet man Lara had known was gone. Had she acted sooner, could she have spared Gary and his family from this? Tears stung her eyes.
Could I have saved his children?
Devon’s lifeless body was unceremoniously tossed into the dirt, landing face down. The rags he’d used to mask his status were no longer a pretense.
“I’ll fight,” Gary said. “To the death. I want that fucking bot ended.”
Lara looked over the grim faces before her. “Who else will join us?”
Steve took a single step forward. “I will.”
“Me, too.”
“And me.”
One by one, the people of Cheyenne voiced their resolve.
“How can you be sure we’ll win?” Scarlet asked. Whatever fire had driven her to insult Lara earlier had been replaced by pale-faced uncertainty.
“I’m not. But it’s worth—”
A distant burst of gunfire echoed through the sky. Lara, along with most of the crowd, looked northeast. In that moment, she realized what she’d always known but had refused to acknowledge—Ronin wasn’t invincible, and she’d almost lost him too many times already.
Please. Please let him be okay.
Newton touched her arm as he came up beside her. “We must go, Lara.”
Swallowing thickly, she nodded and called out to the crowd. “The fight just started, and the choice is yours. Will you battle for your freedom, or will you die in the dirt under Warlord’s boot?”