Chapter 39 Cataclysm #2
Both men screamed. The momentum of my impact swung him around, effectively shielding me from the other gunmen lucky enough not to have something sharp buried in his neck. Yet.
Releasing my grip on one knife, I reached down and grabbed the pistol from his thigh holster and aimed it at the other gunmen, putting two bullets into his face.
He dropped to the floor as I released the second knife still buried in the other one’s neck, then jumped down to kick him in the back of his knee.
When he went down, I grabbed both of my knives and yanked them out, leaving him to choke on his own blood as he crumbled to the floor.
Walking around him, I moved for the last gunman, who was currently pressed up against the wall with a very large dog on top of him, wearing her jaw as a neck warmer. Watching him yank a knife from his belt, I lunged forward and stomped on his wrist, pinning it to the floor beneath my tennis shoe.
“Vabasta,” I ordered. Camaro immediately released her hold and stepped back, but her attention was still very much on the bleeding meat sack beneath her.
Crouching down, I placed my knife just under his eye, letting the tip softly drag along his skin.
“Is Jason with you?” I asked, keeping my voice low so that only he could hear.
While he was clearly in pain, he still managed to look confused.
“Who…the fuck…is that?” he croaked out as he clutched at his mess of a throat.
I tried not to be too disappointed with his answer. Not every foot soldier had all the information.
“Do you know who I am?”
More confusion. Not a good sign.
“Why are you here?”
The gunman was not impressed with my twenty-one questions and just shook his head, a gurgled chuckle rolling up his throat. Pressing the knife deeper into his skin, I made sure the blade was a single millimeter away from puncturing through his lower eyelid.
“Why. Are. You. Here?” I tried again, maintaining the fake patience in my voice. If Darren caught me doing this, I’d be so goddamn fucked. Hopefully all the cameras in the area had been blown to shit too.
The gunman’s face twisted into an ugly scowl, so I added more of my weight onto his wrist, making him hiss as he sucked in a gargled breath.
“Payback,” he finally groaned. Didn’t sound like much of a rescue plan to me.
“Who sent you?” I asked, reducing the pressure. I needed to know if Matt had actually coordinated this attack and if Jason was involved.
He laughed again. “Get fucked, bitch,” he mumbled in Spanish.
With no emotion on my face, I pressed the knife into his eye, slowly increasing the pressure second by second until he started screaming.
“I’m going to slice your eyes open and then my dog is going to eat your fucking face if you don’t give me a name,” I seethed as blood leaked down his cheek. “Rainer? Spade? Miguel Spade?”
“Ah! Sí! Spade! Sí!” he shouted as his feet kicked against the floor.
I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or suspicious, but as I withdrew the knife and drove it into his skull, I decided it wasn’t enough to turn back.
Matt had emphasized enemies as friends, so it wouldn’t be entirely out of the question that Matt might have teamed up with Miguel and Jason to use their combined forces against Darren.
But if that were truly the case, their soldiers probably wouldn’t have shot at me just now.
I sighed with frustration as I listened to the sounds of the fighting throughout the house. There was noise everywhere, so pinpointing any one sound was difficult.
The helicopter was still flying overhead, gunshots competing with the shouting voices of men as they fought while the house crumbled around us. It was a mess of chaotic racket with no discernible path for me to navigate through.
Loud gunfire cut through my thought process, the little sonic booms stealing all my focus. Until an even louder explosion suddenly overtook it, the sound of something metal and heavy crashing to the ground and scaring the absolute shit out of me.
Needing some kind of confirmation, I quickly peered through the bulletproof window in the hall to see what was now left of the helicopter as it burned in a heap of scrap over the grass.
And then my gaze moved beyond it to catch Darren casually tossing what looked like a grenade launcher to the ground.
Well, wasn’t he just resourceful?
With the threat of the helicopter gone, I decided now was probably the right time to scope the place for more information before Darren caught up to me.
If Jason wasn’t in this particular fight, then there was no way in hell I was getting out of here.
But I needed to look for him to be absolutely sure.
I needed to know if he was here. And the only way to do that was to be seen by the men with guns.
And I needed to somehow make that happen without ending up like the damn helicopter.
Collecting the guns and ammunition of the dead gunmen, I quickly armed myself to the max.
Pressing the cheap AK-47 to my shoulder, I looked down my sight to the end of the hallway.
Aside from all the debris and dead bodies littering every square foot, there was no one left in this area, though I could still hear gunfire in the distance.
Stupid idea. This was a fucking stupid idea.
What the hell else are you gonna do? Hide like Darren told you to?
No, I needed to see this through. I couldn’t afford to be a coward and waste the opportunity.
Creeping through the hallway with Camaro following closely at my side, I carefully stepped around the dead bodies scattered in every direction.
Each one I came to brought a tsunami of dread as I feared I would stumble upon Jason’s dead body.
I had to check every single one to rule out the possibility, then collected tokens of guns and ammunition after the relief set in.
Now I just had to hope I had enough time before Darren found me. If he found me.
I continued maneuvering through the house until stray bullets shot through the walls ahead of me.
Dropping low to the ground, I crouched quickly through the house, hoping to find a good vantage point somewhere.
It sounded like it was coming from the the kitchen.
Circling back, I made my way around the lobby and then stopped dead as two gunmen rounded the corner.
I pulled the trigger without thinking, spraying their legs with bullets until they both dropped to the floor. Racing over to them, I kicked their guns out of reach while Camaro jumped on top of one and growled in his face.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my rifles pointed at their face.
They both moaned in agony.
“Fuck you, bitch,” the one said and moved to grab his pistol from his leg.
But Camaro was already on him, chomping her teeth down onto his arm and crushing his bones.
He screamed as he wrestled with Camaro, dropping the gun to the floor as he tried to push her off him.
I kicked the gun away, then whistled for Camaro to back off.
The guy instantly clutched his arm, squirming in pain from both his busted legs and arms.
“Did Matthew Rainer send you?” I asked aloud.
And again, they looked confused. But I didn’t get much time to dwell on it as the sound of metal clinked near my foot. Looking down, my heart stopped when I realized it was a fucking grenade.
“Shit!” I shouted, kicking the grenade away and grabbing Camaro by the collar as we vaulted in the opposite direction.
But the ensuing explosion was still too close and caused one of the nearby walls to collapse overtop of me.
The pressure made it difficult to breathe as the weight of the wall instantly forced me to the ground, my legs and waist pinned under the heavy drywall and shelving.
“Fuck!” I cursed to myself as I tried to push the wall off me. I was a sitting fucking duck under this thing.
Camaro raced to my side, her snout going in all directions as she tried to sniff out the solution to my confinement. Her only option was to whine and bark out her distress.
“Quiet,” I told her, wincing to myself as I tried to wiggle free as much as I could.
Grabbing a broken piece of shelf, I wrapped both hands around each end and held it out above my head.
“Camaro, bite, pull,” I ordered. Sharp canine teeth bit down onto the wood and pulled the material, yanking left and right until one of my legs finally came loose.
“Good girl!” I praised, pulling myself up for more leverage, but my other leg was still trapped.
“Fuck,” I muttered as the pain began to build in my leg from the pressure.
More stomping boots in the background had me moving even faster until my eyes caught those boots in my gaze.
Shit.
Reaching down, I managed to pull the pistol from my side and fired two shots at the quickly approaching gunmen. The first one went down, but as I pulled the trigger for another shot, there was nothing but a clicking sound.
Fucking empty.
Fear hit me hard as the remaining four gunmen lifted their rifles and aimed right at my fearless dog just as she lunged for them.
“No!”