Page 112 of Double Shot
“Checkmate, bitch.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lachlan…
“Come on,” I said, and grabbed Sadie by the arm. “It’s done, she’s dead.” Her hands were still white knuckled on the gold knife. She trembled, and I knew she was still trying to push the blade deeper, and the tip had hit something it couldn’t go through. Something like the bitch’s spine or the floor out the other side of her.
“Shady, we won, let’s go home,” I said again, and tried to pull her back to her feet. She shook, but eventually stood. The knife came with her, laying out the familiar grate of metal against bone. Her eyes were large, and she was breathing rapidly through her nose. This was an intense kill, even by our standards. I had done it only twice before, the slow knife penetration.
Jesus, that was more intimate than actual fucking.
She came around eventually and was tangled in what was left of her body armor and harness. I brushed some hair out of her face that’d come loose from her tight French braid, and tried to sort some of it out, so we could get out of here. It was definitely time to go, the smell of smoke was getting stronger.
“Time to bounce, your bingo time,” Worthington said.
I watched as Roan picked up Kaijin’s sword, hefted it once, giving the blade the critical eye. Then he hacked down once, twice, and a third time. Her head hadn’t come completely free of her torso, but the wound was horrific, and there wasn’t more than a single slow pulse of blood from the carotids.
“Something that evil,” he spat, “I don’t trust to have a bloody fucking heart.”
Sadie seemed to come back to us, seeing the absolute ruin of flesh and near decapitation. Was she expecting the woman to get back up even though she had perforated the heart? She looked around as if seeing the room for the first time and nodded. “We can go, we’re done.”
“Head out the north entrance, there is a secondary motor pool there and you can take one of the vehicles,” Worthington said. He lit a cigarette and then used his lighter to set one of the curtains in the room on fire. “Front of the building is fully involved now. Texas grass fire, spread from the helipad to the trees and to the building. It’s all going up.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Don’t worry, there won’t be anything left of this place for authorities to find anything.” He sighed and flicked some ash from his cigarette on to the carpet.
“I’m curious to know what you owed Roan for him to call this even,” I said, helping Sadie toward the door. We must have looked ridiculous, kitted up in slashed armor, beaten bloody, and holding each other up.
“This?” He looked around at the destruction in the room. “This is because they’re three paychecks behind on payroll,” Worthington said, setting another curtain on fire. “But if you want to know what I owed the Captain, take it up with him.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and we struggled out of the room, and into the hallway. He was right, the entire front foyer was alive with flames, and it was quickly eating its way through the building. The stairs busted by the grenade were just kindling and were already burning.
“I came up a set of stairs that way.” Sadie pointed with the grenade launcher.
“You can leave that,” I said.
“Fuck you.” Her voice was soft. “I like this one.”
“Keep the piece, but keep moving,” Roan said, ushering us forward. We took the narrow stairs and went down into the inferno.
“Double back here, take the left-hand hallway,” Worthington said from the rear, and we complied. We were heading up the narrow service hall when something big let go in the foyer, and it sounded like half of the building came down. We were blasted with a wind that felt right out of a furnace, and then the heat just increased, rather than dissipate. Shit was getting real.
When we kicked the single door open, the air outside was almost like a refrigerator by comparison. It was clean, clear, no smoke, no lingering tear gas. Thank God for those things, my face felt like it had gone through a windshield. There were several vehicles parked here, mostly light and regular trucks, the only thing even modestly not fleet was a short bed 4X4, faded red, with a rollbar and tubular steel front guard over the radiator.
“Don’t look too hard at my ride, shark eyes,” Worthington said, walking over and opening the door.
“We’ll take one of the white trucks, c’mon,” Roan said, opening the driver side door of one of them. A battered, dirty, ugly, fleet truck, ugh. I opened the passenger door and helped Sadie in, still clutching the gold knife. “Put the bitch sticker away, Poppet,” Roan said softly. It was reluctant, but she found a place for it, tucking the blade down into the top of her boot. Roan patted her on the knee and gave a nod.
“If you’re ever in the neighborhood, The Black Watch in Indigo City does know how to pour a proper pint and serves a good English Breakfast on Sunday mornings,” Roan said.
“Bangers?” Worthington asked.
“Unfortunately, no, local product, but it’s not bad,” Roan called back to him.
“I’ll give it a try, when I’m in the area. Sunday morning?”
“Aye, it’s also her Majesty’s VFW hall, by default. There are some good lads there.”
