Page 121 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
He grabs a piece of broken glass and goes for my throat, but I manage to keep him off me. He slashes out and gets the side of my face instead, causing warm sticky blood to start a trail down my cheek. I choke him until he drops it, grateful that he doesn’t die on me.
I finally gain the upper hand and flip him and slam him down on a table. It knocks the wind out of him, and I take the opportunity to relieve him of the remaining weapons on his person, then I grip him by the collar and slam him back against the jukebox so hard a quarter actually comesoutof the machine. It spins around several times before lying flat and still on the floor.
I throw another punch at him, and shout in his face. “Why? Why? Motherfucking why? Why this diner? Why us? Whyher?”
The logical answer is that they’re getting some vengeance for tonight… that someone saw us. But that doesn’t feel right to me. There is no way these guys are with those guys. They dress and carry themselves too differently.
Tears are streaming down my face as I scream at him, but I don’t care. Is this what it feels like to be human? If so, I want to claw it out of me. I want to go back to being cold and dead inside so nothing like this can ever touch me again.
I can’t look back at her body, I just can’t. This is all my fault.
I release my grip enough so he can talk. He coughs a few times and then finally says… “The money. The contract.”
“What contract?” I growl.
“Valentino put out a hit on you for ten million dollars.”
This is the problem with pissing someone off with far deeper pockets than sense. I’d suspected he might have done something like that at the Krampus run, but it shouldn’t still be in effect with him out of the picture.
“He’s dead,” I say. “So no contract.”
The guy shakes his head. “It’s not that simple, Sloan. He set up a trust, and the money’s in escrow. It doesn’t matter if Dante is alive or dead. This contract is bigger than him. The contract is open until you’re dead. They’re just gonna keep coming for you, you sad, sad motherfucker.”
I pull my knife, the one I used to cut Mina’s clothes off what feels like a lifetime ago, and stab him in the throat. He gurgles and flails for a moment before hitting the floor, His blood spilling out to mix with all the others.
I should have asked him how he found us out here at this diner, but obviously they were watching us, probably put a tracking device on the car. It doesn’t even matter anymore.
I glance up at the clock. 11:59. Somehow I have lost the only thing I have ever loved in under thirteen minutes. My ears are still ringing from too much gunfire in such a small space. I can barely hear my own sobs, my own screams as I lose what’s left of my quickly fraying mind.
I kick over a table and then start throwing chairs back at the kitchen. I smash every fucking plate. Every glass. I hurl forks into booths, and then start dragging them down the vinyl, ripping out the insides the way I desperately want to rip out my own insides. And I scream like the wounded and broken animal that I am.
I pick up one of the guns and start shooting at the windows, just to hear that satisfying shatter of glass. And I think about Mina shooting bottles with me out on my gun range. And it only makes me cry harder.
My ears are still ringing from these last gunshots, and I finally completely break down. I’m kneeling in a pool of blood sobbing. It’s not hers. I still can’t even look over at her. I can’t. I need to pretend for just a little longer.
“Mina, why? God, why? Why take her? She didn’t deserve it. It should have been me.”
It should be me. It still could be. There’s no point in any of it anymore. I’m so fucking tired.
I pick up one of my guns that I dropped. I can barely see through my own tears. I slam a new magazine in and turn the gun on myself. I’ve got no reason to be here. I just want to be where she is. We could never have our happily ever after here. I’m too dark and broken for that… but maybe in another life, another world… some place that’s not this place... This sick fucked-up world where monsters like me are allowed to run free destroying people’s lives, killing other people’s loved ones. Maybe this is my karma.
I rack the slide, still trying to shake off the ringing in my ears, trying to think… as if I need strategy anymore. My thinking days are done.
“Brian, No!”
I freeze. I swear I heard her. But I’m afraid to turn around. If I turn around and she’s still just lying there, lifeless, I won’t be able to take it.
“Brian…” she says, through tears. “I’m right here… I’m fine. I’m okay. Everything is okay, just put down the gun.”
I shake my head. “No. You’re not real. You can’t be. I saw it. I saw you go down. There was no life in you.”
“Just turn around, Brian. Turn around and look at me. I’m sorry I didn’t move. The Kevlar took the bullet, but I stumbled and fell. And when I went down, something inside me said to stay down, so I listened so they’d forget about me and you would have a chance... so webothwould have a chance.”
I drop the magazine and clear the chamber. Then I turn slowly to find Mina standing there, alive.
“I tried to say something after the last one was dead, but you didn’t hear me. You just kept going. So I was going to just wait it out, wait until you ran out of steam, so you could hear me.”
“It’s the ringing,” I say pointing at my ear as I make my way around all the dead bodies and through the endless pools of blood to reach her.
