“Too bad. You should’ve come easily.”
“Just stop! Think!”
My feet scratch against the ground, failing to push me far enough backwards. Mr Friendly grabs hold of my ankles and yanks, moving to sit on my legs so I’m pinned. His blade is thick, at least two inches long and glinting with lethal threat.
The smoke-laced world narrows to that steel implement. Its proximity to carving my chest wide open. The way my attacker’s leer borders on psychotic. If I can get close enough to claw his eyes without taking a hit, then I’ll fight to the death.
When the blade curves through the air in preparation to land a fatal strike, a million moments flash before my eyes. Every time I faced mortality head-on in a filthy fighting ring. The times I wished it would be my end.
But I don’t want to die now.
I writhe and scratch, attempting to wrangle the knife from his hands, earning myself another blinding punch to the cheek. Cold gravel cuts into my back where I land spreadeagled, drained and defenceless.
Encroaching sirens clamour.
Glass shatters and explodes.
Smoke pours, thick and heady.
Fatigue sets in fast, slowing my efforts to escape. With the blade slamming down, I scream through the final few inches it has to travel into my body. Only the glinting metal never quite makes it.
BANG.
My attacker freezes, spasming on top of me as globules of red blood spurt from a jagged, smoking hole that appears in his shoulder. The sticky liquid hits my face then spreads in a fine mist.
BANG. BANG.
More scarlet balloons spill from multiple gunshot wounds, tearing through his chest and stomach. The knife slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground beside me. His eyes blow wide, more blood spilling past parted lips.
BANG.
When the bullet tears through his skull, the dead weight of his lifeless body traps me on the ground. I’m covered in warm moisture, compressed beneath his still twitching corpse. Not even the blustering sirens can match my shouts.
“Help! Please!”
Powerful, authoritative footsteps. Crunching glass. A huff strained by exertion. The body on top of me is heaved to the side and dumped like trash, giving me a perfect view of two glassy, empty eyes that were so certain I’d be beaten.
Looming over me, it takes a second for my saviour’s appearance to register. His vibrant, purple faux hawk. Fury rioting in honey-dipped eyes. Bee-stung lips and a perfectly boyish baby face.
“Ax,” I sob.
He flinches, glancing away from me without a word.
“Oh, A-Axel… Thank God.”
“Stop calling me that.”
A cold chill flushes over me. “Ax…?”
His rasping voice is so unlike the playful baritone I love. “It’s not my name.”
“Who… Who are you?”
The man’s shoulders sinking with some unidentifiable emotion is the last thing I see before he braces over me. A fist quickly lashes out in my direction. It connects with my solar plexus, then in a fateful instant, unconsciousness takes hold.
CHAPTER 20
AXEL
