by C. S. Won
“Are you seriously going to do this now? You’re wasting your time. He’s already a dead man walking,” Rena said.
“But wouldn’t it be better if he was a dead man staying in one place?”
Rena rolled her eyes. “Morgan is expecting us, and I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”
Metal began to form over Pax’s body, coating him in a polished sheen of armor. “Don’t tell me what to do. I plan on enjoying this.” He pounded a fist into an open hand, and a loud clang emanated from the strike. He pointed at Jae. “It’s time to settle who’s the strongest in the world, shrimp.”
Pax brought his right shoulder forward, bulging with muscle and metal, and with a bellowing whoop made his charge. Jae was slow to react, bludgeoned to a dazed state by Pax’s revelations, and it was only at the last second did he finally manage to come to his senses and lower his stance, bracing for impact. They met with a resounding boom, like two stags in a duel, the noise of their fierce struggle echoing throughout the room. Pushing his heels in, Jae clutched at Pax’s massive arms, looking for something to hold onto, but his fingers slipped against the metal, unable to grasp the smooth surface of Pax’s alloy skin.
“You’re ten years too young to take me on, shrimp,” Pax said.
A pivot and a flicker of steel, and Pax drilled a fist into Jae’s stomach, nearly lifting him off the ground. For a moment, the world went black, and Jae’s throat burned with fire. Another hard fist connected against his face, rattling his teeth, and it throttled him against the wall, the impact burying him into the plaster. Jae’s vision became distorted, shape and color marred by the pain boiling behind his eyes, and he tasted the tinge of his own blood bitter in his mouth. Every breath he took was met with a choking and burning in his chest, his stomach and lungs screaming in pain.
“Get up! Show me what you got!” Pax said.
Somehow, Jae managed to peel himself away from the wall, but it took a monumental effort to stay balanced, and he was forced to grip the wall to stay centered as his legs wobbled on the verge of collapse.
“That’s right! Never give up!” Pax mocked him.
Jae spat out some blood and wiped off a sliver of it that clung to the corner of his mouth. Pax laughed at him, his bellyaching loud and disruptive, and approached Jae with a gleaming smile full of shiny, metal teeth. “You ain’t shit.” He rammed another fist into Jae’s face, sending him sprawling and crashing back against the wall. Searing pain exploded in Jae’s face, and when he tried to move his mouth, his efforts only led to a stream of blood and broken teeth dribbling out and splattering onto the floor.
“Hurry up,” Rena said.
Pax grunted his displeasure. “Don’t interrupt a man when he’s doing his work.”
The sound of heavy boots crunching carpentry and wood splinters signaled Pax’s approach. Jae tried to move but exerting any kind of effort was met with scalding, eye-watering agony. You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to fight back.
“I’ve got to hand it to you; most people wouldn’t be able to take such a beating. They’d either be dead or unconscious in a pool of their own fluids. But you—you’re a tough little nut, aren’t you? You can take a little punishment. I like that.” Pax took Jae’s head with both hands and lifted him off the ground, suspending him in the air. He brought him close, so close that Jae could see his own distorted reflection off of Pax’s metal visage. “But I’m disappointed that this is all you’ve got. You were hyped up to be this monster, an absolute beast of a man, but I’m just not seeing it. Where’s your strength, your power? Where’s the man behind the legend?” Pax began to apply pressure, hard metal fingers pressing into Jae’s skull. “Come on; show me what you can do before I pop your head open like a balloon.”
It felt like someone was shoving a burning pincer into Jae’s head, the pain exceeding anything he could have ever imagined. He grabbed Pax’s wrists and tried to pull them away, but the clutch was too strong, too resilient, too ironclad.
Pax laughed at him. “World’s strongest man? You’re nothing but well-worn gum at the bottom of my shoe. A flea nipping at the lion. You’re weak—weak and useless and pathetic. You really thought you could protect Clay? From me? You had no chance. None. You couldn’t even protect your little girlfriend from a one-armed pyromaniac. You’re a joke. You ain’t protecting shit, you stupid mother f—”
Jae screamed, piercing the night. The utterance of Madeline’s name in such a demeaning manner filled him with an emergent anger, akin to a second wind. With his hands still wrapped around Pax’s wrists, Jae squeezed the metal like he was trying to squeeze blood from a tree, applying as much pressure as he could—more than he thought possible. Pax gasped, his eyes going wide. His face went through a sequence of different expressions, going from surprise to pain then to complete horror. Jae tightened his grip even further, and felt the warmth and vulnerability of soft flesh giving away underneath the metal, and it encouraged him to squeeze even harder, his hands and arms burning with strain and effort, until his labors were finally rewarded when a warped, metallic screech resonated throughout the room, and his fingers suddenly wet and sticky with blood.
Pax released Jae, letting him fall towards the floor, and tumbled backwards, breaking his fall on one of the beds. Expletives tumbled from his lips, and Pax brought his arms up for examination, staring wide-eyed at his crushed, mutilated wrists. Blood curled down the entirety of his arms on a crooked path, the metal twisted and forced inward into the flesh and bone it was supposed to protect.
“This is what you get for messing around, idiot,” Rena said.
Pax looked to be on the verge of tears. “Shut up!” He shoved his mangled arms towards Dmitri. “Hurry up and fix me, doc!”
With a heavy sigh, Dmitri sheathed the knife he was twirling around his fingers, and went over to Pax, placing his hands over his injuries. Pax gritted his teeth, a shiver going through his body. He whimpered.
“Figured you’d be used to this by now,” Rena said.
Pax’s wrists began to bend and realign back into place, the sounds of flesh and bone being pulled and knitted together in a symphony of cracks and soft, wet noises. Pax thrashed his feet like a child receiving his first shots, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, but Dmitri ignored the protestations, his face an expression of brow-furrowed concentration and effort.
“There,” Dmitri said, pulling away, revealing that the injuries were no longer there. Pax’s wrists had regained their previous shape and form, and as he bent and rotated them, making sure everything was the way it was before, his aggrieved mewling shifted into a big smile.
“If I had a sister, I’d let you fuck her,” Pax said.
“Hurry up and finish this. You’ve already wasted enough time as it is,” Rena said.
Pax stood from the bed. “Quit your bitching. If I said I’ll end it, then I’ll end it.”
Jae forced every last remaining ounce of his strength into that final effort, and his hard work had been stripped away by a man who could perform miracles. If Jae wasn’t so spent, he’d have laughed at the absurdity of it all. What could he do now? The next assault from Pax was likely to flatten him back against the floor, perhaps permanently. Run? The notion seemed pointless. With Rena around, where could he go? She’d always be right there with him.
Fight. It was his only option. Fight, or die trying. Jae stood, his struggle his defiance, and glared at Pax. Nothing needed to be said, as Pax clearly understood. He roared at the challenge and thundered towards Jae, reeling a steel fist back to administer the first, and perhaps final, blow. It jolted forward at a bullet’s speed. Jae tried to dodge it, but his body, depleted and exhausted and battered, could not even move. The blow arrived with a resounding crunch, and the world went black and numb, but only for a moment, for the hard landing against the floor—in an ironic twist—jarred Jae back to consciousness. The taste of blood coated his lips, and it was warm and sticky against his chin, the stench of it strong
and distinct. He tried to move his jaw but found that he couldn’t. Shattered, he realized. The world itself was a scrambled mess. A constant ringing, painful and deep, resonated in his ears, and every time he moved his head the ringing only seemed to worsen.
“How is he still conscious after that?” Jae heard Rena say.
Jae felt Pax’s shadow drape over him. A boot poked him in the ribs and rolled him over onto his back.
“Like a cockroach that just won’t die,” Pax said.
Get up. If this was it, then Jae couldn’t die lying down. It had to be done standing. He had to resist. But in an act of mutiny his body refused to obey, betraying his wishes. Everything was numb and growing cold. So, so cold.
“Can’t say it was a pleasure, mister big-shot fireman hero. Do say hello to your dead girlfriend for me, will ya? And don’t worry; I’ll make sure to personally deliver the news of your death to your brother.”
Jae blinked through the pain in his eyes and saw the bristled soles of a boot high over his face. All he could do was hold his breath, awaiting certain release. The boot propelled downward, a dark shape becoming an even darker blur. Jae closed his eyes.
Madeline . . .
An explosion filled the room. A scream quickly followed, and when Jae opened his eyes, he saw Pax hurtling into a wall, bright electrical sparks dancing off his back.
Who . . . ?
A woman stood in the doorway, the moon just behind her head. Large coils of bustling electricity crackled over her outstretched arms.
Andrea? Jae couldn’t believe it. What was she doing here?
“Jae!” Andrea ran over to him, moving past a stunned Dmitri and Rena, and knelt on the floor next to him. “My god.” The electricity receded from her fingers as she gently lifted Jae’s head and touched his face. Jae tried to say something, but the words came out in a dribbling, blood-soaked mess. “What the hell did they do to you? Who are these people?”
“Bitch!” Pax pulled himself free from the wall, bits of plaster sloughing off of him. The electricity had singed a hole in the back of his shirt, the metal underneath blackened and smoking. He grimaced as he tried to reach back and touch it. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Andrea’s eyes glowed indigo blue, and the electricity from her skin increased in size and intensity. “Who the hell are you?”
“Not nice to ask who we are without introducing yourself first.” Quick and sudden, and with a club held tight in her grip, Rena appeared behind Andrea, and before she even had the notion to think about what was happening, the club darted forward, thumping her on her skull. Andrea’s eyes rolled up in her head, blood leaking from the back of her scalp, and she fell to the ground with a sigh. The electricity fizzled away into dying sparks.
No! Jae reached out to Andrea, but Pax’s heavy black boot came down and pinned his hand flat against the ground, sending a surge of new pain scorching up his arm. Jae pulled his head back, groaning loudly.
“Did I ask you to interfere?” Pax asked, pointing at Rena.
“Can you please, for once in your life, use that small brain of yours?” Rena asked, then pointed at Andrea. “Do you not realize what her appearance here means?”
“Why should I care?”
Rena sighed. “You should, because it means there might be more people coming, idiot. We can’t afford to stick around any longer. We need to go.”
“But I said I wanted to take care of—”
“I heard you the first time, moron.” Rena went over to Dmitri and unsheathed one of his long knives. “I’ll finish the girl. By the time I’m done, Jae better be dead.”
Pax sneered at her, but his ire acted as agreement as he gripped Jae by the throat and lifted him high in the air—so high that his scalp was almost scraping against the ceiling. The fingers wrenched tighter, crushing Jae’s windpipe, the metal cold against his skin. Jae tried to resist, kicking his legs, and wrapping his hands around the meat of Pax’s forearms, but with his strength depleted there was very little he could do, already caught in Pax’s bear trap of a grip. The grip went tighter, and Jae’s head went light.
“Looks like I’m the strongest in the—”
Jae fell back to the ground, landing in a heap. His lungs burned with a resurgent of new air, prompting a series of loud, raspy coughs. When he looked up Pax was gone, his assailant vanished like warmth in a bleak winter.
“No, it can’t be.” Rena backed away from Andrea’s unconscious body. A man materialized behind her, as if he was slipping in from some unseen space. Rena turned, realizing what was there, but even with her speed it was too late, as the man gripped his hands together, swung it, and caught her on the side of the face, knocking her out cold. She tumbled onto the ground with a grunt and stayed inert. The stranger knelt next to her and grabbed her arm, and suddenly, they were gone.
Steel whispered against leather as Dmitri pulled a knife out and raised it chest-high, swinging it around as if he was trying to catch flies with it. “Stay away!” he yelled, his eyes going wide. A hand emerged from nowhere and grabbed his wrist, wrenching it into an odd, crooked angle, coercing the blade from Dmitri’s grip and sending it clattering to the floor. Dmitri screamed out at the sudden incursion of pain, but quickly doubled over when a fist slammed into his gut, silencing his aggrieved whining.
The entirety of a person appeared, stepping out from the shadows, a brown-skinned man of average height and stocky build and eyes the color of soil, the same man from moments before. He grabbed Dmitri by the collar and tossed him back against the wall, then darted forward and drilled his fist into Dmitri’s stomach once more. Spit flew from Dmitri’s mouth, and he crumpled forward, gasping for breath. Not letting up, the stranger grabbed Dmitri’s hair and yanked him back up, then shoved his fist into Dmitri’s stomach a third time. Dmitri curled over in a groan, and the man gave him permission to fall to the floor this time.
The stranger stepped into the bathroom, and a moment later, came out with Clay in his arms. “Fix him,” he commanded, placing Clay next to Dmitri. He looked at Clay, then at the stranger, then spit in the direction of the stranger’s feet. Another fist swing, and Dmitri’s face was jerked in a violent twist to his right, blood flying from his lips. The stranger grabbed Dmitri by the collar and shoved him close to Clay’s bloodied body. “I said fix him.”
“Mr. Duffy is going to have your head for this,” Dmitri said.
The stranger swung Dmitri around and placed him in a headlock. Dmitri struggled in his grip, but the stranger’s grasp proved too strong and unyielding, arm cinched tight around his neck.
“I thought Rena took care of you!” Dmitri spat out.
“She didn’t try hard enough,” the stranger said. He reached over and picked up Dmitri’s fallen knife and placed it just below his right eye, digging the point in just enough to break skin and draw a bead of blood.
“No, don’t.” Dmitri’s nostrils flared, fighting to pull his face away from the blade.
“Fix him, or I’ll take your eye,” the stranger said.
Dmitri’s struggles turned more desperate. He clawed away at his assailant’s arms, but still the stranger refused to budge.
“I’m going to cut your eye out, then I’m going to allow you to heal yourself. Once your eye regenerates, I’m going to take it again and force you to heal yourself a second time. If you’re still adamant in not cooperating even after that, then I’m going to continue to cut your eye out until you finally capitulate and do what I say.” The stranger lowered the knife to Dmitri’s stomach. “But if that proves ineffective, then I’ll cut your belly open and spill out your guts. Once you heal yourself, I’ll repeat the whole bloody process until you finally give in. Your choice.”
“You wouldn’t dare. That could kill me. Without me, your friends are doomed,” Dmitri said.
“You’ll live. I’ve seen you recover from much worse.”
“Bastard!”
“Judging by your refusal to comply, you must really like the idea of bei
ng my very own Prometheus.”
“You don’t have the—”
The stranger raised the knife.
“Stop! I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”
The stranger released his hold and shoved Dmitri into Clay. Face twisted in humiliation and anger, Dmitri glared at his tormentor before he went to work on mending Clay’s wounds, placing his hands over his body.
Fingers twitched, followed by a low, deep groan. Movement of arms and legs came after, stirring with life, then a shivering of the body, tremors going up and down. Injuries began to seal up, mottled bruises evaporating and cuts closing up so tightly that not even light scars were left behind. Eyelids fluttered open, then another deep groan, consciousness returning to a man who once dangled over the precipice.
“It’s done,” Dmitri said, pulling back.
Clay sat up, slowly, a perplexed look drawn on his face. The stranger went over and placed a hand on Clay’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Clay looked at him, and for a moment he appeared confused, like he was trying to work out a puzzle. But as he took in the stranger’s features, a sparkle of familiarity glimmered in Clay’s eyes.
“Tobin?” Clay said. “What happened? Where am I?”
Tobin?
“We were ambushed,” Tobin said. “They took Marlowe. Han too, when I checked. It’s my fault, I’m sorry. I was sloppy and unprepared.”
“They took Marlowe?” Clay didn’t sound convinced, but as he looked around at the violence ornamenting the hotel room, the skeptical look on his face took a sharp turn, falling into despair. “I remember,” he whispered. He buried his hands into his face. “Oh god, I remember. The things they did to me . . . Han. I had to tell them. I had to tell them where Han was, or the pain wouldn’t stop.”
Tobin patted Clay on the back, reassuring him. He went over and grabbed Dmitri by the nape of his collar, then dumped him next to Jae. “Hurry up and fix him too.”
