“NOOOOO!!!!” I scream, tears pouring down my cheeks. “YOU GODDAMN SON OF ABITCH!!!!”
I continue shrieking as I hurtle toward Pitbull. My mind is engulfed in white-hot rage. All I want is to tear Pitbull from limb to limb… to tear out his intestines with my bare hands and shove his innards down his fucking throat.
But I don’t come close to succeeding in my mission. Just as I’m about to go in for a tackle, Pitbull swings his right bionic fist right into my nose. Blood explodes out of my nostrils as I drop to the ground. More stars than I’ve ever seen in my life flitter in and out of existence. I don’t feel hardly any pain. It’s like my mind is plunging into an icy, dark abyss from which I will never return.
I feel Pitbull grabbing me by the neck. I crack open my eyes to find Pitbull’s deranged face sneering at me, taking immense joy in my imminent death. Pitbull pulls back his right fist, but before he can throw another punch, someone blindsides Pitbull and knocks him to the ground, allowing me to slip through his bionic grasp. I collapse into the mud, coughing and gagging as blood gushes from my nose and trickles into my mouth.
I spit out a shitload of blood and blearily look up to see what the hell happened. Grenade is on top of Pitbull, ferociously punching him with his robotic fist. As pissed as I am that he lied to us, I’m beyond thrilled that he’s regained consciousness. If anyone can stop Pitbull, Grenade can.
“I should have killed you years ago!” Greande snarls as he continues pounding away at Pitbull’s face. His words are punctuated with a constant WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Unfortunately Grenade’s flurry of offense is short-lived. Pitbull manages to pull his legs underneath Grenade and kicks him backwards. Grenade slams onto the ground and struggles to get to his feet. By the time he does, Pitbull is ready for him. Pitbull delivers a vicious uppercut to Grenade’s exposed chin. Grenade flies into the air and lands about ten feet away.
Pitbull marches over to Grenade and delivers a savage kick to his side. Grenade groans and rolls onto his side, spitting up blood. Pitbull raises his fist and brings it crashing down onto the back of Grenade’s head. Grenade falls face-first into the mud and stops moving. But Pitbull refuses to show any mercy. He rolls Grenade onto his back, straddles him, and goes to work punching his face. Since Grenade’s face isn’t protected with a metallic face-mask like Pitbull’s, the punches are particularly devastating. In only a matter of seconds Grenade’s face becomes a bloodied mess disfigured beyond recognition. It looks like a real grenade just detonated in front of him.
“I got a confession to make,” Pitbull says while continuing to pulverize Grenade, blood splattering all over his arms and fists. The beat-down is so sadistically brutal that Grenade’s right robotic eyeball pops out of his socket. Pitbull casually picks up the bionic eyeball and squishes it between his robotic fingers, causing sparks to fly out. He then goes back to punching Grenade’s face.
“So you know how Rebecca and your son died in that car bombing 15 years ago?” Pitbull rambles on, his words punctuated by the steady, sickening sound of metal pounding human flesh. “Well it turns out I know precisely who rigged the car to explode. It was me! The car bomb was meant for you, but Rebecca and your boy Joey entered the car first. I certainly hadn’t intended for Rebecca to die. You know how much I loved her. I figured with you out of the picture, I could get her back. For the longest time I was devastated that she died. I felt guilty that I was the one who killed her. But after a while I started to feel better about it. Especially when I realized you were suffering from her death far worse than I was. And now… now you can join your wife and son in hell!”
Pitbull goes back to his soulless cackling, his bionic fists now completely drenched in blood.
Despite the fact I myself am near death (or at least I feel like it), I once again clamber to my feet and snatch up a discarded machine gun lying on the ground. I shakily point the gun at Pitbull and pull the trigger. Most of the bullets miss, but a few do slam into the back of his metallic head. Pitbull’s head snaps forward from the concussive impact of the blasts. The bullets don’t penetrate his armor, but I’m sure they still hurt like hell.
Pitbull slowly turns around and growls, leaving Grenade to gag on his own blood.
“You stupid fucking twit,” he snarls, lunging toward me.
I fire off a few more shots, but the bullets do nothing to slow him down. Pitbull snatches the gun out of my hands and kicks me in the throat. I fall flat on my back for the umpteenth time that evening. The pouring rain gushes inside my open mouth, nearly drowning me. I turn my head to the side and spit out all the water. I notice the water is completely red. My mouth and nose are still bleeding pretty heavily.
Pitbull’s cold, metallic right hand wraps around my neck, cutting off my air supply. I gag as I’m lifted nine feet off the ground, Pitbull’s bionic arm fully extended into the pouring sky.
I gaze down into Pitbull’s smirking face, his glowing eyes resembling embers that the rain is incapable of extinguishing.
“Any last words before I snap your neck like a twig, chump?” Pitbull inquires gleefully.
I try to say something, but all that comes out is a tortured gag. My neck feels like there’s a ring of fire around it.
Pitbull laughs like some sort of evil supervillain hell-bent on world domination, his bionic fingers slowly squeezing around my neck. The bones in my neck begin to crack from all the pressure.
Just as my eyes start to glaze over, a blinding burst of crimson light whizzes past me and slices into Pitbull’s outstretched arm. Pitbull’s arm detaches at the elbow, and I collapse to the ground, gasping for precious oxygen. I pry the fingers of Pitbull’s severed arm off of my neck and scoot back, looking up at my attacker in astonishment and exhilaration. Pitbull is gawking at the exposed wires jutting out of his elbow, utterly flabbergasted.
“No… my arm!! MY FUCKING ARM!!!” Pitbull wails like a wounded beast.
“You’re about to lose the other one, too!”
I nearly squeal with delight at the sight of Boom Boom racing toward us… my knight in gleaming, brilliant armor. She’s wearing Alex’s laser-firing goggles. She fires off two more blinding laserbeams, this time carving off Pitbull’s left arm at the elbow. Pitbull shrieks again as the arm collapses into a muddy puddle. More sparks fly out of his shoulder. The pouring rain causes the wires to erupt in flames, but they also paradoxically extinguish those very flames a few seconds later.
“You red-headed bitch!!” Pitbull’s normally deep, menacing voice has been transformed into a pitiful, pain-infused shriek. “You’ve turned me into a deformed monster!!!”
“I can’t take all the credit. You did most of the work yourself,” Boom Boom says, firing off another burst of laser-fire that slices through Pitbull’s right leg at the knee. Pitbull topples over like a chopped down tree, his chin smashing into the ground.
Boom Boom skids to a stop right next to Pitbull and looks down at his broken body. Before she can fire off another shot, I crawl toward her and croak out, “Firecracker, wait!”
Boom Boom glances at me and says, “Please tell me you’re not suggesting we spare his life. I think Pitbull has more than overstayed his welcome on this Earth.”
I push myself up and hop over to Boom Boom on my right leg. (My left ankle feels sprained.) “No,” I say in a hoarse whisper. “I just want to be the one to finish him off. He… he killed River.”
“No,” Boom Boom whispers, staring at River’s bloodied, broken body sprawled off to the side. “I’m sorry, Lance.”
“No, I’m sorry Krystal and I didn’t listen to you,” I say, unsheathing my electric sword and pressing the button on the handle to full extend the three-foot long blade. I press another button, which causes the blade to heat up. Within a matter of seconds it becomes bright-red; the rain drops hiss and explode into steam when they hit the blade. “We never should have turned our back on you. We never should have chosen to help Klaxton without making sure you were on board.”
“Actually Lance, I think I am on board,” Boom Boom says, much to my astonishment.
“You… you are?” I stammer.
Boom Boom nods. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I’ve come to realize we do need a psychopath leading the charge against the Chinese.”
I stagger over to Pitbull, who is now sobbing and begging for his life. I ignore his pathetic pleas and say, “Wait, where’s Alex?”
Boom Boom lowers her head and says, “He was the one who really betrayed us. He sent Pitbull a message. He’s the reason all this has happened.”
Boom Boom gestures toward the demolished village. Gunfire continues to erupt off in the distance, along with the screams of the dead and dying. I can only hope not all of those screams belong to the Chiquito.
“So is he…?” I start to say.
“I took care of him,” Boom Boom says abruptly, without going into detail.
I nod and say, “Go check on Krystal and Grenade. And Klaxton… she’s buried under that hut under there. I’ll take care of our ‘friend’ here.”
Boom Boom runs off to check on Krystal. I point my glowing sword at Pitbull, who is continuing to plead for mercy.
“Please Lance, don’t kill me,” Pitbull bawls, his glowing eyes unable to release the tears his body is desperate to produce. “Remember, I saved you and Boom Boom from Klaxton and Rasputin! If it wasn’t for me, you guys wouldn’t even be alive!”
“That is true,” I say, holding my sword up over my head. “But you also just killed the girl I was falling in love with. And that erases every good thing you’ve ever done.”
“Lance, no! Please! I—AHHHHH!!”
Pitbull screams in agony as I bring my scorching hot sword crashing down on him. The sword sinks halfway through his neck, slicing through various wires, bones, sinew, and human tissue. Blood gushes out of the wound. Pitbull starts gagging on his own blood, still alive as he is only half-decapitated. I swing my glowing sword one more time, slicing the rest of the way through his neck. Pitbull’s head rolls off of his shoulders into a puddle of mud, his eyeballs flickering one last time before finally fizzling out.
I step over the tsunami of blood gushing out of Pitbull’s decapitated neck and pick up his severed head. A multitude of emotions wash over me. Relief… vindication… sadness… confusion… despair. I had every reason to hate Pitbull’s guts. I had every reason to brutally butcher him. But what he just said to me… his last, dying words… he was right. If it wasn’t for Pitbull, the girls and I would have been gunned down in Alaska a few months ago. We owed Pitbull our life. But just a few months later, he ended up making our lives a living hell. What kind of fucked up world is this? How can you be indebted to someone one day, and then weeks later they become your hated nemesis? If we had never met Pitbull, we would all be dead. But his very existence almost cost us our lives anyway. How can a person live their life like this? One minute relying on someone to save you, and then the next minute being forced to kill that very person so they don’t wind up killing you? It doesn’t make any fucking sense.
“Who do you think you are? Hamlet?” Boom Boom calls from Krystal’s side. “Get rid of that nasty thing and help me wake these guys up!”
I look over and smile at the sight of Krystal sitting up and rubbing her eyes. I then look back down at Pitbull’s detached head and frown. Boom Boom’s right. I’m no Hamlet. I don’t need to waste my time trying to analyze all this bullshit. The important thing is that I’m alive. We all are. And we have a world to save. Screw Pitbull and his convoluted ‘mind-fucks’. Sure he may have saved our lives a few months ago, but that doesn’t make up for all the crap he’s put us through. That doesn’t put me in his eternal debt. Saving someone’s life doesn’t give you the right to screw them over again and again and again.
I throw Pitbull’s severed head as far as I can and watch it disappear into the bushes. At long last, Pitbull is no longer a part of my life. I never have to worry about the sick son of a bitch ever again. No one does.
I help Krystal dig Klaxton out of the demolished hut while Boom Boom goes to check on Grenade. We locate Klaxton pretty quickly and prop our arms under her shoulders, half-carrying her out of the wreckage. Klaxton’s face is covered in cuts and she seems a little out of it, but she doesn’t seem seriously injured.
We make our way over to Boom Boom, who is in the process of helping Grenade to his feet. I’m amazed he’s even able to stand. Grenade’s face is so beat up, it looks like he survived an explosion. And his missing right eyeball makes him appear super freaky. He looks half dead.
Leaning against Boom Boom and hacking up blood, Grenade garbles, “P… Pitbull…. W… where is he?”
I nod toward his severed limbs and torso, which are piled up in the middle of the clearing. “There he is. What’s left of him.”
Wheezing heavily, Grenade says, “T… thank God you k… killed h… h… him before he k… killed you.”
Grenade hacks up an almost unfathomable amount of blood, some of which splatters on our shoes.
“Dear God, Grenade, I think you’re suffering from internal bleeding,” Boom Boom says fearfully.
Grenade nods and splutters, while still coughing up blood, “I’m all s… screwed up, d… d… darlin’. But we can’t worry about that now. W… we gotta get out… out of here.”
Klaxton gazes at Boom Boom and says, “So you decided to join us, huh? What happened to me being an evil, psycho bitch?”
“You still are an evil psycho bitch,” Boom Boom responds curtly. “And if you even think about pulling any shady shit, I will not hesitate to slit your throat.”
Klaxton snorts and says, “Don’t worry. I’m saving all my ‘shady shit’ for when I finally confront LeBeau for ruining the country I spent the past two decades bringing back from the brink of collapse. I take shit like that personally.”
Grenade turns to Boom Boom and feebly says, “I want to a… apologize for everything. I never meant to h… hurt you. Just did what I thought needed to be d… done to stop this w… w…war.”
“It’s okay, Grenade, I forgive you,” Boom Boom says with a sad smile. She knows what I know… after all the internal injuries he suffered at the hands of Pitbull, Grenade is not long for this world. The least we can do is offer forgiveness to our broken, dying friend.
Krystal whispers to me, “His right eyeball… it’s gone!”
“I know,” I whisper back. “It popped out when Pitbull was attacking him. Just try not to stare at his empty eye socket.”
Helicopters zoom overhead, dropping concussion grenades into the jungle. Thankfully none of them land next to us. About time we had some luck.
“We s… s…. seriously need to get the f… fuck out of here,” Grenade says in a hoarse voice, nodding his head toward the flying car parked behind one of the still-standing huts. “This place is going to be c… crawling with t… troops here in a few m… m… minutes.”
“Wait, I have to get River,” I say, lumbering over to her body.
“Lance, we can’t… we can’t bring her with us,” Grenade says in between pained, laborious gasps for air.
I ignore Grenade and kneel down beside River. Tears well up in my eyes as I cradle her head in my hands. Her beautiful brown eyes are wide open, staring lifelessly up at the sky. Her slender neck is twisted in a sickening, obtuse angle. I’m flooded with a mix of emotions. Anger, sadness, despair, regret…. River had so much to offer this world, and in the blink of an eye she was erased from existence. It’s just not fair.
“Damn you, Pitbull,” I say in a choked sob. “Damn you to Hell.”
Boom Boom kneels beside me and wraps her arm around my shoulder. “Lance, I know what you’re going through. But we can’t bring her with us. There’s not enough room. I… we…”
Klaxton towers over us and says, “I’ll send people down here to retrieve her body. That way we can give her the burial she deserves.”
I wipe away my tears and ask, “What do you mean by ‘send people down
here’?”
“When I become president,” Klaxton says with a renewed fire in her eyes. “I’ll make sure we come back for her. I promise.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. I lean forward and kiss River on her cold forehead. I then close her eyes and allow Boom Boom to pull me away.
“Tough break, kid,” Grenade says in his crude way of offering sympathy. “She was a g… great gal.”
I nod as the five of us hobble toward the car, nursing our various injuries the best we can. I try to ignore the bone-chilling screams of men, women, and yes, children, being brutally gunned down off in the distance. If we leave, we are basically ensuring an entire nation of indigenous peoples fall victim to genocide. But if we stay to fight, to try and help them, then we will die, too. So will Klaxton. And so will our last, best hope to stop the Chinese from slaughtering millions more. As traumatizing as it is for me to reconcile this with my own principles, some must die so many more can live. I only hope that some of the Chiquito survive so they can carry on their tribe’s traditions.
World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2) Page 44
