by Logan Fox
Her fear, her panic…it snuffed out instantly, as if her mind couldn’t process anything anymore. Like it was shutting down in the wake of the obvious brutality her father had suffered. She hurriedly tugged down his shirt and pressed her palm against the wound, trying to stem the blood.
“Te amo, Papá,” she whispered, bending to plant a kiss on his forehead as she used her free hand to tag away his gag.
“Mi corazón,” her father rasped in a voice that could have belonged to a poltergeist. She stroked his cheek, and then gently laid his head back on the concrete, folding up the burlap sack for a makeshift pillow.
Then she got to her feet.
Blinked.
Looked around at everyone.
The Mexican had Angel by the throat while the man struggled. There was a bullet wound in Angel’s leg, although she couldn’t remember hearing a third shot go off.
El Lobo was smiling now. Smiling at her. As if pleased that she’d discovered the terrible things he’d done to her father. Someone called her name. Loud, panicked. But it was background noise as she ran at El Lobo, intent on strangling him until she’d forced that pleased grin from his lips.
Obviously, no one in the room thought she was a threat. No gunshot went off to stop her reaching Zachary.
She went at him like a feral cat. Fingers clawed, teeth showing in a vicious snarl, making an angry sound that could have doubled for a feline hiss.
He caught her wrists, twisted, and forced her to her knees. She would have cried out in pain, had it not been so agonizing that all she could do was draw in a ragged gasp.
Because she’d charged him without thinking. Bailey would have spat at her feet and stormed off in disgust. She had given Zachary every advantage. She might as well have crawled to him on her hands and knees.
El Lobo twisted harder. Her left knee issued wave upon wave of near blinding agony, but it almost matched the strain on the tendons in her arm. They went numb in warning, as if another quarter inch of a twist would break both her arms.
The man stared down at her with that same fascination he’d had earlier. “You’ve grown since I’ve last seen you, little Eleodora,” he murmured. “Do you still remember me?”
She managed a breathless, “No!” He was crazy. Insane. What he’d done to her father, and now he—
He released her wrists. She collapsed with a wail, head almost flush with her knees as she nursed her arms against her. They felt too loose, like he’d twisted her muscles to twice their length. A dull ache throbbed in them, working its way up her arms to her neck.
A hand fisted in her hair. Forced her head up. She blinked back tears of pain as Zachary lifted a gloved hand to his mouth, nipped the tip of one finger, and slowly drew his hand out.
More pain now as she jerked and kicked and screamed on the end of his hand. She could feel her hair pulling out, but she didn’t care. Her left leg had gone lame under her, but it didn’t stop her scrambling to her feet in an attempt to get away from him.
El Lobo.
Don Zachary.
No—the fucking English man.
55
Remember me?
Finn forced his arm to steady. It had been trembling ever so slightly, perhaps caught in the stream of contradicting thoughts spilling into his mind. He knew he had to shoot Zachary West. If this thing was an animal, West was the brain. The heart. The nervous system. Everyone else was just a limb.
But Cora was a struggling mess, and every time she moved, she blocked out a different part of El Lobo.
He could try and take out the man’s henchmen so long. But what was to say he wouldn’t pull her closer and strangle her to death before Finn had a chance to take more than one guy down?
“Easy,” Lars said from a few feet behind him. “Let’s think this through.”
They stood to the side of the hangar. They’d drawn a Mexican man’s aim, but he seemed content to keep his sights on them and nothing more. A tall red-headed man had Angel in a choke hold, and it seemed the kid was destined to pass out any second now.
And West had Cora by the hair, seeming pleased at how she struggled to break free from that single grip. He’d taken off his glove, and at first Finn couldn’t figure out why he’d waste the time. And then he saw the marbled flesh from what had to have been a third-degree burn.
And then Cora had gone fucking ape-shit.
Now, even if he wanted to put a bullet through West, he’d risk it going through Cora first.
“Think he’s dead?” Lars murmured.
Like he could give a shit about Swan right now. There was blood under him, more slowly pooling out like it had all fucking day, but his concern was Swan’s daughter.
“Let’s go,” Lars said, and stepped forward.
So much for fucking thinking it through.
But he was right behind Lars, the snapping and whining of his beast as much to blame for his impatience as his own thumping heart.
It took everything she had for Cora not to slip into a faint like a Victorian woman with a too-tight corset. As it was, those shadows she’d seen before came racing back, caressing Zachary like he was a god to them.
Which he was. He was the god of death and suffering. Of the four horsemen, he was pestilence because everything he touched decayed.
“Please,” she whispered, and hated herself for that pitiful plea.
It seemed to please Zachary. But then his face switched off, curiosity and pleasure vanishing. “Where are the archives?” he whispered.
She should have resisted. She should have spat in his face or tried stomping on his feet. But her spine had turned into wet string, and the only thing keeping her on her feet was the hand in her hair. She fumbled in her pocket.
But El Lobo was an impatient man. His lips smoothed into a line, that twisted hand darting out and knocking her fingers away. He shoved his hand in her pocket, not once losing eye contact as he dug deeper, deeper, deeper.
Her skin coursed with goosebumps at the thought of that disfigured skin touching her. Nausea welled up, and for a second she thought she’d puke all over him. Perhaps she should. It would—
But then he jerked his hand out, holding the Santa Muerte pendent in his fingers. Studying the saint as intently as he had Cora just a few minutes ago.
“Join us, Michael,” Zachary said, his eyes flashing to Cora’s.
A man emerged from the shipping container behind them. He held a laptop balanced on his palm, and adjusted a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles as he stepped into the hangar. He paused when he took in the scene, and then seemed almost incapable of moving.
Zachary’s Mexican lieutenant backed up, keeping his pistol aimed somewhere behind Cora. Then he grabbed Michael’s sleeve and drew the man forward with him, until Michael stood a few feet away from Zachary.
Zachary handed him the thumb drive, and the man pushed it into the side slot of the machine with a shuddering hand.
El Lobo’s gaze darted to the side, tracking movement across the hangar. He used his arm to twist Cora around, and then there was a gun against her head again.
She was getting decidedly fed up with that feeling.
Then she caught sight of Finn and Lars, and her stomach twisted. They were inside the hangar, guns out, looking as serious as stage three cancer. But they weren’t shooting anyone. They weren’t charging in. They were waiting…because they didn’t want her to get hurt.
Fuck!
“Shoot him!” she yelled.
Zachary shook her, and the jarring motion sent a new wave of pain through her leg. She swallowed hard, forcing herself not to mewl in pain as Zachary slowly began backing up.
“Stay where you are,” Zachary said calmly. “I will honor my agreement. If the files are on there, you get Antonio Rivera.” The English man laughed in her ear. The sound made every hair on her body stand up. “What’s left of him.”
Her father. Cora’s eyes flashed down. But he was dead. He had to be. He’d lost too much blood. The pool under his body wa
s wide and glassy, reflecting that one stray bullet-hole ray of sun.
“It needs a password,” Michael whispered tremulously.
Zachary slid his withered hand around her stomach and squeezed. “What’s the password, little Eleodora?” he murmured into her ear.
She convulsed when his lips brushed skin. And then tried starting up her breathing again. “I don’t know,” she said.
He shook her again, hard enough that her teeth clacked together. “Password. Now!”
“I don’t know!” She squeezed her eyes shut, so she couldn’t see Finn’s pale face, or the unhappy curve of Lars’s mouth. “Papá…” and then her voice broke, and sobs she hadn’t realized she’d been keeping back jerked out of her.
“Ssh,” Zachary murmured. “He’s already dead, little one. Crying’s not going to help. Now give me the password, or I’ll kill both your bodyguards. Do you really want their blood on your hands too?”
Her eyes snapped up. Finn wore his grimmest look yet, and gave a small shake of his head. Lars laughed and gave Zachary a mirthless smile.
“You really think she gives a fuck about us?” he asked. “We’re just here for the money, man. We bring her back to Javier alive, we’re getting us a damn fine paycheck.”
Even through her body’s agony, through the despair that tore at her like a raven’s claws, she could feel the sting of his words.
The smell of the man’s cologne came to her then. Something fresh and woody, almost like pine. But it wasn’t strong enough to override the smell of blood and sweat coming off her own body.
Zachary’s muscles moved as if he was shrugging. “Only one way to find out.”
But she would never find out what it felt like to lose one of them. Because if Finn or Lars died, if they left her stranded in this fucked up world, she’d have nothing left to live for.
As soon as that now-warm muzzle left the side of her temple, Cora drove her elbow back as hard as she could. Zachary huffed out a single breath, and then tried to aim the pistol back at her. But she knocked away his hand, spinning in his grip despite the agony this brought her leg, and shoved him away from her with all her might.
He tottered, caught off balance, but his Mexican lieutenant was at his side in an instant to catch him.
Two shots rang out in close succession.
The man with the laptop yelled and dove to the ground. The machine crashed down a few feet away, the splinter of plastic audible over the heartbeat’s length of silence that followed.
Then gun fire spat out from all sides.
Cora dropped to hands and knees, and put her arms over her head. She had to get closer to Finn and Lars, but they were spreading apart, both their right arms straight and squeezing their triggers in unison.
Angel lay in a heap on the floor—his attacker had turned his attention to Lars. A familiar shape drew her eye; the pistol Angel had been pressing to her head. It lay half-obscured under his motionless body.
She scrambled for it. A hand caught at her bare leg, slid down as she wriggled away, snagged her ankle. But gloves did a poor job of grabbing anything and she slipped free with a hard yank on her leg.
Then she had the pistol.
She swung around, intent on aiming it at Zachary. But as the sight moved across the room, she saw the red-haired man lifting his gun and aiming it straight at Lars.
Lars didn’t see. He was trying to cover Finn so he could get behind the side of the shipping container.
Cora aimed, blew out a slow breath, and squeezed the trigger.
56
Great duress
Finn managed a shot to the Mexican’s shoulder, but that hardly slowed the man down. He was trying to keep his eyes on Cora, but he could only hope she’d keep her fucking head down until he and Lars had dealt with the danger. If he or Lars could get a critical hit on one of West’s henchmen, it would be game over. But they moved like well-trained mercenaries, sidling to the sparse cover the hangar provided while laying down covering fire for each other.
He caught sight of the ginger from the corner of his eye. Pistol raised, pointed at Lars. But Lars only had eyes for the Mexican.
Finn opened his mouth to yell, to warn Lars, his own pistol swinging wide to take aim at the red-head’s determined face.
A single shot went off.
The ginger reeled back and slammed into the hangar’s corrugated iron wall. The metal pinged and warbled for a minute with the force with which his body had struck it, and then quietened down as he slid to the floor.
“No!” came a furious shout.
Finn spun. The Mexican’s face was contorted in a grimace as he barreled across the hangar. Not heading for Finn or Lars…but for Cora. Who was staring shell-shocked at the red-haired man like she couldn’t believe her bullet had struck home.
At that range, in these conditions? It was a fucking miracle.
Finn surged forward. He tackled the Mexican with a deep-throated roar, taking them both down. Finn managed a pistol whip to the man’s sombrero, but all that seemed to accomplish was knocking the hat from his head. He heard a gunshot go off, but if it had been Lars aiming for his attacker, he’d probably missed.
He tried throwing the man from him, but he must have set some kind of animal free in him, because the Mexican fought like a cornered tiger.
So Finn unleashed the foaming beast he kept cornered day in, day out.
His forehead slammed into his opponent’s face, where he felt the nose break. The man fell away with a yell, and Finn went with him, shoving him onto his back so hard that his head slammed into the concrete.
The yell cut off, but then he was grappling Finn. The Mexican got hold of his shirt and tried dragging him closer, perhaps so he could head butt him in return.
Finn drove his fist into the man’s jaw. His head snapped to the side, but he straightened it instantly and grabbed Finn’s jaw. His fingers scraped skin from his face as he tried to claw his fingers up to Finn’s eyes.
With a twist of his head, Finn caught the man’s fingers in his mouth. Bit down. And spat out the blood and bone and flesh he’d lopped off.
The Mexican didn’t seem to notice at first. And then, with a scream that echoed in every corner of the hangar, he pulled away his ruined hand and stared at it in morbid fascination as it pumped blood into the air.
Once, twice. Finn punched him again. The man went slack under him, perhaps admitting defeat.
Inside his mind, Finn’s beast roared in triumph. And then set about tearing his foe limb from limb.
Another punch.
He grabbed the man’s hair, and slammed the back of his head into the concrete.
Again.
Again.
There was a puddle under the dark head now. The snap-crackle of disintegrating bone whenever his skull made contact with it.
Again.
A voice; someone saying his name.
Again. He felt the man’s skull weakening.
“…Milo.”
Again.
Hair stayed behind in his fingers, and he tried to grip more, but everything was too wet with blood. Too slippery. The man wore a rictus grin, face distorted now that his skull was no longer the same shape.
“Milo, stop!”
He lifted that ruined head, his beast panting and slathering for more blood, and then heard someone retching.
When he blinked, all he saw was red. It took him a few seconds to realize that was from the blood that had sprayed into his eyes. Hands closed around his shoulders. More untangled his fingers from the hair he still clung to.
He was guided to his feet. And then turned away into the eerie gloom of twilight.
“Fuck my life,” came the trembling voice at his side. “Fuck my fucking life.”
His beast slunk back into its corner. Then, purring smugly, it curled up and began licking its paws, as if cleaning them of blood.
The pistol felt cold and heavy in her hand. She almost dropped it, but then the Mexican charged for her. She squeeze
d the trigger, but nothing happened. No bullets? How many rounds had Angel shot? She dropped the gun and kicked back.
Then Finn collided with the man, both men sprawling to the concrete.
Papá.
But when she turned her head to look for him, her eyes found the Santa Muerte pendant instead. It had been thrown from the laptop, perhaps jarred free on impact, and lay a few feet away between her and Zachary. A ray of light made it gleam like some long-lost treasure, freshly unearthed. A ray of sun beaming down from the bullet Angel had sent ricocheting through the roof.
She scrambled up, gritted her teeth through the pain that brought, and dove for it. Her fingers closed around the pendant a split second before a silver-tooled cowboy boot thumped down on her hand.
Screaming, she tried to drag her hand free. But that just brought more pain. Zachary twisted his heel, and she threw her head back, begging him to release her with her eyes as she drew breath for another desperate yell.
“What’s the password?” he asked calmly, as if there wasn’t a gunfight raging around them. Then he crouched, putting even more of his weight on her hand. The edges of her vision blackened before sparkling with coruscating light.
“I. Don’t. Know,” she whispered urgently. “Papá. Didn’t. Say.” Every word was a tribulation, every breath after just fuel for another wail.
“You know it,” Zachary said, tapping a temple that felt bruised from all the muzzles it had been contact with today. “Somewhere in there, you know.”
“Please!” came her breathless plea. “Please, I can’t—”
The pain was too much. Her body had run out of its own painkillers, or couldn’t supply enough to all the areas of her that stung, ached, throbbed, or burned. That darkness crept closer, oozing from El Lobo again. It wrapped around her arm and began crawling over her neck, up to her face.
