I’d promised her that would never happen again. I said I was going to keep her safe, and there is no way in hell I’m going to let that asshole get in the way of my promise.
He is going to die.
My body calms. My heartbeat slows, and my vision sharpens.
My gun is at my hip. I know Caesar is a good shot—I’ve seen him practice often enough. I also know I’m better, but I’m at a disadvantage. His weapon is drawn, and mine is not. By the time I pull out the gun, he will have had plenty of time to fire.
I’m thirty feet away from them. If I stand still, he will definitely hit me. If he hits me, the chances of saving Hannah are drastically reduced. I have to move fast and unpredictably. I also have to get her away from him as quickly as possible. Speed won’t be enough—I need cover.
All of this races through my head in a split second.
The only cover in sight is a faded blue Ford in the street, and I dive forward and roll toward the front tire. I hear shots fire and Hannah screaming, but I reach my destination without being hit.
“Get your ass out here, Falk!” Caesar yells. “If you don’t, I’ll put a fucking bullet right in her head!”
“You aren’t going to kill her,” I call from around the tire as I reach for my gun. “You’re out of women. You need her alive.”
“Maybe so,” he says, “but I sure as fuck can hurt her. Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll just fuck her in the ass right here while you watch. Then I’ll put a bullet in your skull.”
I’m not about to fall for that shit.
“I’m the one you want,” I remind him. “I’m the one who took her from you. Now why don’t you let her sit off to the side, and we can settle this between the two of us.”
“Is that how you think this is going to go down?”
I take a deep breath and force myself to think for a moment.
Caesar was obviously caught up in the explosion. He’s also obviously alone, or he’d have his backup hauling Hannah off while he took care of
me. That means he’s the only survivor of that attack, and he was badly hurt. Hell, he might have completely lost his mind over the whole thing.
A little psychological warfare is called for.
“So tell me something,” I say, trying to draw him into another line of thought. “When your little base blew up, was your brother there? Did he burn like the puffed-up marshmallow that he was? That’s a shit way to go, dontcha think? I bet he screamed a lot. Did you hear him? Did you hear him screaming while he burned?”
“Motherfucker.” His voice is low, but I still hear the curse.
“I bet you wonder how they found you, huh? I’ll tell you how.”
“What the fuck do you know?”
“I ordered that attack,” I tell him. “Yeah, I got my little contact on the other side. Bet you never suspected that, did ya? Aliens came right to me, asking me if there was anything they could do to help me out. Thought to myself, ‘Ya know? There is this little batch of fucktards over there by Georgia Tech. Why don’t you just bomb the bejesus out of them for me, huh?’ Their only question was to ask for the precise coordinates. Nearly took ten minutes.”
“Get out here, you fucker,” Caesar yells. I can hear his footsteps as he moves toward the street. If he’s moving toward me, he’s moving away from Hannah. I only hear the footsteps of one. “You wanna put the guns down and fight this out? Because I’d be happy to just go ahead and fuck you up.”
“That sounds pretty ideal to me,” I reply. “Put the guns down and fight it out, man to man.”
“Sure.”
He’s lying; I can hear it in his voice. He’s just hoping to draw me out, but I don’t have a lot of options. If I can’t get to him, we’ll be in a stalemate, and that doesn’t get Hannah to safety.
I step out from behind the Ford with my gun hanging at my side. Caesar stands the same way with his finger on the trigger. He’s got a nasty smirk on his face—overconfident and just a little bit crazy.
I drop as soon as I see his arm flex and hear the blast just afterward. The ground is abruptly in my face, smashing my nose. There’s a sharp pain in my right arm when I land on it, and I can’t take a breath as the wind is knocked out of me.
Did he shoot me?
I don’t feel any pain like I did when I was shot before. All the pain is in my arm, but it doesn’t burn.