Four Live Rounds

She asked, “Where’s Javier?”

“Don’t worry. He’ll be along.”

Fidel faked a lunge, drew back into a boxer’s stance, and jabbed, his reach longer than what seemed commensurate with his height.

She slipped the punch, thinking, Next time you better fire back.

He smiled. “You’re quick. Still, I am going to knock all of your teeth out of your mouth and shatter the bones in your face. Do you know what’s going to happen after that?”

Fidel charged. Kalyn sidestepped, his elbow catching her above the left eye. She staggered back, blood sheeting down her face in a flood of warm pain, then turned, sprinting for the Browning. She could see it against the library door, glinting in the firelight.

Fidel whistled. She froze. He came forward, holding the Mossberg at waist level.

“¡Vamos!”

She was twenty feet away, point-blank range for a shotgun, no way to miss unless you set your mind to it.

“¡Vamos!”

Kalyn walked back toward the hearth.

He said, “Get down on the floor.”

She complied, watched him jog over to the library door and pick up the Browning. Fidel pocketed the clip, ejected the live round, then dropped the empty pistol on the floor. He returned and stood over Kalyn, pumping the shotgun again and again. For a moment, she thought he was f**king with her, then wondered if he was confused, unsure of how to operate the weapon. When she saw the shells falling on the stone, she understood.

He slung the shotgun across the lobby, where it slammed into the wall.

“Get up.”

Kalyn struggled to her feet, her head in agony.

The blade caught a sliver of lantern light as the Alpha moved toward her.

Will inched the shotgun barrel toward the corner as Javier spoke.

“I will disarm you, your wife, and Kalyn, immobilize you, and let you watch me slowly and methodically take her apart.”

“What has my daughter done to you, Javier?”

“She is loved by you. That is plenty.”

Devlin gripped the shotgun. Nothing to do but trust she’d pumped it several hours ago. She stood at the door, found the lock in the darkness, slowly turned the dead bolt.

She grasped the doorknob, trying to remember if it had squeaked when she’d opened it before. Turn it slowly. Slower than you’ve ever done anything in your entire life.

The knob turned. Painstakingly, she pulled the door open—just an inch so it could clear the frame. A ribbon of light stretched across the floor, and Devlin let the doorknob ease back into place.

The man’s voice sounded close, a few feet up the corridor.

She pulled the knob again, opening the door another inch, light texturing the exterior. It was chewed up by buckshot—a swath of damage near the floor, another at the top of the door frame. She peeked around the corner, glanced up the corridor. Javier was squatting down along the wall beside a black duffel bag, his back to her, a cigarette dangling from his lips. In one hand, he held a pistol fitted with a silencer and a long magazine. In his other hand was a small device that reminded her of an oversize PEZ dispenser. Javier crouched ten feet from the stairwell, where, under the archway, Devlin’s father was hunched down with a shotgun.

When he saw her, his eyes went wide and he shook his head and mouthed, “Get back inside that room.”

SEVENTY-ONE

Kalyn held out her hands as she backed away from Fidel, realized she hadn’t heard anything from the Innises since the shotgun blasts a few minutes ago, wondered if they’d managed to get themselves killed.

Fidel’s knife didn’t look particularly menacing—a black plastic handle with finger grips supporting a four-inch blade, each side slightly serrated, the end curving to a nasty point. He held it in his right hand, moving nimbly on his feet, a hard, focused determination pulsing in his black eyes.

“This makes you proud? To fight a woman this way? You know I’m outmatched.” She was backpedaling toward the opening of the south-wing corridor, Fidel’s face becoming less distinct, more shadowy than firelit.

“This has not a thing to do with my pride,” he said. “This is only about causing you pain.” He lunged, swiped—a fluid, lightning motion, and before she could react, Kalyn’s right arm felt suddenly cold, blood running under the sleeve of her fleece jacket, dripping off the ends of her fingers, but no pain yet, only that awful metallic cold. Next came a ripping sound: fleece splitting. Another flash of ice, this time spreading down through her abdomen.

“Javier warned me not to touch you, but I don’t think he’ll mind a little innocent necking.”

She felt light-headed. The instructor in a grappling seminar at the Academy had said something that now banged around inside her head like a prophecy fulfilled. The most dangerous adversary you’ll ever face is an opponent who’s skilled with a knife. Avoid these confrontations at all costs.

She backed into the corridor, her legs weakening, blood streaming down her thighs, her shinbones, into her socks. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

They will take you slowly apart if you don’t know what you’re doing.

She could barely see Fidel now—just a silhouette against the low light of the lobby.

He advanced on her again and she felt the draft from knife wipes passing within inches of her face.

He sliced her right hand. Carved a two-inch line across her cheek, just missing her nose.

They were midway down the corridor now, and every passing second, it hurt more to breathe, the cold transforming into a glow in her chest.

She tripped over Suzanne’s body, fell, scrambled back onto her feet. Fidel slipped on the blood but caught himself. He was close again, within three feet, and cornering her into the alcove. In the bright moonlight that came through the broken window, she saw her fleece pants slicked with blood.

Fidel said, “You are not bleeding too much I hope. This is foreplay. Don’t come yet. Javier would never forgive me.”

He opened the top of her left leg, but she didn’t respond to the pain, turning instead, as if to break for the stairwell, heard the floor creak as he lunged after her, Kalyn spinning to face him, catching Fidel in the exact mistake she’d prayed for—a wide, careless knife swipe—which she parried, now palming his elbow, her other hand grasping his wrist. A quick jerk broke the man’s forearm, just a soft snap followed by a howl of pain that was squelched when she punched him in the throat, a solid, direct hit, the hardest blow she’d ever landed, powered by hips and fear and rage.