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Pretty sure one just pissed their pants.
“One. Two.”
I put Matthew against the wall and lunged. Someone screamed, and the door punctured the wall with how hard they flung it open on their way out.
I turned to go back for Matthew, but there was a grunt and groan deeper in the room.
“Kruger,” I called. Another groan. “Fuck.”
I ran forward to find the biggest guard on the floor, knocked out cold.
Behind me, Matthew gasped. “No,” he said and tried to rush around me.
I grabbed him around the waist, stopping him, but he kept trying to go.
“Ben.” His voice cracked.
“Stay back, P,” Kruger said, a little more serious than normal.
I looked then, seeing McClaren holding a steak knife to his throat.
“Oh, for shit’s sake,” I spat.
“Grabbed me from behind after I knocked out wannabe Captain America over there,” Kruger explained.
I shifted Matthew toward the bed so he could sit down. He didn’t stay there, though. His ass hit the mattress and then bounced right off as he shoved past me, rushing to help his brother.
“Stay back. I’ll slit his throat. The arterial spray will paint this room,” McClaren threatened.
“It’s a shitty steak knife, dipshit. Good luck with that,” Kruger intoned.
It was impressive his audacity remained even when being held at knifepoint.
Matthew was beyond hearing, beyond rational thought, and kept advancing. Kruger winced when the blade pricked his skin. Matthew growled, the first time I’d ever heard him make that sound, and then he lunged.
McClaren screamed, and Kruger jammed his elbow back, hitting him in the ribs to escape his hold. Matthew snatched the knife and stabbed it into the old man’s stomach.
He shouted, the sound pure pain, then gurgled. Disbelief shrouded his face when he looked at the knife sticking out of him and then up at his cast-aside son.
“I thought about what I did,” Matthew said, his voice almost monotone. It lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. “And I decided I’m done being your victim.”
The old man flinched and stumbled back when Matthew stepped toward him. “No! Leave my intestines alone! No!”
“P, did you threaten this asshole’s intestines?” Kruger asked. “I’m proud.”
“He got that line from me,” I told him.
Matthew ignored us and kept advancing, batting away McClaren’s attempt at pushing him back to wrap his hand around the handle of the knife. A wet sucking sound filled the room as he ripped it out. “Oops,” he said, dropping the bloodied knife on the floor. “Probably should have left it in.”
McClaren howled, reaching around to slap both hands over the profusely bleeding wound.
It wasn’t deep enough to kill, just enough to hurt and make him bleed like a stuck pig. A mean glint competed with the pain in his eyes, and his lips parted, likely to say something else Matthew would never be able to unhear.
I slammed my fist into his mouth, cutting my knuckle on one of his teeth, then stepped back to watch him spit it out at his foot.
“You don’t get the last word.” I snarled. Then to Kruger, I ordered, “Call the police.”
I turned to see Matthew looking smaller than I’d ever imagined he could look. It was like the final confrontation with his father drained everything left inside him.
