Zack Hightower was utterly exhausted, but he rolled onto his side and grabbed the knife, and just as Kincaid leapt into the air towards him, Zack swung the big blade in a slashing motion in the air.
The knife swept across Kincaid’s midsection, cut through his coat and his shirt and his stomach. Opened him up deeply, and the man rolled over and past Zack, then tried to climb up.
Zack lunged again, landed on top of the man, and stabbed him in his midsection.
Kincaid’s wide eyes, shining in the moonlight like the bloody knife in Zack’s hand, stared up at him in disbelief.
Zack straddled the wounded man, raised the knife high over his head. “That’s my girl you fucked with, you son of a bitch!”
He dropped his full weight down onto the man, the blade leading the way, and it sank deep into Scott Kincaid’s heart.
—
A noise off to Zack’s right pulled him out of his rage. He looked to see Pete Delaney sliding down the driveway, moving quickly, but in a much more controlled fashion than Zack and Lancer had just done.
He climbed to his feet at the edge of the snowbank. Stared down at Zack through the broken bushes, took in the dead man lying on his back in the snow.
“That him?” was all he said.
“Yeah,” Zack replied through gasps for air.
Delaney nodded. Then looked at Zack. “You hurt?”
Zack breathed heavily, staring back at Delaney. He knew he’d been cut on the shoulder, had taken blows all over his body, might even have broken bones during his dozen or so rough impacts with the driveway. But he said, “Never better, brother.”
Pete moved through the snowbank, arrived at Zack, and extended a hand. Pulling him off the dead kidnapper, he said, “Nice work.”
“Thanks.”
With only a tiny hint of a smile, Delaney said, “Now…get out of my life.”
Zack glanced down at the dead man, then back to Delaney. “Yeah. Will do.”
Delaney pulled his earpiece out of his ear and handed it over. “Think you lost yours. Your guy has Andie; they’re safe, she wasn’t harmed at all. Your guy keeps asking for you to report your status.”
Zack took the headset, spoke between labored breaths. “Night Trainfor Six. We’re good here. Lancer’s DRT. We’re heading back to get the vehicles. Pete’s gonna come grab her first; I’m going to police up the cabin we staged in and then follow.”
—
Court had spent the last two minutes assuring Andie Delaney that everything was just perfect, when all the while, all he’d heard was her father telling him that Zack and Lancer had fallen down the sloping, iced driveway and disappeared while trying to rip each other’s throats out.
He confirmed receipt of Zack’s transmission, then he smiled now at the kid, and the kid looked back at him, but he knew she couldn’t see much with his neck gaiter up.
He said, “Your dad is going to pick you up when we get down to the road.”
She nodded, then, after another minute trudging through deep snow, she said, “I can’t believe all those people got killed because they grabbed the wrong kid.”
Court tried to think of words that could help. Over the crunching of boots in the snow, he said, “They got killed because they grabbedakid. Listen carefully to me. None of this is on you. Shit like this happens. It most definitely shouldn’t, but it does. Everything is okay now. I’m taking you to your dad, I’m dropping you off, and you need to forget that this happened.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Bruh, what are you talking about? It’s gonna be all over the news.”
“No. Actually, it’s not.”
“Why not?”
Court shrugged. “There are things I can’t explain. Somehow, a lot of the details of this are going to get covered up.”
“Why?”
