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A little closer and I’m able to make out Priest hauling open a door of one of the semis.
“Priest!” I thunder, coming in hot.
He stills on climbing inside at the sound of my voice.
Just what I was counting on.
I’m slamming into him in the next second, tackling him off the truck.
The impact has us hitting the ground real hard. I use the momentum to roll and come back up in a crouch.
I’m up before him and as he tries to do the same, I thrust my boot into his face, knocking him back down.
He grunts and curses me out.
He’s gonna be doing more than that soon. Gonna be screaming for mercy.
“You could’ve been my right-hand, could’ve worked with me,” he says, spitting a mouthful of blood out on the ground. “You could’ve been part of something bigger.”
I stalk to him, grab him by the scruff of his neck and jerk him to me, snarling, “I don’t work for pieces of shit like you.” I smash my fist into his face, breaking his fucking nose, blood spewing all over his face, my hand. As he gurgles and splutters, I roar, “You came after my family! My daughter!”
“You’re lucky my men failed their mission.” A sadistic smirk plays on his lips. “I was gonna cage her, use her, defile her, and break her. She would’ve come to hate you, come to realize what you really are. An irredeemable monster who brings nothing but pain and misery to every life he touches.”
My hand holding him shakes with rage at his venomous words.
I haul him up to his feet and he hangs there limply in my hold.
“I am a monster. It’s what I gotta be to protect them all.” I knee him in the gut, release him, and he stumbles back. And then I’m wailing on him, beating the shit out of him, finally unleashing it all. “This is what that looks like, motherfucker. This is where you took it. You brought out the devil! That’s what I fucking well am, what I’ll always be to anybody who comes at what’s mine. Merciless!”
He collapses to the ground, a bloodied, barely conscious mess.
I cock my gun and take aim.
He holds up a trembling hand. “No. Please. I—”
A shot rings out and it ain’t mine.
It blows through Priest’s skull, killing him instantly.
I spin around to see Char standing there, her gun aimed his way.
“What the—”
“I told you, sweets, I’ll stay with you in the dark.”
I turn and walk to her, throwing my arms around her.
I hold her tight to me, my hands all over her, when they really shouldn’t be with so much blood tainting them. But I just gotta feel her, feel all of her, just to make sure she’s real, that we actually made it through it, that she’s here with me.
“It’s done, Cal,” she assures me, fisting my jacket and holding me to her desperately, clearly needing it just like I do right now. “The mission’s over. We’re free.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Yeah, we are.”
* * *
I watchthe warehouse burning in the distance.
Cavalno decided not to salvage anything inside. Weren’t the right thing to do, he said. He weren’t thinking like that beforehand, so I gotta figure that the kid, King, had something to do with it.
