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When Cujo stoops to grab me again, massive hands grasping either side of my shirt, I flick out the blade and stab it down into the side of his neck.
There’s no boxer like an old boxer. Cujo slipped and ducked thousands of punches in his prime. He sees the flash of metal in his peripheral and twists, the blade embedding in that thick band of muscle running from neck to shoulder instead of in the jugular.
He roars and stumbles back.
I kick out at his knee, buckling it, then I try to punch him as hard as I can in the balls. He turns and my fist meets hipbone instead. I howl, cradling my hand. He backhands me across the face, knocking me back into the refrigerator.
His face is the color of brick, right hand shaking as he reaches across his broad body to pull out the knife.
It looks pathetically small in his hand. Cujo tosses it aside, the knife spinning away across the tiles.
His eyes are bloodshot beneath the heavy shelf of his brow. He snarls and lunges for me once more.
“Wait wait wait!” I cry, holding up my hands. “I’ll tell you what you want to know!”
Zakharov makes a hissing sound, snapping Cujo out of his rage, stopping him short.
“Where will Adrik be?” he demands.
“I’ll tell you. I just want a smoke first.”
Zakharov’s eyes narrow, studying my face.
We both know he’s not letting me walk out of here alive—especially not if he plans to ambush Adrik.
Even prisoners get one last cigarette before the firing squad.
Zakharov nods to Cujo. Cujo reaches in the pocket of his track pants, pulling out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. He shakes one out and passes it to me.
“Lighter?” I croak.
Less of a gentleman than Jasper, Cujo tosses me his zippo.
I put the cigarette between my lips, on the side not split and bleeding.
Leaning back against the broken shelves, I gaze at Zakharov. Spilled product soaks through my jeans, bits of glass digging into my thighs. The chemical stench mingles with the scent of propane.
My right hand is all fucked up from punching Cujo. I hold the zippo in my left, giving a few experimental flicks at the wheel with my thumb.
Zakharov watches, impatient, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips.
Cujo glowers at me, blood soaking down the arm of his tracksuit, dripping from his fingertips.
If this is my last view, I wish it were prettier.
“I’m sorry about Zigor,” I say to Zakharov. “But you have to admit … he was obnoxious as hell.”
I flick the wheel, spark the flame, and toss the lighter toward the gas range.
Before I can draw up my legs and pull the fridge door closed, before the zippo has even landed, the propane ignites in a surging storm of liquid fire. It roars toward us with deafening noise and heat, swallowing up all the air in the room, incinerating everything in its path.
The force of the explosion helps slam the fridge door. I’m closed up in the cold, dark coffin, the refrigerator rocking against the wall as it’s blasted backward. I can feel the heat leaking in through the seams. My right arm burns where I reached out to yank the door shut.
The fire rushes past like a freight train.
In its wake I hear shouts and the distant sound of alarms, and sprinklers going off in the restaurant next door. There’s chaos and clattering, dishes smashing, people running.
I kick at the inside of the refrigerator door, breaking the latch, forcing it open again.
