Page 33 of What I Should Have Done

His body collapsed, dead weight onto mine. Warm blood dripped down my chin, coating my teeth and tongue red as I spat the torn part of his ear from my lips.

“What the hell was that?” Ford’s voice came through the radio as I breathed heavily beneath the dead assailant’s body.

“Viper ripped a dude’s ear off,” Scottie replied with a crackle.

“The fuck?” Bernie asked with a grunt.

“With his teeth,” she added.

There was no stopping the wicked smile that spread on my lips as I rolled my head sideways and stared out of the window. Though I couldn’t see her, I knew she saw me—a show that had been all for her.

“Of course he did,” Ford grumbled. “Two more coming your way, Viper.”

Shoving the body to the side, I rose from the ground and stalked back to the hallway. Posting up against the wall, I waited with my rifle at the ready in my hands—ready for the two assailants who were going to emerge from the staircase below me at any moment.

And I easily picked them off with a couple shots.

“Approaching the target.” Dom’s voice slipped through the chaos, quiet and reserved.

But there was hardly any break as he suddenly cried out, “Shit!”

“Shit? What’s going on?” I replied through the comms as my finger squeezed the trigger, sending another approaching assailant to his death.

“Get here, now!” Dom commanded. Cracks of gunfire swallowed any other instruction. All hell broke loose on the floor above. Spinning on my heel without hesitation, I aimed the barrel of my gun up the stairs and took two at a time.

Emerging at the top, smoke and shouting clouded my vision. Limbs flew aimlessly with bullets that whizzed by me.

I couldn’t orient myself amongst all of the mayhem. Wood splintered, crashing above my head against the wall behind me. Whether there was a window or wood, concrete or flesh, I had no idea. The enemy couldn’t decipher who was friend or foe. And Dom and Duncan were somewhere lost in the pandemonium.

“Location, Phoenix,” I asked through the comms.

“Far side from the staircase, your twelve,” Dom replied.

“I’m here,” Ford answered before I was able to, and a hand patted my shoulder, alerting me to the arrival of a companion. “Bernie’s keeping our exit clear, but we’ve got to hustle.”

“Moving,” I said and raised my gun, stepping into the havoc.

Sending cover fire as we pushed forward against the wall, something thumped against the ground. Bodies froze, gunfire ceased, and the only sound left was my own bullets whirring from the barrel.

They knew we’d joined the fight.

“Reloading,” I stated, and Ford took up the fire as I dropped the now empty mag and clicked a new one in its place.

The smoke and dust began to settle. We continued forward like the shadows that were our cover.

Chaos slipped away like a bubble on a hot summer day, replaced by the death that we delivered as the final combatant was met with Ford’s bullet.

“Hold,” he whispered. My feet stopped, and we both squatted behind a wooden dresser knocked haphazardly on its side.

Scanning the living area we’d breached, my heart raced like a madman against my ribs, commanding oxygen through my veins. Broken furniture scattered the rectangular room. A rug soaked in blood where four bodies lie. Two more dead targets slumped sideways against the wall opposite our position, dripping iron liquid like a leaky faucet onto the crib that lay cracked on two legs.

Inhaling a steadying breath through my mouth, I made a final sweep of the windowless room and paused at a wayward floorboard covered halfway by the rug. Directly where my twelve had been, where Dom and Duncan should have been but weren’t. It was now that I noticed this was the only room in the entire building that had wooden floors.

I nodded once at Ford, and he pointed his gun toward the staircase—the only way in or out from this final room—providing me cover. I crept forward, keeping my own weapon readied against my shoulder. Stepping around bullet casings and over a mangled hand whose owner was missing, I nudged the rug back with a toe.

It rolled away, as if trained to do so. The wayward floorboard wasn’t just any floorboard. Crouching, I spun the rifle to my back and crouched, prying the rest of the trap door up. A stench unlike anything I’d ever smelled before crashed hot against my face.

Choking down the vomit that curdled in my throat, I slunk around to the side of the ladder leading into a blackened abyss just as fingers wrapped around the last visible rung.

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