Page 61 of Assistant to the Assassin

Redemption Lies Plainly in Truth

I watch a bloody, disheveled Harrison turn around in circles, screaming my name. There’s a feral gleam in his eyes as he looks around, his gun poised and ready in his grip.

“Come out here and face me, you fucker!” he shouts, his voice breaking towards the end. Given his limp and the blood dripping from his foot, I’d guess he got bit by the bear trap.

I know that if there’s a time to shoot him, it’s now, so I adjust my position and take aim, and Harrison keeps screaming for me.

“You come out now and I’ll spare Reed!”

I pause, staring down at him through the leaves of the tree.

Harrison cackles, looking a little delirious. “I know she’s more than just your assistant. I’ll spare her life if you come and face me man-to-man. Come here and face me!”

“Henry, don’t,” I hear Beth say from my earpiece, but her voice sounds distant, muffled. All I can hear is Harrison’s crazed laugh as he talks about the woman I love.

“You are such a fucking coward!” he screams. “I will kill her slowly, I will peel the skin from her bones, crush her skull beneath my fingers, tear—”

I pull on the trigger and watch him jump away right before my bullet hits. With my position now known, Harrison takes cover behind a thick tree log and opens fire on the tree I’m perched in. I use the trunk and branches for cover, but too much of my body is exposed to his gunfire.

I shoot back at him, never quite managing to make my mark. Harrison goes through several rounds for his pistol before he switches to a backup gun, and all the while he sings the song Ambrose must be playing in his earpiece.

“Oh, lay that pistol down, babe

Lay that pistol down

Pistol packin’ mama

Lay that pistol down.”

If I make it out of this alive, I’m going to berate Ambrose for his choice in music.

The two of us continue to take shots at each other, going through our rounds so quickly it’s becoming a race to see who’s faster at reloading their gun. Unfortunately, the answer might be Harrison, because when the both of us are loading in a new magazine, Harrison finishes a couple seconds before me, shooting a bullet that hits me right in the calf.

The shot knocks me off balance, and before I can catch myself, I fall out of the tree, leaving my gun behind. I hit the ground on my side, slamming my injured leg on the ground. I bite my lip to muffle my scream, a task that becomes harder once I drag myself behind the trunk of the tree to stay covered from Harrison’s insistent gunfire. I do my best to shoot him back with the pistol I had on my belt, but my aim is shit. He isn’t doing much better; the blood loss and pain have made him erratic and uncoordinated, and I know I’m not far behind.

Pretty soon he and I both run out of ammo, and I know that things are about to get ugly. Harrison starts moving towards me, so I grit my teeth and force myself to my feet, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my leg. When Harrison is within arm’s reach, he punches me in the face hard, nearly sending me back down to the ground, but I manage to regain my balance, though my leg screams in protest.

“I have been dreaming about this moment for weeks,” he tells me, attempting to punch me again, but I duck and hit him in the gut, headbutting him as he hunches over in pain. My head throbs from the impact, but it manages to make him stumble backwards, giving me the opportunity to kick him hard in the chest, sending him toppling to the ground.

Unfortunately, I also fell to the ground because my injured leg can’t hold up my own weight by itself. Harrison forces himself up, blinking rapidly as he tries to refocus his attention on me. While he hesitates, I launch forward, punching him in the face, making blood spew from his mouth onto the grassy floor. Harrison growls and returns my punch with one of his own, gripping my shirt in one hand while he hits me repeatedly with the other.

“My brother was all I had,” he says through gritted teeth, tackling me to the ground, proceeding to punch and slam my head into the dirt. “You took him from me!”

I bring my knee up into his crotch, wrapping my arms around his neck so I can topple us both over so he’s no longer on top of me.

“He was using his power to kill innocent people. He had to be stopped.”

He kicks at my injured leg, making me yell out in pain, but that’s quickly cut off when he headbutts me. He tries to get to his feet, but before he can, I grab a rock off the ground and slam it down on his injured foot, sending him right back to the floor.

“There are no innocents—only the weak and the strong.”

I swing my legs around and slide across the ground, connecting my foot with his face, breaking his nose. I try kicking at him again, but he grabs my leg and digs his thumb into my bullet wound. I let out a scream, kicking at him until he releases my leg, then I take my rock and start beating it into his chest. I manage to get a few hits in before he catches my arm and snaps my shoulder back, dislocating it. I drop the rock with another shout, but I punch him with my other arm before he can even think about picking it up off the ground.

“You and your brother kill fucking children! Does it make you feel strong to bathe in their pain and blood? Your childhood sucked, so little Timmy can’t have one at all? I wish I had made your brother’s death as painful as I’m going to make yours!”

He spits blood into my face, frantically grabbing at my neck and shoulders in an attempt to choke me, but I twist out of his grip, wrapping my arms around his arm and waist, flipping him over my shoulder. He lands on the other side of me, and I immediately hop into his back, keeping him pinned to the ground. I grip his hair and slam his head into the ground a couple times, but he manages to push himself up and roll over, so he lands with me beneath him. He elbows me in the side, trying to headbutt me from behind him, but keep a hold on his body with my legs and one good arm, trying to keep him locked down.

“I wasn’t there,” he hisses, trying to swat me off. “I didn’t protect him. It was my job to protect him.”

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