Page 85 of Karma

The battle noise grows louder. I’m starting to see the Devils clearly. It’s easy to tell them apart. They’re the ones moving like assassins for whom defeat isn’t an option. They’re the ones mowing down everything in their path. They’re the ones winning this battle.

“This fucking wait is killing me,” I whisper at Joker.

“Keep your eyes on the horizon,” he says. “They’ll be here any moment.”

“They’re so close,” I insist. “Can we strike now?”

I’m so done trying to corral all the conflicting, painful, noisy, thoughts swishing across my mind. I need this to be over. One way or another.

“I want them just a little closer… “ Joker says, eyeing some middle distance point, which I assume is the line he thinks the Devils have to cross before we can execute his plan. I hope to Christ they’re close to it.

“Now!” he suddenly yells into the walkie-talkie he’s holding and my heart actually leaps for joy. Fina-fucking-ly.

Several explosions go off, sending the ground in front of the approaching Devils into the air. More explosions follow and now a wall of sand is hiding the Devils from us, sparkling in the sunlight. Maybe it’s over. Maybe we killed them all.

But then the dust clears and shows us the Devils retreating. The look of triumph on Joker’s face plainly tells me they’re going exactly where he wanted them to go. I’ve known him for so long and so well, I can read him like an open book. And right now, it’s the sort of book that has a happy ending. This part of his plan went the way he wanted it to go.

“Move, get in position,” he orders over the walkie. “Keep the cover fire going.”

We move too and find the Devils all clustered together at the bottom of a narrow crevice between two flat-topped hills, ready for the plucking.

The expression on Joker’s face changes, turns dark and frustrated. The happy ending must be retreating for some reason only he can see. But I think I see it too. It must have something to do with the fact that only about fifty Devils are in the crevice. But before I can ask him what the problem is, bullets start flying at us from all directions.

“Retreat, pull back, pull back to Point Zero,” Joker shouts through the walkie.

He looks around, waiting until everyone else starts running before he does too. I’m by his side where I belong.

Point Zero is what he calls our very last circle of defense. It’s right above Main Street. And as we run, the Devils are closing their own ring around us.

“They broke through on the main road. The bastards just rode right in, at least fifty strong,” Manic’s voice comes over the walkie. “All our fucking bullets just bounced right off them.”

“Pull back to Point Zero,” Joker instructs him. “Get behind them.”

“Can’t move… sniper got me in the leg,” Manic says. “They got snipers everywhere. Up high and far out. Everyone here’s down.”

Manic had thirty guys with him. I’m guessing over fifty already fell in the hills. We’re down to less than three hundred men. Even if the Devils have an equal number left, we’re still outnumbered.

The roar of bikes approaching down Main Street makes it impossible to keep doing that math in my head. The men on those bikes are shooting as they ride and bullets are flying everywhere, hitting everything in their path, the noise as they hit wood, glass and metal even louder than the roar of engines.

The Devils have turned the tables on us. We are the fish in a barrel now, surrounded on all sides.

I finally spot Karma’s golden hair flying free on a hill behind the town. Grim is beside her, looking like a lone wolf put on this earth just to protect her. For a while, I tricked myself into thinking he was here to protect me as well. But that was just pretty lies I wanted to believe.

All that talk of never wanting to betray me and here they are standing with men who want me dead? Fucking liars. I almost believed them back there in the settling dust of the last battle wefound ourselves on the opposite sides of. But if they meant it, they wouldn’t have come to this one too.

I still want to believe them, especially as Grim’s eyes find me, the laser as hot, sharp and inviting as ever, and focused just on me. How can someone lie so well with just a look?

But that’s a stupid question. Maybe my ghost haunting them will get the answer. I’ll find out sooner rather than later if that idea holds any hope.

Ice himself has dismounted in front of the Saloon, and he aims his gun directly at Joker. The bullet flies right between us, missing us both by only a couple of inches. Joker looks at me, the look on his face saying all that needs to be said. This is it. The end scene of the revenge we’d been plotting for the past fifteen years.

“Come out, Joker,” Ice hollers. “You’re surrounded. You lost. But we’ll let the others live if you come out and face me now.”

“I’m right here,” Joker yells and tosses his walkie to me.

“I’m coming down now,” he adds. “No one better shoot me in the back and make Ice a liar now.”

“You’re not going down there,” I say, my voice sounding very distant and faint. I’m not ready to never speak to Joker again. I’m not ready to watch him die. “He’s bluffing. They’re not gonna let anyone here live.”

---