Page 22 of Possession

Fuck.

I halt. I glance at the bathroom again, where the faucet is still running. He can’t hear us. He doesn’t know what’s happening.

But what could he do anyway? He’s a prisoner. He has no power over Briggs, and he can’t protect me from a gun. Why would he even try? He could get shot, maybe even killed. He won’t risk that for me.

Briggs marches my way. I take a step back. I don’t like the look in his eyes. I don’t want him to touch me.

With his gun ready in one hand, Briggs grabs my wrist with the other.

“Move, bitch,” he hisses in a low voice as he yanks me forward, slinging me toward the open gate.

I try to catch myself as I stumble, but his boot lands in my back and sends me flying through. As I slam painfully to my hands and knees on the concrete outside the cell, a roar splits the air behind me. Briggs shouts. The gun fires.

By the time I can scramble around to see, the fighter has charged into Briggs and is slamming him into the bars. The gun goes flying.

The fighter gets his hands around Briggs’s neck, but Briggs pulls something from his belt. The fighter barks in pain and jolts back. Briggs scrambles for the gate. The fighter launches after him. He’s unsteady, half falling, but he still manages to grab Briggs around the knees.

Briggs slams to the ground. A taser goes spinning out of his grasp. They scramble and wrestle, but Briggs doesn’t stand a chance. It doesn’t matter that the fighter has just been tased.It doesn’t matter that he’s naked and wholly unprotected and bleeding from a fresh wound on his shoulder.

Briggs is going to die.

They end up on their knees with the fighter behind Briggs, wrapping his neck in a stranglehold. Briggs’s face is red and straining, his hands scrabbling at the fighter’s powerful, corded arm.

The guardroom door flies open and three men charge in with guns raised.

“Let him go, Beast!” one of the guards shouts.

“MINE!”

As the word explodes through the room, everyone freezes. Everyone stares.

Did he justspeak? Jesus, I didn’t even know he could.

The faces of the guards reflect total shock. They’ve never heard him speak either.

The fighter’s face is contorted with fury. He still has one arm hooked around Briggs’s neck. His other hand grips Briggs’s head, knuckles white. He’s equally ready to strangle him or snap his neck.

Is that what he wants? Is that what he’s claiming as his? The kill?

That’s what one of the guards seems to think. He shifts nervously, clearly aware that he might not be able to control this situation. He says in a careful tone, “Let him go, Beast. It’s not worth it.”

“MINE!” the fighter shouts again, his voice rough and deep.

The redhaired guard, the one who brought the sweatpants, says, “I think it’s the kid he wants.”

Physically, I don’t move from where I’m crouched at the edge of this conflict, but internally I jolt. What? No. That can’t possibly—

The fighter grunts in clear assent.

Briggs shouts in a strangled tone, “Just shoot him in the fucking head!”

“The boss will have our balls, dickhead, and what were you doing anyway?”

“He doesn’t need the kid anymore, I was taking him out—”

The fighter snarls and turns his face toward Briggs, who screams high and loud as the fighter seems to bite him. The fighter spits out a bloody chunk of flesh as blood spills down Brigg’s neck from the ragged end of his bitten-off earlobe.

Chaos erupts.

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