Page 184 of Lone Star

But, no, not a rifle. There was a second staircase, one that led down into the kitchen. On the final landing, framed by the nightglow from a circular window, stood Luis, a gun even more ridiculous than the one Reese had described held in two shaking hands, teeth bared in an expression that looked more fearful than feral.

Candy slid the mag home – and pain blossomed in his back, right beneath his shoulder blade. Sharp, bright pain, and the heat of fresh blood.

He could still move, though.

As he turned, the pain spiked – a knife pulling out, he knew, because the weight of a man landed on his back, and then the knife was at his throat, a clean-edged kitchen knife in a tattooed hand.

Candy heard gunshots, and hoped they were Albie’s. The knife nicked his throat, a little papercut burn followed by a hot trickle of blood. Fox probably knew some slick, efficient sequence of moves that would have dislodged the man, killed him, and left himself with not a scratch to show for it. That was because Fox possessed superhuman reasoning in these moments – and because he lacked the straight-up brute strength to do what Candy did.

He reached up and gripped the man’s knife-wielding arm with both hands, bent forward at the waist, andthrewhim off.

The man yelped before he crashed face-first into the tiled front of the kitchen island, and collapsed in a motionless heap.

Candy lifted his gun – but not in time to get a shot off before a hulking guy with a shaved head and a muscle shirt barreled into him.

Candy wasn’t aware of losing his gun, but when he brought both hands up to meet his attacker, they were bare and bloodied. He caught him in the chest and shoved; grunt, pain spiking when he got a fist to the ribs. The man was a caricature, neckless and snarling, like someone who’d go ten rounds with Sly Stallone in a movie.

Shoulda gone for the face, Candy thought, cocked his own fist back, and let it fly. It connected with the crunch and snap of bone cracking – and not his own. He felt the pain of the hit move up his arm – sharp and tooth-rattling in the gunshot wound – but his knuckles were fine. The other guy’s face was very not. He staggered back, jaw offset, blood spilling out of his mouth and down his chin.

Candy bent, picked up the knife that had been at his own throat, and slit the big man’s throat with a vicious surge of satisfaction.

He heard the crack of a gun. The shattering of glass. The body hitting the tiles in front of him. Vision red at the edges, body burning with pain and adrenaline. And then he heard a sound that brought him up short. A sound like sweet music breaking above all the chaos and cacophony.

“Candy?”

Michelle.

~*~

Michelle went down the staircase with her chain brandished like a weapon. She felt the breeze coming in through the window, saw the broken glass littering the carpet on the landing. Heard the thuds, and grunts, and cracks of gunfire, and all she wanted to do was duck down and cover her head and will all of this to go away.

But she’d told Candy she was a spy, and spies didn’t give up just because their legs were shaking, and their hearts were racing, and they could hear men dying just around the corner.

She stopped shy of the landing, felt Axelle crowd in close behind her, and listened. No more gunshots. No more running feet. A groan. A shift.

“What happened to Luis?” That wasAlbie’svoice.

Axelle gasped.

Michelle took the last step down, and glanced across the wide kitchen. Across the scattered bodies, and the artful smears and splashes of blood. She registered Albie, in a distant way – he was on his feet, and seemed unharmed – and then her gaze locked on Candy.

Her man stood in the center of the room, feet braced, hands at his sides, shoulders heaving as he fought for breath, overhead lights catching on all the gold threads in his wheaten hair.

“Candy?”

He turned. Blood ran in streamers down his neck; it covered his hand completely in a tacky mess when he lifted it toward her. The way his expression broke nearly broke her; she almost sprinted down the last of the stairs and straight across the room to get to him.

But she was a spy. Born and trained, so she picked her way carefully over the glass, and she glanced side to side as she descended, checking for threats. Met Albie’s gaze, briefly – he still held his gun ready, its muzzle trained on the ground, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. A wealth of unspoken meaning passed between them in that one quick look: his relief and gladness that she was alive, his love, the letting go of a fear so crushing it glazed his eyes with moisture. And then he glanced up to Axelle, and didn’t glance back.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice as full of cracks as Candy’s expression: all that joy and terror and wonderment. Is it really true? Or am I dead and dreaming?

Michelle reached the main floor, the tile cold beneath her bare toes. Bodies lay between them, crumpled and bleeding, some dead and some dying. She took the first step.

And Candy took the rest of them. Rushed to her, long legs eating up the distance, and he snatched her off her feet, the length of chain still in her hands caught between them. She had fingers free, though, and clutched at his shirt. Pressed her face into the hot, sweat-damp fabric that covered his strong, strong chest and exhaled properly for the first time in hours.

One of his arms banded tight around her, enfolding her ribs, her back, his big hand splaying across her side. The other hand cupped the back of her head, and held her to him; held her still while he dropped his face into her hair and breathed raggedly through his mouth, humid breaths ruffling across her scalp.

“Little baby thing,” he murmured, prayerful, before his voice choked off into nothing.

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