Page 43 of Deadly Obsession
Callsign: KingArthur.
The figure looked up to the hill where, unbeknownst to him, I was waiting for him like a rattler ready to strike. He bounded up the terrain, stretching his legs as far and fast as he could before landing himself about ten yards to my east.
I waited till he was in a comfortable range and then Ileaped to my feet, my left hand cocking back and tossing one of my axes at his chest. His eyes doubled in size when he spotted me standing to my full height, and I committed the look of fear in them to memory. By the time he turned to reach for something at his waist, it was too late. The axe struck high and to the right, just on top of the rib cage.
“Fuck!” a male voice yelled out in a familiar British accent.
After that, everything seemed to speed up. He spun on the impact, one of his fists gripping the handle and pulling the blade out as he hit the ground. I kept two fingers on the second axe I’d holstered on my thigh as I moved to a better vantage point to launch my next attack. Then, dashing behind a few trees so that I stood directly above my Ghost-faced enemy, I reached a hand down, preparing for the next blow. Until my glare landed on the .357 Magnum duty revolver he’d unexpectedly drawn and aimed in my direction. The same one some sheriffs in Texas still clung to, despite most departments switching to the more modern Glocks or SIGs.
I didn’t hear the shot. The moment my eyes zeroed in on the shine of the barrel, I threw myself to the ground, without knowing if I’d been hit or not. The next thing I heard was the loud crunching of boots on fallen twigs and pine needles. I rolled to the side, stopping on my chest and launching myself forward, tackling the man just as he broke the top of the hill, the gun flying out of his grip.
We rolled down the hill in a tangle of limbs, kicking and punching. The scent of pine and wet earth filled my nostrils and mixed with the strong salty stench of unwashed sweat. We were each getting pretty solid blows in.
A knee to my outer thigh sent pain shooting up my leg. I landed a right hook, but he gave me an uppercut that had the air leaving my lungs. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t give a fuck about fighting fair. We rolled to a stop at the base of thehill, and he straddled me, attempting to wrap his hands around my throat.
The Hollywood choke.The Marine Corps’ mixed martial arts program was viewed as a joke by most. But in truth, if you practiced the techniques with focus and an open mind, you could become a force to be reckoned with.
Slipping my arms between his, I bent it at the same time I bucked my hips and pushed at his opposite shoulder. Suddenly, I was straddling him. He moved his arms in front of his face without hugging his head. This man had some degree of training. As I aimed jab after jab at his face, he blocked while rocking his hips, attempting to throw me off my balance, much like I’d done to him.
Realizing his plan was to exhaust my energy, I threw the occasional jab at the axe wound on his chest. By the second jab, my fists were dripping with his blood. The color was like a drug, the purest hue of red. All I wanted in that moment was more. More bloodshed.
“How dare you interrupt my plans! You should have stayed across the pond, partner!” My voice was deep and filled with a primal rage.
Despite the barrage of punches, he sneaked in a blow to my side, throwing off the rhythm I was trying to maintain and giving himself an opportunity to speak.
“Oh, what’s the matter, mate? Afraid I’m going to take that pretty little whore from you? Sera was never yours to begin with. I know what you’ve done!” He coughed and hissed through the pain.
At the mention of her name, I’d blacked out and reached to my thigh where my last axe still rested. Before I could pull it out, however, he’d managed to buck me off. Crawling away and gaining enough distance to safely get to his feet. The world suddenly shifted as something hard slammed against my head, likely his boot. Then my body collided with the ground.
Every attempt to stand was betrayed by my glitchingsenses. My equilibrium had been rocked by the blow to my head, making my vision seem to blur. It was also growing hard to breathe through my nose, which was stuffed with something warm and wet. Judging by the strong scent of copper now mixing with the fresh pine, I assumed it was my own blood. The only thing I could trust was my hearing. I could hear the sound of breaking pine needles and wet earth growing farther away from me.
I staggered to my feet, my gloved palm landing on the smoothly-polished handles of one of my throwing axes. Gripping it tightly, I turned to look up the hill, at the back of the man at the top of it.
“Watson!” I yelled at the same time his body began to turn. Everything seemed to slow down now, like a slide show presentation from the 1990s.
My hand cocked back as he raised the revolver before I even released the axe. I watched the round leave the barrel and tensed my body in anticipation. By the time the second round was in the air, aimed right at me, my axe had only made it halfway to him. Meanwhile, I felt the punch of the first shot to my chest, taking the air from my lungs. The next one hit me a fraction of a second later. The world moved, but my body was no longer responding to my thoughts. My back hit the wet, cold ground with a boomingthudand my head rocked in my mask as it bounced off something hard beneath me.
Trees. Sky and trees. That was all I could see now. Blurry trees and a gray sky.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to take such good care of our girl just like I did that Lola bitch. No one will recognize Sera when I’m done with her,” he called down, mocking me.
I could barely comprehend the words, but the name… Her name.Thatwas all I needed to hear to understand he was threatening my girl. Despite how badly I wanted to spawnsome sort of superpower and falcon-punch the fuck out of this bastard, he had the gun and the higher ground.
Mom said those Star Wars movies would rot my brain.
Knowing my best chance to save Sera was to play dead so I could regroup and catch him off guard, I remained as still as I could. Until I heard the snapping of a twig off in the distance, in the direction I’d last seen KingArthur. I waited a little longer before I slowly raised my head, my eyes locked on to the barrel of the gun aimed down at me, but there was nothing I could do but embrace it.
“Goodbye, Mustang.” His words were drowned out by the sound of the third and final shot to my chest.
Fuck, that one might have gone through,I thought to myself before I couldn’t think anything else. Because my world had gone dark.
TWENTY-EIGHT
SERA
We’d heard a total of three more gunshots, and none of us were sure how we felt about it. My first hopeful thought was that James had somehow found a gun and hunted down the masked killer. I knew better than to be too optimistic, though. Plus, it had been almost an hour since we’d heard anything. The two most likely cases were that law enforcement had arrived to save us or the killer had found James and now he really was dead.
I stood, walked over to the kitchen sink, and splashed cold water onto my face. “Fucking hell…”
