Page 24 of Silent Comrade
Then the thinner man kicked Al in the lowerback until he went down, glasses skittering across the aisle. Aldidn’t move. That was it. Britt had had enough.
Staying low, she crept near the coward whohad kicked Al from behind. A strange calm came over her, steadyingher grip on the metal. As the man reared back for another punchdown onto Al’s motionless, prone form, she braced herself and swungthe tool. The satisfaction of metal crunching the side of his kneelasted as long as the dude’s keening yowl. At least he left Alalone.
The man spun around with fists raised andhit the head of the mannequin which flew over into sportswear witha series of plasticthunks.
Britt faded into another rack of clothing.As the cursing man limped by, she ducked out and hit him on hislower back, the shock of impact jarring her arm up to her shoulder.The guy dropped to all fours.
Al raised his head and peered in herdirection. “Get out of here! Go!” he panted.
Then the balding guy with the gun jumped onhim, the butt of his gun coming down on Al’s head.
Al crumpled.
Not fair. Wrong.
With no concrete plan but a definite goal,she rushed toward the attacker, ready to do whatever it took to getthe jerk away from Al before the guy killed him.
“Hey!” she yelled.
The man stopped and stared at her with aperplexed expression that shifted into a nasty leer. He snickered,“Well, hello.”
“Get away,” she said, voice quivering.
The bald man kept his eyes on her as hedropped another fist onto Al’s back.
Al dropped flat, then slowly pushed back tohands and knees, shaking his head as if to clear it. He struggledto kneel upright beneath even more spine-shuddering blows. The baldguy wasn’t stopping. Britt had to do something. She stepped closer,just out of arm’s reach.
“Quit it!” she screamed. Both Al and theattacker paused.
She brought the Brannock down with a crashon the guy’s arm that held the gun. The gun and the fitting deviceskittered off across the tile floor.
“Goddamn it! Get over here!” The bald guylurched for her.
She froze, no weapon handy.
His meaty hand clamped down on her arm.
Then, like a pissed-off, demented avengingangel, Al rose up and roared, a giant shadow in front of her,larger than any person she’d seen before.
Chapter Twelve
Red was handling things just fine until aderanged pixie appeared from behind the sales rack and clubbed thethinner bastard with that metal object. Good girl.
Red’s concentration split between theattackers and the safety of the woman in question. Her tangy,rasping breaths of terror loosened his control over the virus. Hisvision tinted crimson, and somewhere in the depths of rationalthought he recognized this color change as an end-game sign.Synesthesia took over. He experienced the deep bass salt-grindingbreath of the bald dude, the tinny burnt-metal wheeze of the thinman somewhere behind him, Britt’s tappity-tap frantic cold sleetingheartbeats a few feet away. His enhanced hearing coalesced everysense into deadly focus.
Turning Red into a living weapon.
The thin guy lunged for her.
Red’s Morpheus Virus didn’t give a crap thathe was concussed and that his inner ear had reset the X, Y, and Zaxes. Didn’t care that a trickle of blood dripped down his temple.Didn’t care that he was bleeding from a bullet hole in his side.Sure as hell didn’t care how the surge of viral rage made him loseall control.
The virus had one goal: kill anyone thathurt Britt.
Red wanted one thing: to protect Britt anddestroy anyone that touched her.
Teamwork made the dream work.
The bald dude lunged forward.
