Page 8 of Montana Falls
He turned his back for a millisecond, but that was enough. I shot straight for him, only missing his head by the tiniest ofgaps when he moved. It clipped the side of his ear and made him bleed, but fuck me; it was annoying.
I made up for it by killing two of his gangsters, though. But still. I was aiming for a headshot. Something that would make up for the fact I couldn’t torture him or spend months breaking him down until he was nothing but a husk of his former self.
He came toward me, chucking his gun at the same time I did when we both realized we had no bullets left. Only I had a knife on me, and he didn’t. So when he tackled me to the ground, I had a little easier of a time defending myself and didn’t have to rely on our size difference and the various advantages to us both.
“You should have surrendered.” He grabbed my hair, yanking me around a bit as I slashed my knife across his side, and used the seconds of his pained distraction to hit him in the chest, hard enough to make him splutter.
I was probably supposed to give a good villain monologue before I tried to kill him. Maybe told him all the ways I hated him and wished him dead. Maybe I should have been mature, and cutting with my words; something impactful that could be stamped on his brain as he died.
“Choke on a dick, you stupid fucking cunt.” I channelled my inner Price for a moment as I kneed John in the balls as hard as I could.
It worked, but not for long. A moment later he slammed my head against the sidewalk hard enough for me to see stars as he laughed.
“That’s no way to talk to your step daddy, is it now, you little bitch? You ought to learn some manners.”
“You ought to learn to wash.” I hissed right back as I lifted my leg, trying to wedge my knee underneath his stomach and give myself enough purchase to shove him off me. “You fucking reek of misogyny and idiocrasy. It’s making me be sick.”
We kept fighting as we traded insults, and though he was bigger than me, he was lazy. He was more of a brawler - not an ounce of training inside of him. Plus, he was taunting me and playing around and that meant when I sunk my knife into his gut; he was almost surprised.
Surprised enough that his immediate response was to wrap his hands around my neck, instantly stealing away all my air.
Or at least he managed it for a whole three seconds before he was gone.
The stranger came out of nowhere. One second, I was being pinned down, the next John was flung off me, a knife in his back and a scream tearing from his lips as he ran off. As much as I would have liked to follow him, he was racing away in his last surviving car before I could so much as contemplate how to breathe through the pain in my head. I had no choice but to lie on the sidewalk, panting and a little confused for a moment, and leave him for another day.
Oh, and I had to deal with the intruder into my fight.
“Up you get, Miss Montana.” A tall and slender man stood above me, offering a hand to me that had a skeleton tattoo covering it. “Can’t have you dying on us today and ruining my plans this weekend. I have lots of delicious things planned.”
Taking a second to catch my breath back and push through the pain in my head, I blinked at him. It was long enough he got bored with waiting, hoisted me to my feet and gently let me go as he lifted his arm, patting me on the head.
“Don’t touch me.” I hissed, pulling my knife up. Or at least I went to. Before I could blink, he’d disarmed me and snatched my weapon away, tucking it in the back of his black jeans.
He laughed darkly, his Russian accent coming through the American tinge to his words. “Tut, tut. That’s no way to speak to your family now, is it? You’re supposed to say nice things and thank me for saving your life.”
I stepped into his face, his smile never wavering even as I glared. “Family? What the fuck are you on, you creepy bastard?” I wasn’t judging, and he had helped me, but seriously? He looked like a walking Halloween advert with the skeleton tattoo covering all the pale skin I could see, bar his face, and his smirk was arrogant as fuck. It didn’t even make me hot under the collar like Lincoln’s smirk did. It just made me twitchy.
“You can call me Wraith.” He grinned, but it was not friendly. Evil was probably a better word for it. Honest to God, evil. “I’m your sister’s brother. And it’s only for her that I’m here, stopping you from dying. So I suggest when you finally meet her, you say thank you and be on your best behavior.”
“Sister?” I repeated as my eyes throbbed with a migraine that made me feel sick to my stomach. “What?” The only sister I knew about was Silver. But she’d been sold off to The Company, and was surely dead?
But apparently she knew me? She was aware enough and cared enough to help me? Impossible.
I wouldn’t even think about it.
Before Wraith could say another word, a truck sped to a stop beside us, narrowly missing running us both over as it left wheel indents in the grass.
“Motherfucker!”I jumped back with a snarl, intending on yelling at whoever had almost turned me into roadkill.
He grabbed my arm again, face devoid of all of emotion as he squeezed me almost hard enough to bruise and said, “Don’t you dare think about cussing out my girl or I’ll cut your pretty face off and mail it to your uncle regardless of how much Silver wouldn’t like it.”
I hated to admit it, but I blanched as he confirmed my thoughts about Silver. Not because I was scared, or still with any intention of yelling at his girl. But because I knew he meant it. He meant his threat one hundred percent, and he knew who Iwas. So he was either scarier than me, or entirely dead inside. Neither option seemed like something I had the energy to fuck with right now.
The driver’s side door of the car opened, a bundle of skimpy rainbow clothes and neon blue hair almost falling out. Once more, everything hurt as the woman made far too much noise. My injuries, my mind, my fucking concentration. There was too much going on, too many people around, and I was one second away from having a fit and shooting everyone around me just so I could think for one fucking second in peace.
It was safe to say my temper control and rationality were not in the best shape. I wanted to fucking scream.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” The woman squealed as she patted the top of my arm, her brown eyes wide. “I swear I hit the brakes harder than that! It wasn’t my fault. Honest. In fact, it was Gio’s fault. Yeah. He was driving, and he’s shit at it and he just didn’t see you! Kill him instead of me.” The passenger door opened at the same time, a big beast of a man in a fancy-looking suit slinking out and grabbing her away from me.
