Page 49 of Velvet and Valor
The driver and the portly cop both open their doors, getting out onto the gravel road.
“That’s not even the worst part,” the driver says. “The Dragon Lady told the surviving snitch she wasn’t a barbarian. She would cook the dead snitch any way he wanted.”
“Whatever, man, I don’t believe it,” the portly cop says as he opens Axel’s door. I scream as Axel’s limp body topples out and sprawls on the ground. Oh my god, he’s not faking it!
“Oh fuck, man,” the portly cop yells as Axel’s tumble makes him lose balance as well. “He just fell out!”
“Why didn’t you catch him?” demands the driver.
“I told you, he just fell out!”
“If this guy’s dead, I’m totally going to have them cook you General Tso style,” the driver says, rushing around the rear of the SUV.
The portly cop struggles to his feet, stepping over Axel’s prone body.
“I think he IS dead,” portly guy says.
In a smooth, easy motion, Axel rises up behind the portly cop. The difference in their sizes is insane. It looks like a Sasquatch standing behind a trash panda. Axel’s arm snakes around the portly cop’s neck, his palm gliding up behind the head.
There’s no comically loud snap. No epic struggle. One second, the fake cop is alive, and the next, he simply isn’t. I have no idea how Axel killed him so quickly, but I know the portly one has departed this realm.
Axel then perplexes me by sinking back to the ground and draping the dead fake cop on top of him. I get what he’s up to when the driver finally makes it around the rear of the SUV. The driver sees them both sprawled on the ground and sighs.
“Come on, man, get off of him,” the driver says, pulling on his friend’s shoulder. “He probably can’t breathe with your fat ass on top?—”
With a grunt and a heave, the driver shoves the fake cop off of Axel. The driver’s face crosses with a look of pure bewilderment when porn stache keeps rolling right into the ditch.
“Hey, you all right?” The driver starts inching his way down the steep ditch, sprawling his legs wide to maintain balance. “You guys bonk heads or something?”
Axel is suddenly just THERE, right behind the driver. Axel’s foot darts out in a quick kick to the small of the driver’s back. The driver cries out as the kick shoots him down into the ditch with his friend.
Before the driver has even finished his scream of surprise, Axel has a gun in his hand. I think he took it off the first fake cop while they were laying on the ground together. Axel snaps off the safety and pops off two precise shots so close together it almost sounds like one bang.
My eyes bulge out of my head when I see that the driver’s head has two red holes where there shouldn’t be any holes at all. Axel moved like the spirit of death itself. A chill runs down my spine as he descends into the ditch, muscles in his back flexing like a jungle cat.
Axel, fun-loving, goofy at times, immature—it’s all just a smokescreen. A mask to hide this, this pure killer behind it. His eyes have no emotion in them. None.
“Axel?” I say in a tiny voice.
He glances back up at me, and his eyes once again hold tenderness. It’s a dichotomy I can’t reconcile, based on what I’ve just seen.
“I’ll be right up, June,” he says in a reassuring tone. “I just want to make sure they’re both fully neutralized.”
Fully neutralized. He means dead. If they’re not dead, somehow, what’s he going to do? Make sure?
Oh my god. That’s EXACTLY what he’s going to do.
Thankfully, though, both men are definitely gone. He checks their pockets, then returns to the road bearing what he recovered.
“No ID,” he says. “Or any personal effects of any kind. Only the burner cell phone they were using to navigate.”
He gestures for me to turn around, brandishing a small silver key.
“I did find the keys to the cuffs, though,” Axel says.
“Thank goodness,” I say.
He sets me free. I rub my wrists and cock an eyebrow.
