Page 89 of Dating After the End of the World
I sprint at him, bringing myself within a few feet before I leap into the air, my right leg lifted. I plant the bottom of my thick-soled boot into his throat, sending the throwing star deeper and severing the spinal cord. The force of my kick sends his body toppling over backward. I use my knife to fish the throwing star out of his neck, prying back and turning his head into something that looks more like the lid of a can after the can opener has gone most of the way around.
I hear gagging behind me, and I turn to see Molly almost throwing up her breakfast at the sight before her.
Tessa is smiling, nodding in approval. “Bad ... ass,” she whispers.
I smile back and motion for them to follow me again. It’s eerily quiet. If I had shown up now, I wouldn’t even have suspected anything was wrong. But the air still smells of gunpowder, smoke, and blood. The tension of fear and terror are palpable as we move in closer to our target.
The dummy house is a little more fortified, with two men standing at the visible corners of the building and another patrolling from the front to the back of the house in the same steady rhythm as the previous burner.
We duck low, backing into the woods for the cover we need to plan our next attack. “Tessa, Molly, you need to shoot the two guys at the corners. I’ll take the one patrolling when he comes back to this side of the house. If we time it out right, we can drop all three at the same time,” I say, directing them to each of their targets.
“But we’ll make noise,” Molly protests.
“We don’t have a choice. They have their backs to the house, and they’re not gonna turn around.”
“Unless ...” Tessa starts rummaging around in the leaves, feeling her way with her hands before she comes up with a rock the size of a tennis ball. “We distract them.”
I collect the rock, feeling its heft. I look at the house and decide that a well-timed throw through the window could provide a brief second for an attack. “That could work. But if they don’t bite ...”
“I know,” Tessa says, “but we have to try.”
I nod in response and get myself situated, determining the force I’ll need to use in order to hurl the stone right through the glass. My heart rate accelerates and sweat builds on my brow. If I screw this up, or they look for the source of the throw instead of turning to the glass, that’ll be the end of all of us. The weight of this burden feels thousands of times heavier than the rock in my hand.
I look at both of my girls, giving them one last chance to back out, save themselves from the possibility of a swift death at the hands of some crazed lunatics. I wouldn’t blame either of them, not in this moment, but they stare at me with a steely confidence in their eyes, gripping the handles of their knives even tighter.They’re ready.
I suck in a deep breath and tune everything out as I gaze at the reflection of the sun glinting off the glass-pane window. I cup the rock in my hand and tell myself this is no different from my throwing stars. Nice and easy. The brush around me rustles softly as I let the stone loose. It arches through the air, appearing to hang above us for an eternity, the anticipation of its path keeping it from flying faster. Then, like a marionette having its strings cut, it plummets down, smashing through the window. Glass particles shatter into the house and tumble onto the porch.
The two burners turn to the window, just as we hoped they would, and then we run—Tessa at the man on the left and Molly the one on the right. Midsprint, the other burner comes around the side of the house,but I’m ready, catching him in the throat at the same time that the two girls leap into the air, snatching the men from behind and plunging their knives into their soft, fleshy necks. They sweep the blades across in a swift slash, painting the sides of the house a deep crimson.
I sigh with relief, tears nearly welling up and falling from my eyes as I look at my two girls, still safe and unharmed. They turn to me, blood covering the blades of their knives. Tessa is smiling, but Molly is trembling and looks like she’s just seen a ghost. The knife slips from her hand, falling into the grass.
“Molly?” I place a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” she says, her voice shaking like she’s just come out of a cold plunge.
“Oh, I ... uh ...” I look to Tessa for support, but she shrugs, mouthing,I don’t know.
“If we don’t kill these guys, they’ll kill Greg.” I stare at Molly, hoping that truth breaks through the shocked state she’s in.
She lifts her head, her eyes burrowing a hole in the fabric of time and space. That was all she needed to hear. If the kill is for Greg, it’s fine, which kind of worries me a little, but we’ll deal with that later. She plucks her knife from the ground, spinning the blade between her fingers.
“Let’s go,” she says, charging in her fiancé’s direction.
Pkowwwww!
A shot rings out from the sniper tower, kicking up grass and earth as it just misses Molly’s head.
I grab a fistful of her shirt, yanking her back to the ground so fast, she loses her footing and falls right on her ass. Kicking at the grass with her heels, she tries to move for cover.
“Holy shit! Holy shit! I almost just had my head blown off!” she says, bug-eyed and all panicky.
“You can’t just go running ahead. That’ll get you killed. We have no idea how many there are or where they all are. They were smart enough to occupy the sniper tower and use it as a lookout.” I peek my headaround the side of the house, spotting a man in the tower with his gun aimed right down at us. I jerk my head back just as another shot rings out. “Shit, he’s trained on us.”
I rack my brain trying to think of the best way to approach. The point of the tower was a perfect 360 view of the property, precisely so someonecouldn’tsneak up on it. The only way to make it is a full-on sprint, having the girls provide cover fire, and even then, my odds are low. But with that tower occupied, everyone is at risk.
“Okay. There’s no way to sneak up on him, so I’m just gonna have to make a run for it.”
“Casey, no! You’ll get shot,” Tessa says, grabbing my shoulder and giving it a shake, as though she can work some sense into me.
