Page 35 of His Favorite Color is Blood
Grim’s muscles turned into barbed wire, scratching his bones and piercing skin. The fucker was lying. It would make no sense to let them leave after he and Misha saw their faces. His thoughts immediately wandered to Misha, but he didn’t dare look away from the glistening metal around the dark hole of the gun’s muzzle. Lumberjack was relaxed, so it seemed this wasn’t his first time using a firearm to intimidate someone. He held the grip right, with both hands, and he was pointing it straight at Grim’s forehead. He was far enough to put three pieces of lead into Grim’s brain before they clashed. This was bad.
“What do you want?” he asked calmly. “I paid for the house in cash, but I don’t have more than a a few twenties.”
To make matter’s worse, the man in black left Grim’s sight, no doubt heading for Misha.
“Grim?” Misha called in a high-pitched tone.
“I’ll get more than a few twenties for the boy.” Bob snorted as he opened the driver’s door and stepped on the narrow ledge above the wheels. His closeness wasalmost palpable, and Grim’s fists itched for his throat. But he couldn’t risk it, not with Lumberjack being so sure-handed with the gun. If Grim died, Misha really would have no hope left.
Gloom fell on Grim’s shoulders all at once, piercing his stomach and twisting between his guts. Those people must have tracked them because of the damn photos he took at the hotel. He’d told Misha he was being unreasonable back then, laughed at him, but Misha had been right. There was no other way for a team of men to target Misha somewhere in the middle of the forest.
“Let me go! Let go!” Misha yelled behind his back, making Grim long for blood.
Grim’s chest heaved, calculating patterns, routes he could take, but nothing made sense. It was three armed men against him, and if they got their way, Misha would be back to the horror he had reluctantly told Grim about. Without Gary, he would be public property again. He would burn somewhere in another basement, and no one would ever trace even the ashes that remained of him.
Gunshots made birds in the surrounding trees screech and flee, and for a split second, Grim was sure he was dead but didn’t know it yet. But the three shots came from behind him, along with Misha’s scream. Lumberjack lowered his gun in confusion.
“He needs to be alive, you im—”
Grim dove forward, his body tense like an arrow sent straight into Lumberjack’s heart. The bastard blinked, shock briefly replaced by fury as he pulled the trigger.
Grim threw himself at the van and changed his direction, charging straight at the enemy, grabbing Lumberjack’s thick wrist. His brain screamed for the gun in his hand. What if Misha was hurt? Already dead?
He hooked his arm around Lumberjack’s head and squeezed it hard. A scream tore out of his mouth when sharp teeth emerged from the curly bush of the man’s beard, pulling on Grim’s flesh as they struggled, falling against the side of the van.
“He shot me! The fucking cripple shot me!” the guy in black screeched from behind, and Grim’s chest filled with pride. As worry over Misha subsided, he focused all of his strength on the man in his grasp and made them both topple into the dirt.
Blood rushed through his brain like a flash flood, turning his vision red as he squeezed Lumberjack with his thighs while holding the gun away. The man wasfrantically hitting Grim’s side with his fist, but it only made the fight rawer, more real. Grim had been itching for a bit of action, and now it came to his doorstep. As they said, be careful what you wished for.
With a hoarse cry, he twisted his body, scrambling on top of Lumberjack, and used his whole weight to turn the fucker’s head as if it were a soda cap. With a sharp popping sound, Lumberjack went limp.
“Stay put, motherfucker, or I will blow your head off!” Bob yelled and cocked his gun, but there was panic in his voice that Grim could lick up as easily as a wolf could a sheep’s bleeding leg.
He grabbed Lumberjack’s gun and fired straight into Bob’s right hand. Bob fired as well, but the bullet hit the van and ricocheted somewhere between the trees. He gasped, soundlessly dropping his weapon and ducking behind the van like the pussy he was.
Grim swallowed a big gulp of air. “Misha?”
“I’m fine! He’s down, and I’ve got three more bullets for him if he fucking moves!”
Grim’s lips spread into a broad smile. Only now could he think straight. With Misha safe, he was allowed to enjoy the hunt. “Good boy!”
The sound of the van’s side door sliding open pulled all of Grim’s attention back to his immediate surroundings. Bob could have anything in that van, so Grim needed to act fast.
He picked up the gun Bob left and briefly wiped the slick blood on his sweats before looking into the cab. There was a white wall between the front and the loading space of the van, so he quickly put his foot on top of the wheel, climbing on the hood. With one firearm in each hand and Bob’s blood clinging to his skin, he felt as if he could conquer the world. He leaned back and jumped across the windshield, straight to the roof that thudded when he landed.
The moment he took one more step forward, a bullet flew through the roof of the van and barely missed his foot. Grim became the epitome of wrath and steadied himself as his fingers worked simultaneously on the cool steel in his hands. Recoil was pushing him back toward the hood, but he would fight against gravity itself if it meant he’d get his vengeance. No one would slight Grim with a blind bullet.
“You’ve got enough, Bob?” he yelled and ran along the roof, jumping off from the side of the back door. He had one last piece of ammo left, and it would be his key inside.
He shot the lock in the door to open it and reveal Bob on the floor with blood all around him. His fingers still twitched, and he seemed to be gasping for his last breaths.
Grim put his hand inside and was about to enter and make sure the fucker was dead when a gunshot came from the other side of the van.
“Grim!” Misha yelled, and the other assailant's scream followed.
All of Grim’s attention hung on that single call that seemed to pull him to Misha by the throat. He immediately ran straight to their outdoor gym. His legs were flying so high it felt as if he could reach his bird within seconds, but he was still so far, far away.
The man in black was struggling with Misha on the ground, and Misha was putting up a fight, but the gun lay far away in the dry dirt. Misha’s stumps were kicking at the man’s sides, but despite all his attempts, he was still on the losing side.
