Page 165 of Stand: Part One
More confusion. Not a good sign.
“Why are you here?”
The gunman was not impressed with my twenty-one questions and just shook his head, a gurgled chuckle rolling up his throat. Pressing the knife deeper into his skin, I made sure the blade was a single millimeter away from puncturing through his lower eyelid.
“Why. Are. You. Here?” I tried again, maintaining the fake patience in my voice. If Darren caught me doing this, I’d be so goddamn fucked. Hopefully all the cameras in the area had been blown to shit too.
The gunman’s face twisted into an ugly scowl, so I added more of my weight onto his wrist, making him hiss as he sucked in a gargled breath.
“Payback,” he finally groaned. Didn’t sound like much of a rescue plan to me.
“Who sent you?” I asked, reducing the pressure. I needed to know if Matt had actually coordinated this attack and if Jason was involved.
He laughed again. “Get fucked, bitch,” he mumbled in Spanish.
With no emotion on my face, I pressed the knife into his eye, slowly increasing the pressure second by second until he started screaming.
“I’m going to slice your eyes open and then my dog is going to eat your fucking face if you don’t give me a name,” I seethed as blood leaked down his cheek. “Rainer? Spade? Miguel Spade?”
“Ah! Sí! Spade! Sí!” he shouted as his feet kicked against the floor.
I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or suspicious, but as I withdrew the knife and drove it into his skull, I decided it wasn’t enough to turn back.
Matt had emphasized enemies as friends, so it wouldn’t be entirely out of the question that Matt might have teamed up with Miguel and Jason to use their combined forces against Darren.
But if that were truly the case, their soldiers probably wouldn’t have shot at me just now.
I sighed with frustration as I listened to the sounds of the fighting throughout the house. There was noise everywhere, so pinpointing any one sound was difficult.
The helicopter was still flying overhead, gunshots competing with the shouting voices of men as they fought while the house crumbled around us. It was a mess of chaotic racket with no discernible path for me to navigate through.
Loud gunfire cut through my thought process, the little sonic booms stealing all my focus. Until an even louder explosion suddenly overtook it, the sound of something metal and heavy crashing to the ground and scaring the absolute shit out of me.
Needing some kind of confirmation, I quickly peered through the bulletproof window in the hall to see what was now left of the helicopter as it burned in a heap of scrap over the grass. And then my gaze moved beyond it to catch Darren casually tossing what looked like a grenade launcher to the ground.
Well, wasn’t he just resourceful?
With the threat of the helicopter gone, I decided now was probably the right time to scope the place for more information before Darren caught up to me.
If Jason wasn’t in this particular fight, then there was no way in hell I was getting out of here. But I needed to look for him to be absolutely sure. I needed to know if he was here. And the only way to do that was to be seen by the men with guns. And I needed to somehow make that happen without ending up like the damn helicopter.
Collecting the guns and ammunition of the dead gunmen, I quickly armed myself to the max. Pressing the cheap AK-47 to my shoulder, I looked down my sight to the end of the hallway. Aside from all the debris and dead bodies littering every square foot, there was no one left in this area, though I could still hear gunfire in the distance.
Stupid idea. This was a fucking stupid idea.
What the hell else are you gonna do? Hide like Darren told you to?
No, I needed to see this through. I couldn’t afford to be a coward and waste the opportunity.
Creeping through the hallway with Camaro following closely at my side, I carefully stepped around the dead bodies scattered in every direction. Each one I came to brought a tsunami of dread as I feared I would stumble upon Jason’s dead body. I had to check every single one to rule out the possibility, then collected tokens of guns and ammunition after the relief set in. Now I just had to hope I had enough time before Darren found me. If he found me.
I continued maneuvering through the house until stray bullets shot through the walls ahead of me. Dropping low to the ground, I crouched quickly through the house, hoping to find a good vantage point somewhere. It sounded like it was coming from the the kitchen. Circling back, I made my way around the lobby and then stopped dead as two gunmen rounded the corner.
I pulled the trigger without thinking, spraying their legs with bullets until they both dropped to the floor. Racing over to them, I kicked their guns out of reach while Camaro jumped on top of one and growled in his face.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my rifles pointed at their face.
They both moaned in agony.
