Page 158 of Naughty Dreams
Relief flooded DJ, so strong it dropped his forehead back to the ground. He needed to raise it back up, stay aware, so he could help. From the muffled sound of his voice, Roy was around the corner, not providing a target. This hall was a dead end, holding another storage room and an electrical closet. Paul would have to get past Roy.
“How did you find me?” Paul said.
“You’re careful, smart and you plan things out. There were only a handful of exits you could take. Found your vehicle with the maintenance logo on it, and back tracked from the closest exit to here. My people are at the other ones. You’re screwed.”
“Am I?” Paul sounded puzzled. “I don’t think so.”
DJ drew in a breath as the gun pressed against the back of his head. “There’s a room for the two of us in the afterlife. We were meant to be together. Tell your people you’ve got me, DJ issecure, and to meet you at the West Street entrance, or I put a bullet in the back of his head and eat one myself.”
DJ coughed. “Can you do that in reverse order?”
Paul ignored him. “And before you try to use some kind of bullshit code to keep them where they are, I will go out that exit with the gun against his skull.”
A pause, then Roy spoke on his earpiece mic. “G, Warren, this is Roy. Suspect is down and secure. I have DJ and will meet you at the West Street arena exit.”
“Good job. Got it, boss.” “Fucking A and Roger that.”
“Done.”
“Good.” Paul’s voice gained strength. “Now, step out where I can see you.”
“No.” DJ came as close to a shout as he could manage, which meant little better than a death rattle. “No, Roy.”
Roy loved him. Paul would kill him.
“Leave him…alone.” No matter the pain it caused his abused body, DJ rolled to his back and glared at Paul. He had a gold earring in one ear. Maybe Bono was on his stalker priority list, too, and DJ had just lucked out and been nominated for the top slot. “Leave him alive, or you get nothing you want from me. I’ll make your life a living hell.”
“That’s my life already. I need you to be quiet.”
He kicked DJ in the stomach again. This time the explosion of pain was severe enough to suggest he’d hit something vital.
“That’s enough.” Roy’s voice was controlled but DJ knew that tone. Given the chance, he’d dismember Paul with safety scissors. If DJ wasn’t feeling the worst he’d ever felt, he would have been turned on by it. He was also terrified Roy would do what Paul said and step into view.
DJ would rather die than see Roy killed in front of him. But before his fuzzy brain could come up with anything, Roy emerged from the shadows with that ice cold look on his face.While that didn’t change, the direction of his gaze did. He looked toward DJ.
A farewell.
“No.” DJ grabbed at Paul’s legs again and screamed, that dying animal rasp, as Paul fired three times.
Roy stumbled back and dropped.
DJ’s thin roar of anguish made Paul kick him again. Then he pulled him to his feet, grabbing him under the arm, putting it over his shoulder. He squeezed the broken fingers and DJ almost blacked out again.
“You resist me getting you back into the cart, and I will shoot the next person we see. He doesn’t feel like I do about you. Stop fucking crying, or I’ll blow his face apart when we pass him. His blind momma will have to have a closed casket.”
Paul’s one hand had a hard clamp on his shoulder, the other pressing the barrel of the gun longwise against the small of DJ’s back.
Once they were where Paul couldn’t hurt anyone else, DJ would find a way to kill him, no matter how long it took, or if it cost his own life. DJ’s only purpose would be to eradicate him from existence.
They were next to Roy’s slack body. DJ couldn’t bear to look, so he averted his face, chest hitching with the swallowed sobs. He wanted to remember Roy alive. But Paul pulled them to a halt. DJ raised his head to see malicious anger suffusing his features.
Because of DJ’s reaction, Paul was going to shoot Roy in the face anyway.
Gilda wasn’t blind enough to erase that image, and she’d insist on seeing her boy’s body, to touch him one last time.
DJ snarled and summoned everything he had to thrust his body against Paul’s, throw him against the wall like he’d split out of his skin and become the Hulk.
The reality fell far short of that, but he managed to put them both off balance and they fell on Roy’s body. DJ cried out as he rolled over his broken fingers and the damage in his stomach and ribs shrieked in protest.
