by Rio Youers
Leo was the first to be hit. The grille snapped him. His face met and collapsed the windshield and he spun away over the roof—launched so high that he was the last to touch down. The next three thugs were thrown to the sides, bouncing and breaking over the gravel. One of them hit the car Brody stood behind with fatal force. The unfortunate chump that Brody had shot in the kneecap—already on the ground—was pulled into the wheel arch and dragged along until Molly had concluded her brief terror drive.
The truck jounced and slowed, its momentum influenced by these external forces. It struck Jimmy at half the speed. He rolled over the hood and along the driver’s side, coming to rest several feet away. The side mirror had ripped the jacket from his body.
Molly came to rest, too. The truck slewed, coughing up a curtain of dust, and crashed into the warehouse’s metal siding. Smoke boiled from beneath the crimped hood.
Brody stood for too long with his jaw hanging, blinking his wide, wondering eyes. “Molly,” he finally whispered, and started toward the truck, forgetting the bullet hole in his side—remembering when the pain speared through his body.
His legs betrayed him. He dropped.
“Molly,” he said again.
He started to crawl.
* * *
It was all sound and haze. Lola breathed gunpowder and coughed. Stars winked through the smoke, or maybe that was the pain—fierce points of light mottling her vision.
Blair placed her boot on Lola’s throat and pressed down.
“I thought you were special.”
Lola twisted and struck with her stronger right hand, but could get no leverage, no power. Blair smiled and held her in place.
“I was in awe of you, even though I’d never met you. I revered your talent, and urged Jimmy—who can be a little hotheaded at times—to tread carefully. That all seems excessive, now that I’ve met you.” Blair exerted more pressure, grinding at the heel. “You’re really quite disappointing.”
The knives in Lola’s forearm and hip had come out when she’d toppled down the embankment. The one in her thigh was still there, driven deep by Blair’s front kick. Lola gasped, eyes bulging, and dug her fingers into the wound. She plucked at the slick handle, working it loose by fractions. Pain bolted down her right side. It took everything she had to shut it out.
“I have this clear picture of walking back to Jimmy, carrying your head by the hair.” Blair grinned and held up this imaginary trophy, rolling her wrist to mimic swinging it like some gruesome pendulum. “It’s such a warrior-like image, isn’t it? The kind of thing that inspires myths and legends.”
Lola’s vision grayed, but more stars appeared. The brightest, biggest stars yet. Her chest locked, needing oxygen that wasn’t there. She teased the knife out another quarter of an inch.
“I mean,” Blair continued, “Jimmy would be pissed, and I can understand that—he’s waited a long time to kill you. But oh, that image.”
Lola pinched at the knife handle, wiggling it inside the wound. Another fraction of an inch. She almost had it in her grasp.
“I’m torn, Ms. Bear.” Blair pressed with her heel, harder still. A muscle in her jaw flexed. “Although I’m glory-bound either way.”
There was a rush of insistent light somewhere behind Blair, an emphatic engine sound. It was all very dreamlike . . . confusing. Lola wondered if it was death, its brightness and roar. Not yet, she thought. She hadn’t expected to win this war, but she still had one move left. With every scrap of spirit left in her soul, she pulled the throwing knife from her thigh, and plunged it into Blair’s left calf.
Blair never saw it coming. She didn’t scream or hiss, but she did lift her boot from Lola’s throat and stagger backward, and that was all Lola needed—to be able to move, to breathe. If she could get to her feet, or even to one knee, she had a chance. Blair was wounded now. The playing field was about twenty years from being level, but this fight wasn’t over.
Become the storm, she thought, summoning the long-ago wisdom of Benjamin Chen. But a storm would not be enough here. She needed to engulf and destroy. Become the fire. She needed to burn.
Lola rolled over, got her hands beneath her, and pushed herself up—first to one knee, then to her feet. Blair immediately attacked, and she was still strong. A forceful punch, a looping elbow. Lola dodged the first, half blocked the second. She was able to counter, throwing a fist into Blair’s rib cage, applying everything Shifu Chen had taught her: generating power through her body, letting it amass, then directing it into the final few inches of her strike. It was not the punch she hoped for—she lacked the strength for that—but it buckled Blair nonetheless, and broke ribs. Two, maybe three.
Blair twisted away from her, dragging in hurt breaths. She held her side and snarled. Lola put the fire into her feet and kicked. Once to Blair’s upper arm, again to her injured leg. Neither kick landed cleanly. The women exchanged a clumsy fusillade of fists, knees, and elbows. Blair got the better of it. She blocked two high punches, set her feet, and threw a fist of her own. It cut through Lola’s defense, smashed into her sternum, and sent her staggering backward.
Stars again, bright and piercing. Lola fell against the sagging chain-link fence—it bowed beneath her weight—and barked a jagged, burning breath. With room to move, Blair seized her opportunity. She drew her .45s and aimed.
Lola leaned backward, pushed with the balls of her feet, and flipped over the fence. Bullets whizzed beneath her; Blair was still going for leg shots. What little tension remained in the fence buoyed Lola’s weight and she landed on her feet in the rail yard. She turned immediately and staggered away, melting into the shadows.
The yard was dark, full of cover. Boxcars hulked in silhouette. A cold locomotive stared blindly. Lola ducked behind a concrete buffer stop, covered her mouth, and stifled a scream.
Her head cleared. Not by much, but enough to focus on her objective: add to the body count, whatever it took. The rail yard had leveled the playing field a few more degrees. Lola could use the shadows. Use her experience.
Be the fire.
She watched as Blair hopped the chain-link fence and wiped something—blood, probably—from her mouth. She still held her guns.
“Okay, you tired old bitch.” Her voice carried to Lola, laced with mania. “Now we’ve got a fight.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Not again, Jimmy thought. No fucking way.
There was a bleak, watery pain in his hip. Something in there was cracked or dislocated. His left knee had been rearranged and his foot pointed at two o’clock rather than twelve. He was no stranger to pain, though. Oh no, he and pain were old compadres. Thick and thin. Ben and fucking Jerry. He dragged himself to one of the parked cars—which were supposed to provide cover for his fucking guys—and used it to get upright. Blood ran into his eyes. He gingerly touched his scalp and felt not hair but the top of his skull.
Not good. Not fucking good at all.
His left foot stabilized him, but couldn’t bear his weight. He could limp, though, and did so, moving from the car to where Brad Lemke lay mumbling on the ground. Brad’s legs were a mess of odd angles and sticking-out bones. One side of his face had met the gravel and been planed to a smooth red surface. His pistol was on the ground, out of reach.
“Glab-glab,” Brad said. His eye locked on Jimmy, then flashed open and closed. “Glab-glab. Glab-glab.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. He bent his right knee—managed to reach down and hook Brad’s pistol up off the ground. “It’s all fucking bullshit.”
He aimed unsteadily and shot Brad, twice, because the first bullet only clipped off one of his ears. The second was truer, though, upsetting the smooth red half of his face.
No more glab-glab for Brad.
Or for any of them. Jimmy looked around. Corpses everywhere. Corpses wearing riot shields and bullet-resistant vests, carrying semiautomatic rifles. How much goddamn protection did they need? And yet . . . corpses. He saw Scott Hauer—the Tucson Tank himself—w
ith one side of his skull blown away. Jared Conte was facedown in a lake of blood. Leo Rossi’s spine was L-shaped and his brains were waterfalling out of his open head.
No sign of Blair. She’d gone after Lola. There’d been gunshots from that direction but Jimmy had no idea which of them was still standing. Probably Lola, given the way this whole shitshow had gone down.
This was all horribly familiar.
“Not again,” Jimmy insisted, and shook his head. This wasn’t over. He was still standing, after all, and he was the only one that mattered.
He could still spill some blood, and dammit, he was going to.
Right on cue: the pickup truck’s door clunked open and the cripple dropped out. She stood for a moment, then collapsed to her knees. Jimmy looked at her through the blood-mask of his face, thinking that a little eye-for-an-eye action was appropriate here. He checked the pistol. Eight rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He could kill the bitch nine times.
Jimmy shunted the mag home and wavered toward the truck. Pain rolled through him. He’d known, and survived, worse. It wouldn’t stop him now. Still some distance away, he lifted the pistol and squeezed off a shot. The bullet punched a hole through the truck’s fender. The girl screamed. She tried getting to her feet, but floundered and sprawled. Jimmy fired again and lifted a cloud of grit three inches from her left hand.
“Bitch,” he screamed. His damaged hip, and the blood in his eyes, had affected his aim. He gritted his teeth and labored closer, stomping one foot, dragging the other. Five feet from the girl—close enough, goddammit—he took aim again, and was about to pull the trigger when two words flared at the back of his mind.
Bargaining chip.
He blinked. This was a Blair-like moment of ingenuity. If Lola was still alive, she’d likely be open to renegotiation. It was the reason this crippled little bitch was brought in to begin with. If Lola was dead, and Blair came back . . . well, shit, he would pull the trigger then. And happily.
“Get up,” Jimmy sneered. He hopped the last few feet and pressed the gun to the back of her head. “Now. Right fucking now. Get up.”
She didn’t move. He rapped the barrel against her skull, hard enough to draw blood, and that did the trick. The girl whimpered, lifting one hand over her head, pushing herself up with the other. Jimmy helped, insomuch as he grabbed a fistful of her collar and pulled.
“Let’s go. Fucking move it.”
They started toward the warehouse, the girl in front, Jimmy behind. They stumbled and limped in peculiar unison.
“Look at us,” he observed wryly. “Couple of hop-along assholes.”
He eased her toward the loading dock steps and they struggled up slowly. Jimmy wiped blood from his eyes and fought a wave of wooziness. He could do this, by Christ. Just a little longer.
“Lola,” he shouted, or tried to. His voice cracked—barely a sound came out. He moved the girl in front of the warehouse’s open bay door and stepped behind her, the gun placed to her head. She gasped and squirmed.
“Lola.” That was better. Much louder. He spat blood, took a breath, and shouted, “Lola Bear. I have your daughter. Come and get her.”
His voice carried across the lot.
He’d win this war yet.
* * *
Brody had the perfect shot—the center of Jimmy Latzo’s spine—but didn’t have a gun. By the time he’d acquired one (and checked to make sure it was loaded), Jimmy had scaled the loading dock steps and positioned himself behind Molly.
Jimmy called out to Lola—a desperate, frenzied cry. Or perhaps he always sounded that way.
Raising the gun—another AR-15 variant—Brody hobbled in front of the warehouse and faced Jimmy.
“Let her go,” he groaned.
Jimmy looked at him. His face was a red horror mask. A flap of skin drooped across his brow. “Get the fuck out of here, kid,” he snarled, “while you still can.”
“Let her go.” Brody staggered closer, tightening his grip on the rifle. He didn’t have a shot, though. Jimmy was behind Molly, with only his bloody face exposed over her shoulder. And while it temptingly resembled the center of a target, Brody’s hands trembled too much to risk pulling the trigger.
“Fuck you,” Jimmy hissed. He extended the pistol and fired twice in Brody’s direction. Neither bullet came close. He appeared to consider another shot—his gun hand shook as much as Brody’s—then thought better of it, obviously deciding it was wiser to conserve ammo.
Brody stood his ground. He had hoped to appear stronger than he was, but his trembling hands betrayed him, as did his ashen face and the blood trickling from beneath his jacket. He wouldn’t pull the trigger and Jimmy knew it.
Molly squirmed and Jimmy settled her again with another dull crack from the pistol barrel. Brody’s finger hovered close to the trigger.
“You want this bitch,” Jimmy said. “Go put a bullet in your mommy’s back. Then I’ll consider it.”
“Only person I’m shooting is you,” Brody said.
Jimmy snorted laughter. A wet, mad sound. Blood dripped from his jaw, onto Molly’s shoulder.
“Go get your mom,” he said. “Tell her I’m waiting.”
He ushered Molly backward, through the open bay door, and slowly into the shadows. Brody watched them disappear. He waited for a moment, trying to smother his pain and fear, then he followed.
* * *
Lola’s experience was offset by Blair’s youth, and the fact that she wasn’t as badly injured. She was wily, too; Lola listened for her footfalls through the rail yard, maybe a couple of hurt, rasping breaths. Blair made no sound at all, though. She was a ghost.
Lola waited, studying the darkness. She reached and grabbed the most basic, primitive weapon: a rock. It was the size of her fist, easy to grip and swing. Blair—with her .45s—had the advantage here, too, but up close it would all be the same.
* * *
The front of the warehouse was bathed in light. There was some deep shadow cast by the raised loading dock, but Brody couldn’t enter the bay or side doors without being seen. Jimmy was always dangerous. He might have positioned himself behind a crate, using the top of it to stabilize his aim, ready to pull the trigger the moment Brody hobbled into view.
Needing another way in, Brody moved away from the open bay door, then around the crumpled truck and along the side of the warehouse. It was darker here, but he found what he wanted soon enough: an office window. Brody tried opening it. Locked, of course. He shook off his dad’s leather jacket—not without discomfort—and balled it like a mitten around his right fist. As he struck the window, he fired the rifle with his left hand, the stock tucked against his ribs—six loud shots that enveloped the sound of breaking glass.
Brody reached through the window, flipped the catch, lifted it open. He pulled his jacket on again—it was black; a good color for sneaking through the shadows—then leaned across the sill and let forward momentum carry him over, into the office. He landed on the tiles and broken glass with a crunch, clutching his side as the pain bloomed.
Getting to his feet was hard. He brought Molly to mind. And his dad. Renée, too. He held them there, poised above the burning coal like a ridge he could grasp on the updraft.
Sweat coated his body. The office rolled once—a gloomy, boxlike space with an uneven floor. Brody caught hold of the desk, steadied himself, then made his way into the warehouse proper. He heard Jimmy immediately, gasping and cursing.
Brody hugged the shadows and advanced from behind a row of crates stacked along one side, knowing he couldn’t approach from the front or let Jimmy see him at all.
He needed to go past Jimmy, attack from behind.
* * *
Blair played the stealth game for a while, then switched her strategy, opting to draw Lola out.
“You can’t beat me, Ms. Bear,” she goaded, and brayed laughter—a sound full of color and confidence. “You’re too slow. Too worn out. Too old.”
There was a time for ca
ution, and a time to throw down. Clearly, Lola had given her no reason to be afraid.
“Come on, bitch. Let’s do this.”
Lola moved, making no sound at all, relying on her experience; impetuousness was for the young. Every step was painstaking, lifting and softly placing her boots, taking an indirect route, but one that kept her hidden. She slipped between two buffer stops, crept into the shadow of a maintenance shed, crossed the tracks behind a rusty locomotive. As ever, she focused on one objective: increasing the body count. She’d lost blood. The pain was a blizzard. She still burned, though.
She saw Blair, mostly in shadow, standing on the tracks between two boxcars.
“I’m right here, Lola. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Keep running your mouth, little girl, Lola thought. She edged closer, approaching on Blair’s blind side. Fifteen yards away, she grabbed a handful of dirt and stones and threw it, not aiming for Blair, but for the boxcar beside her.
The debris struck with a rattling sound, diverting Blair’s attention. Lola sprang from the shadows and attacked with the rock in her hand. She envisioned bringing it down on the top of Blair’s skull and dividing it into three, drawing on an old memory featuring her stepdaddy and his spanging hammer.
Not this time. Blair heard—or maybe sensed—Lola’s approach. She swiveled, avoided the downward swoop of the rock, countered with a humming fist that caught Lola square and dropped her.
“Like I said: Too slow. Too worn out. Too old.”
Blair pulled her guns.
* * *
It wasn’t all crates, shadow, and cover. There were walkways, doorways, broad lanes for forklift trucks to maneuver. Jimmy had retreated down the center gangway, shambling backward with the gun still rooted to Molly’s skull. He wasn’t hard to track.
“Nobody fuuuuucks with me,” he bellowed. He’d lost his mind as well as the top of his scalp. “Dogs run the fuck away.”
Brody timed his moves, shuffling across the exposed areas, crawling from one crate to the next. He dragged his feet and breathed hard. Jimmy would have heard him if he hadn’t been making so much noise himself.