Hunters - Matt Rogers (good novels to read TXT) 📗

He figured he’d better make those ten seconds count.

He couldn’t use his left arm to grab the back of Diamond’s head in a Muay Thai clinch, so he abandoned the idea of the clinch and went straight for the knee. He threw his knee like Diamond had thrown his uppercut. Ground to sky. Diamond’s head stayed right there. His cheeks were white with shock. Maybe his leg was worse than King thought. Whatever the case, King felt the crunch of kneecap against jaw as it landed.

Diamond went out cold.

Three hundred pounds collapsed backwards into the mud, arms outstretched as if spreading them wide for the heavens.

It would have made quite the poignant sight if King hadn’t jumped on the unconscious body, cocked his right elbow, and smashed it down into Diamond’s unprotected throat until the man’s windpipe was nothing more than a crushed, broken mess.

Not a pretty or noble death.

Few are.

King knelt over the corpse, lactic acid swelling across his upper chain of muscles. He sweated freely despite the downpour. At least the hard rain washed the blood off his nose, his mouth, his jaw. He couldn’t feel his fingers. Dark, insidious pain began to creep into his left arm.

He fell off the body, landing on his rear, splashing more mud over the both of them.

He sat there panting until Violetta ran to him and threw her arms around his shoulders from behind.

She breathed in his ear, ‘You okay?’

Obviously he wasn’t, but he knew what she meant.

Are your wounds fatal?

Are you going to die?

Despite the tremendous mental willpower it took, he clambered to his feet. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep himself upright, but he wanted to show a display of solidarity. Take the fear out of her. If she spent too much of the pregnancy enveloped with tension, there was the possibility of adverse consequences to the child.

He stood to his fullest height, swayed, and smiled down at her.

From the grimace on her face he knew it wasn’t a good look.

He mumbled, ‘That better be the last of them.’

She nodded.

He said, ‘Did you see where that full mag landed?’

She nodded again.

He handed her Diamond’s empty MEU(SOC) which he’d fished off the muddy ground. She took it, ran to where Diamond had thrown away the spare seven-round magazine, and retrieved it from the mud. King didn’t move. He didn’t think he could.

When she jogged back, he let her take some of his weight and she helped him hobble away through the ruins.

63

What happens now?

The question lingered in the air.

The first hunter said, ‘Now I walk away.’

Slater said, ‘Do you?’

Antônia sobbed into the mud. Alexis was nowhere to be seen. Slater hoped she’d stayed put. He couldn’t afford to turn his head and find out.

The first hunter was silent. His aim was rigid, still locked on the side of Antônia’s skull as she rasped for breath on all fours. She sounded close to death, but Slater knew she was only winded. The urge to panic when you can’t fetch an inhale is overwhelmingly intense. She was deep in its clutches now. One of the hunters must have struck her in the solar plexus before she fled toward the ruins.

Slater said, ‘You got a name?’

He felt the squat neck tighten as the man smirked. ‘Opal.’

‘I mean a real name.’

Now Opal laughed. ‘Kane Broome. You think this emotional shit’s going to work on me? Oh, Mr. Slater, please, you’ve made me see the light! I have a real name! It’s Kane! How could I ever have lost my humanity?’

Slater stiffened at the jester act in such a tense standoff.

Above all else, Opal was composed.

The hunter switched tones, snarling. ‘This is what’s going to happen. You don’t want to see your traitorous bitch ally dead in that puddle, so I’m going to step away from your rifle now, and I’m not going to take my aim off her. I suggest you take a look at my finger on the trigger. It’s resting on it. An ounce of pressure and she goes bye-bye. An ounce. Okay, ready? Three, two, one…’

He didn’t give Slater time to respond. He moved to the side. Slater pivoted to keep his aim on Opal, but he didn’t follow him. A step misplaced and Antônia was dead. She’d risked everything to help them. She’d earned his loyalty.

The other hunter was still frozen, unblinking, as he stared at Slater.

The tension was unbearable.

Opal moved diagonally backwards away from Slater until he stood shoulder to shoulder with his partner. Then the unnamed hunter’s gun came up, slowly, inch by inch, so Slater didn’t get overzealous and mow them down in a stream of gunfire. Now both guns were aimed at Antônia, both men’s fingers millimetres from their respective triggers. They both retreated like that, stepping back foot by foot into the tree line.

Opal said, ‘Don’t do it.’

His voice floated to Slater’s ears.

Opal said, ‘I’m just as good of a shot as you. You get brave, she’s dead.’

For the first time, his partner spoke. His voice was cold and soft, but somehow Slater still heard every distinct word.

The unnamed hunter said, ‘We’ll get you, William. Sooner or later.’

His voice was hypnotic.

The hunters vanished into the jungle.

Without turning around, Slater said, ‘Alexis, help her.’

The whole time he’d heard Antônia struggling for breath, her airways constricted, choking on her own blood and saliva.

There was a frantic rustle as Alexis burst from the bushes. She’d stayed put the whole time, maintaining discipline.

I love you, he thought.

Then he sprinted for the tree line, his Kalashnikov still raised.

Opal and his partner were gone.

They’d vanished into the woods, returning to the shadows.

Slater retreated, and didn’t lower his aim until he was back alongside Antônia and Alexis, out of range of a long shot from the M45 pistol. Only then did he drop his guard. Antônia was on her knees, panting. Alexis had wiped the blood and mud from her face, exposing the pale skin underneath. She looked like she was seconds from