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

but if I put a round in King, Slater would have knocked me dead with a punch before I could work the aim over to him.’

‘Sounds like excuses,’ Topaz grunted.

‘Feel free to try for yourself.’

Opal ruminated for a beat. ‘Stick to the cover story, then.’

She looked him dead in the eyes. ‘Make it believable.’

He smashed the base of his open palm into her nose so hard her head snapped back. Blood fountained from both nostrils, and she deliberately reached up and smeared it across her face, coagulating it with the mud. ‘How do I look?’

‘Believable.’

The pain meant nothing to her. Victory was everything. She said, ‘See you on the other side.’

Then she ran into the archaeological site, howling in perceived agony.

She decided she’d pretend she couldn’t breathe, as if she’d been kicked in the chest. The urge to suck in air was perhaps the most fundamental human instinct. Slater would buy it.

They all would.

72

King was high enough to speak his mind.

Enveloped by the cushion of the thin mattress, he muttered, ‘You said … we were … “fucking good”?’

‘I did.’

‘You’re just as good, if that’s really … what happened. Slater … believed you.’

‘So did you. There’s a reason I’m the only female hunter. I’d win an Oscar in Hollywood.’

Her iron grip lifted from his wrists, and duct tape lowered to his mouth. She stretched the tape tight over his lips, then grabbed one of his wrists again, cuffed it, and locked the other cuff to the bedpost.

She pressed her lips to the tape, so there was only a millimetre between their mouths.

She rose and whispered, ‘Now don’t fall asleep. Listen closely.’

She glided out of the room.

73

Slater hunched forward in the armchair, holding his head in his hands.

His temples were splitting.

Antônia stepped out of King’s room. When Slater lifted his eyes, he saw a grimace on her face. ‘How is he?’

She shook her head apologetically. ‘He’ll be fine. But he’s out of it right now. It makes me sick what I did to him.’

‘It’s okay. We all make mistakes.’

‘We sure do.’

She moved to the kitchen countertop. Alexis was still hunched over the sink, washing crusted mud off her forearms. Violetta stood by her, working knots out of Alexis’ hair. Antônia reached out and placed her hands on the edge of the kitchen counter, bending forward to let out a long breath.

Slater stayed frozen.

Something was different. Her energy, her demeanour. Like it was forced…

So much of the brain is a mystery. We don’t know why we remember certain events when they flash into our minds. Now a fleeting memory came to him.

He recalled what King said had happened at Joya de Cerén.

The giant Diamond lumbering out of the tree line.

‘You’re out, right?’

Thirty rounds apiece expended.

How had Diamond known that? How was his confidence so high to know for sure they had no backup weapons?

Because Antônia had precisely three Kalashnikov AK-47s in her rear tray.

And Diamond knew Antônia.

The AK beside Slater’s chair was out of reach, and too bulky for this tiny apartment.

Antônia reached for the pistol on the kitchen countertop.

He launched out of the armchair like a linebacker and crash-tackled her through the living room wall just as she got her hands on the gun. But she spun with it, so instead of driving her down through the plaster they both hit the wall side-on, crushing into it. A sharp snap emanated from her shoulder and she cried out, but she still had the good sense to pump the trigger regardless. Two bullets roared through the confined space, but neither hit Slater. He had no idea where they went, but he didn’t feel the sudden penetrating stab of an impact. Perhaps her rotator cuff was torn, and she couldn’t aim correctly.

He levered himself out of the wall at the same time she did.

She tried to raise the gun.

He hit her in the jaw with a ferocious uppercut, crushing both rows of teeth together, sending her careening back. A couple of teeth fell loose. She thumped into the windowsill and sensed the empty space behind her. When she looked around, she realised she no longer had possession of the pistol. It was on the carpet between them.

Slater dived for it.

Semi-conscious, Antônia fell backwards out of the window.

He could barely believe it.

He scooped the gun up, bolted to the window, and stared out.

Antônia’s lithe form flashed out of sight as she plunged into the trees across the road. She was limping badly, trailing blood behind her, but she made it. She’d bounced off the first-floor scaffolding, landed in the middle of the street, and taken off sprinting before the shock wore off.

Then she was gone.

It had happened in a matter of seconds. The initial reaction from both parties had spanned milliseconds. As Slater turned, he knew he’d find Violetta and Alexis in a state of mutual shock.

Neither of the women were hit from the rounds Antônia had fired, and Slater let out the tension trapped in his throat.

Violetta shouted, ‘What was that?!’

Slater didn’t answer.

Because a minute earlier, Antônia had emerged from King’s room.

They’d been in there alone, and King was incapacitated, helpless to defend himself.

No, Slater thought. God, no.

He barrelled into the small bedroom, shouldering the closed door open.

King stared up at him, hazy and unfocused, but no matter how inhibited he was, he could still see.

He was alive.

Slater crossed to the bed and ripped the tape off his mouth. ‘You okay?’

King swam in dreamland, the painkillers working their magic. He flapped his lips, looked around the room, and tried to shake himself out of his stupor.

He couldn’t.

He settled back on the pillow and met Slater’s eyes as he mumbled, ‘What a bitch.’

74

A fatigue-filled, morbid hangover settled over the small apartment as Violetta and Alexis worked quickly to get King up and moving.

They found it easier than they anticipated — he was more lucid, sharper-eyed, able to walk on his own, albeit slowly. Whether that was the oxycodone passing its peak intensity or his own adrenaline overpowering its effect, they couldn’t be