The Gender War (The Gender Game #4) by Bella Forrest (read novel full TXT) 📗

he rolled down the steps, his legs and arms flying wildly as he tried to catch himself.

Without thinking, I leapt onto his back, wrapping an arm around his neck. It was a move I’d used often in the fighting ring, one that allowed me to cut off my opponent’s oxygen with a minimal amount of effort. My legs went around his waist like an anaconda as he stirred beneath me. I used my other arm to reinforce the one across his neck, my wrist pressing against my other wrist, leveraging it tighter around his throat.

His neck felt like steel under my arms, and I flashed back to when I had tried this move on a massive silver python that had almost finished me in The Green. That had ended poorly—I couldn’t let it happen again. I summoned up all the knowledge of my martial arts days and held on as Solomon staggered, then backed up into the nearest wall, slamming my back into it.

Then Violet was there, racing back up the stairs to where we struggled on the middle landing. I heard her grunt as she planted a foot in Solomon’s knee, and I managed to keep my grip firm as he tumbled to his knees, giving a wheezing roar. I jacked my arm in tighter, cutting the circulation off, straining with the effort.

I had to keep squeezing, unable to relent, knowing that if I didn’t we would either have to take him out, or this man would kill us all. It became my sole focus—the only thing that mattered. I have to protect us all.

After years in the ring, I could feel the exact moment when the man beneath me began faltering, and then the exact moment when he lost consciousness. I was barely able to unclamp my aching arm before he dropped to the ground, taking me down with him.

I rolled away from his twitching body, staring at the ceiling. The victory didn’t feel good.

Footsteps sounded, coming from the region of the house only our allies should be in. The next thing I knew, Owen was standing at the top of the staircase, his face flushed and his eyes wide. I gazed up at him, my rational mind returning, and became aware of a second thing—the house was silent. All the gunfire had stopped.

“Is it over?” I asked dazedly. If there was a new threat, I needed to be ready for it. Violet looked at me from where she was bent over Solomon, making sure he was all right… or at least not dead. She looked alarmed, and I realized it was because of the look on Owen’s face.

He came down a few steps, and I struggled to turn toward him from where I lay on the floor. “You need to come up here,” he whispered harshly. “Henrik… he…” The younger man’s face fell, and I felt something then, something like concern, cut through the strange head-stuffed and sluggish state I seemed to be in. I pulled myself to my feet, surprised at how tired I felt, but managing to place one foot in front of the other.

Violet was behind me, wordlessly urging me forward, and I moved. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, until I was running, pressed urgently onward by some unknown sense that I was needed now.

I rounded the corner near the back of the house and saw that Ms. Dale had abandoned her post and was crouching over a still form, her hands bloody. The door to her left was standing open, and I noted the standard-issue Matrian boots sticking out of the opening, just a few feet away from where Henrik was bleeding out.

Ms. Dale shouted something at the man, her mouth angry and her eyes terrified. It was the rawest look of human emotion I had ever seen on her face. I watched, stunned, as she continued to press her hands against his chest.

But I sensed that the grim tidings didn’t stop there. The sounds coming from the room concerned me. Wardens shouldn’t have been in this part of the house. I stepped around them, my limbs feeling like lead, almost tripping on Samuel who was standing at the threshold.

Inside, it looked like the aftermath of chaos. A group of people were sobbing softly, some pressed into the corners of the room, their eyes squeezed shut as they clung to each other. It must have been a communal acceptance of their fate—the fate they became intimately acquainted with after watching several of their own men, women, and—God help me—children slaughtered moments before Ms. Dale’s bullet had ended their assailant.

I opened my mouth, trying to find the words to tell them it was over, when several people cried out in alarm as a door they were pressed against was forced open. Before I could think to reach for my gun, they fell back and King Maxen stepped out, shouting obscenities at anyone who didn’t get out of his way fast enough. He moved toward me, casually stepping over the body of a small boy—his white-blond hair soaked through with blood—to stand before me, mouth turned downward in contempt.

“Your protection is a joke,” the king sneered at me.

I stood frozen. A part of me was roaring in fury, ready to kill this travesty of a leader for his lack of regard for the dead at his feet. But the numbness from earlier had returned to me. All I could do was stare at the small boy right behind him, lying so devastatingly still, as if I had caught him in a moment of waking, and he was surprised by my presence.

This cannot be happening. No; this should not have happened.

So I stared at the king, silently, for a moment longer. Then, without even acknowledging that he had spoken, I moved past him and knelt at the feet of the nearest refugee as she cradled her face in her hands. “Let’s get you all out of here,” I said.

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