Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

Greg staggers, the gun that had been aimed at me now beside his head as he tries to stop the wall of noise.

Comprehension dawns on Conaty’s face almost instantly.

Panic washes over her features. She shouts something, veins in her neck straining with the force of her bellowed cry. An order, I’m sure. Kill me. Kill whoever’s outside. Shut off that goddamn noise.

No one can hear her, though.

No one can hear the windows rattling, or the coffee mugs in the station’s kitchenette falling and shattering. They can’t hear their own bowels churning from the pounding noise.

There’s only one difference between me and them, in that moment.

I was expecting this.

Greg’s the closest. I know he’s an unwilling participant in this madness, but he’s armed and has orders to kill me. So I step into him, grab his collar, yanking him forward as I kick his legs out from under him in a move deliciously similar to the way I was subdued at the door of the mansion.

When he hits the carpet and breaks his nose again the sound is probably awful. Good thing I can’t hear it. The gun in his hand falls to the floor and slides toward me. I dive for it. In that instant one of the bodyguards manages to regain his senses. He fires his AR-15 at me. At where I was, rather.

Then Greg’s pistol is in my hands. From the floor I shoot, barely taking the time to aim. I squeeze the trigger.

The bodyguard drops.

Again I squeeze.

His twin staggers and falls.

And I squeeze a third time.

Conaty simply stares at me. Through her evil dark eyes. Eyes that suddenly flutter. She crumples to the floor, unable to stay upright because my third shot blew her right knee to smithereens.

She collapses into the dead body of the bodyguard beside her, a bloodstain growing all up and down her pant leg.

To her credit, I suppose, she doesn’t pass out. Doesn’t even scream. She just lies there, slack-jawed, staring at me.

Behind her, Mr. Secretary and his wealthy counterpart turn and flee, finally realizing it will be the end of their careers, maybe their lives, if Conaty’s plan falls apart.

There’s a crash outside as one of them runs into Kyle, or his speaker. The sound from it dies, leaving only Clara’s guitar.

I keep my pistol aimed at Conaty.

“One fucking word and you’re dead,” I shout at her.

Whether she can hear me or not, she seems to get the message. Despite the pain contorting her face, she manages to nod.

“Clara, stop!” I shout.

I have to repeat the cry two more times before it manages to get through. The screeching guitar noise fades away.

“Kyle?” I call out.

“I’m here,” he says from the front door. He steps into the room and wastes no time picking up an AR-15 from the floor and training it on, well, everyone but me.

“If she so much as makes a noise,” I tell him, nodding toward Sandra Conaty, “you shoot.”

“With pleasure.” He checks the weapon, seems satisfied it at least has one round left, and levels it toward her again. “No brainwashing required to follow that fuckin’ order, eh?”

The rest of the people in the room all wait. Addicts who can only get their fix from the words of Mrs. Conaty.

“Tell them all to put their weapons down and go home,” I order her.

The woman hesitates, the calculus of crime and punishment, surrender and escape, all going on behind her steely eyes.

“Do it now,” I say, with more calm than I knew I had in me.

I can see the moment she reaches the end of her deliberations. Her features slacken, the stress lines across her forehead fading away. She sighs and slumps in one motion. A recognition of defeat.

“You will put down your weapons and go home,” she says.

“Louder,” Kyle snaps. His aim is steady, his finger on the trigger.

The woman’s mouth curls into a vicious snarl, but she relents and does as he asks. “You will put down your weapons… and go home!”

This time the voice carries. The reaction is immediate.

Greg comes to a stand, turns away from me, and begins to walk calmly from the station. The others file out, too, leaving Conaty, Ang, and Doc to their fate.

Doc’s on his knees before me, hands at his neck, still mewling.

“You cut me,” he rasps. “I can’t believe you cut—”

“Shut the hell up, Doc,” I say. “You’re fine.”

He pulls his hands away and stares at them, face contorted with confusion. Then he brings his fingers up to his face and sniffs. Even hazards a small taste of the syrupy liquid. “Chocolate,” he says, incredulous.

“Yep.”

“You… that… that is interesting.”

I slap a cuff around his left wrist. Before he can understand what’s happening, I wrestle his arms behind his back and cuff the right, too. He’s too stunned to say anything more as I walk him to the holding cell and push him inside.

“Stay here,” I tell him, slam the cell door, and walk back toward the others. The room seems to tilt, suddenly, and I have to grab the bar of the cell for support. I pause, letting the dizziness pass.

“Your arm,” Kyle says.

“We’ll deal with that in a minute. Something more important to do first.”

He seems about to argue but thinks better of it, nodding at me to continue.

Conaty stands facing me but with her gaze cast sidelong at Kyle’s rifle.

“Sandra Conaty,” I say. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say may be—”

She rears her head back and screams at the top of her lungs. “YOU WILL BELIEVE I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH—”

The crunch when the butt of Kyle’s rifle smacks the back of her head is—not gonna lie—very satisfying.

Sandra Conaty’s proverbial lights go out. She falls to the floor, unconscious.

I glance at Kyle.

“No telling what she was going to say,” he offers apologetically. “Had to put a stop to it.”

“Better be careful, dude. I’m starting to like you.”

He grins.

I return it.

But his grin fades as quickly as it came on. “That’s still bleeding,”