Page 63 of Dark Restraint

The other guy curses and hurries toward me, out of the relative safety of his little booth. Another mistake in a long line of them. People get guns in their hands and think they’re invulnerable. If they were trained properly, they would know better. It’s super fucking easy to take a gun from someone when you’re in close proximity.

Which is exactly what I do the moment he reaches for my hands. I spin and deliver a sucker punch to bend him in half. From there, it’s child’s play to grab the pistol. I kick the back of his knees, sending him flailing to the floor, and aim the gun at his friend. “Drop your weapon.”

I don’t wait for him to decide what he’s going to do before I move forward and slam my pistol butt into his temple. His eyes roll back in his head and he slips to the floor. I take the opportunity to grab his gun, eject the clip, and toss it across the room.

The first guard has a couple of zip ties, so I use those on both of them. He sputters threats that I ignore because the door deeper into the building opens and eight more people emerge. “Fuck.”

Ariadne would want me to not kill them, but I promised her I’d make it back to her safely. Their lives versus my promise? It’s no contest. Even so, I shoot the first one in the kneecap instead of the head. They topple into the person next to them, making their shot go wide.

Two strides and I’m in the middle of them. Shittily trained or not, they hesitate to use their guns in such close proximity for fear of shooting each other. I use that to my benefit. I ignore my wound shrieking in pain and slam two of their heads together hard enough that I feel the sound the contact makes. They drop with twin groans. Three down.

The fourth tries to shoot me in the face, but I jerk their pistol up, peppering the ceiling with bullets as they pull the trigger wildly. I count the rounds in my head as we struggle. Eight, nine, ten. The gun clicks. I step back and punch him in the face hard enough to make him stagger back… Right into the bullet spray of the person behind him. Blood spatters me and the floor and he goes down.

The fifth one and I look at each other. Their eyes are wide, probably because they just murdered their companion. Not my problem. I shoot them in the shoulder, the impact spinning them away from me and sending their gun flying.

Three more.

My back is one fiery block of pain. I can’t keep this up indefinitely. Ten people is several too many to fight with my current injury. Still, I can’t help picturing Ariadne’s disappointed face when she finds out I killed just under a dozen people. I’m a fool. A godsdamned bloody fool.

Take out both kneecaps of the sixth, punch the seventh in the throat, and kick the eighth in the balls, breaking their nose with my knee when they bend over in agony.

My breath saws in my lungs, and I spin around, fully expecting another attack. None comes. They’re all groaning and moaning on the ground, except for the dead one. From there, it’s quick work to find zip ties in the booth and secure them all. The seventh tries to give me trouble, but I punch them in the throat again, and then it’s easy enough to get their hands tied together.

I straighten and stretch carefully. Fuck, I’m sore. “By my count, I only have a few minutes left, so sit there and don’t make me kill you.” They glare and curse, but they’re mostly helpless.

I step into the booth and am pleased to note they have security cameras rolling. As I previously noted, the rest of the interior does little to match the abandoned vibes of the outside. It takes me several long seconds to realize what I’m looking at—a massive machine that seems to disappear into a tunnel heading toward the perimeter of the city.

Is this the barrier? Or at least part of it? When we came into the city, passing through the barrier almost felt like magic. It shimmered in the evening lights in a way that felt odd even to me. To see that reduced to gears moving in a seamless rhythm feels a little bit like peeking behind the curtain of a magician’s trick. It was never magic. I knew that, but apparently part of me was still clinging to that awe. I should really know better by now.

Movement on one of the screens draws my attention. I watch in fascination as Hermes rushes through the space, light on her feet and moving at nearly a sprint. There are a few guards who maintained their position instead of coming to fight me, but they don’t stand a chance against her. I don’t see exactly what she does to them; the only thing I know for sure is that they fall to the floor as she passes them. It’s seamless on a truly overwhelming scale. I knew she was a menace, but this display of competence puts her into an entirely new category in my brain.

Hermes is dangerous.

Once she’s dispatched all the guards, she ducks into the tunnel the machinery descends into. When she reappears a few moments later, the backpack she had been carrying is nowhere in evidence. She hurries through the corridors and walks through the door into the foyer. She’s not even breathing hard.

“Ten. Well done. You were an excellent distraction.” She raises her brows at me. “Why are they still alive?”

I raise my brows right back. “I did mention that your plan wasn’t explicit. You didn’t say you wanted them dead.”

“You’re the Minotaur. I thought it would’ve been readily apparent.” She plucks a fallen gun from the ground and fires at each guard without looking. A perfect headshot each time. And she does it without a single bit of remorse on her pretty face. “No witnesses.”

“Hermes.”

“Hold, please.” She turns back to the door and places a small charge on the frame at the top. “We need to get out of here. The building is coming down.”

“And the barrier?”

“That will be a little later.” She turns back to me. “It will take you some time to collect Ariadne and Icarus and get to the marina. I’m giving you that time.” She flicks her fingers at the charge. “But no one will be able to get down to that room to stop the bomb from going off. Come on.”

I don’t ask her how she knows my plans. It doesn’t matter. But I appreciate it all the same. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. I take no joy in any of this.” She casts a single look at the dead bodies and marches through the front door, leaving me to follow on her heels. “Olympus needs to be focused on the outside threat, not on worrying about what I’m doing.”

It seems to me that the only thing Olympus should be worried about is what Hermes is doing. But her actions are serving my purpose, so I keep my mouth shut and follow her out the door.

We walk a block in silence before a roar sounds behind us and a cloud of dust kicks up as the building comes down. Just like she planned. She turns abruptly to me. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

I stare at her outstretched hand. “You used me as bait.”