Page 130 of Chaos

Ben’s head pops up from behind the table he was using for cover, bloody faced, his arm stretching out to reach for the pigeon cage.

I don’t hesitate.

I squeeze off a round just as he reaches for the cage door, and immediately he rocks forward, blood blooming across his filthy t-shirt. He loses balance, clutching at the cage, tipping it toward him.

The poor pigeons take flight, wings flapping as they disappear through the ceiling windows, cooing desperately, and the cage topples with a metallic crash to the ground.

I shift my aim across the room where Shane is trying to pull the ax out of Duane’s hands, both of them grunting and grimacing, cursing and lurching, smashing into things. Ephie staggers to her feet, blocking my shot again.

Yorke’s told me fifty times that guns are terrible at close range, and I never really believed him. Now I get it.

The gun is useless, so I jam it into my belt beside the flashlight and snatch a spade off a table.

I’d have loved to have had it in the cellar.

The tip is like a blade, designed to spear through roots. I jam it into Duane’s back.

It blasts through the meat of the muscle to the right of his spinal cord with a sickening ricochet that vibrates up my arm.

He bellows.

So do I.

Shane scrambles out from under him, face twisted and red, and gets a shoulder into him, causing Duane to lurch backward.

They collapse into the table behind them, sending more plants and pots and tools scattering. He immediately releases Shane, still shouting.

Ephie’s face is bloody, eyes unfocused like he knocked her dizzy. Shane helps her up, pulling her away from Duane, then blanching, and pulling her farther back, as I immediately come aware that Ben’s on his feet, a gun, my gun in his hands.

I reflexively touch my belt.

He must have snagged it from my hip while I was busy with Duane.

I stare at him and he stares at me.

Something blasts into me from behind, a massive weight, like getting hit by a linebacker.

Duane.

Ephie shouts.

So does Shane.

The gun fires.

I hit the ground, shifting as I fall, and Duane lands on top of me, pinning me down, his legs on either side of me, his weight on my chest, he rips my necklace off, the chain breaking, and tosses the zodiac pendants away, his fingers finding my neck.

His eyes are bloodshot.

I can’t breathe. He’s cut off my airway.

Blackness eats at the edge of my vision.

“This pretty fucking neck,” he snarls. “So fucking scrawny.”

32 |If karma needs blood, if karma needs fire

YORKE