Fractured by D.J. Molles

Author:D.J. Molles [MOLLES, D.J.]
Format: epub

TWENTY-TWO

GONE

LEE PLUCKED THE KNIFE from the back of the man’s head. Man was a generous term. Boy was more like it. But a boy with an AK-47 wasn’t a boy at all. He was a hostile. A threat. A target to be neutralized.

He looked down at the figure, lying there, face to the ground. Just a small drip of blood coming from the wound in his neck where the knife had slipped in between the vertebrae with a fatal scrape of bone. He did feel pity. Pity like you might feel for an animal that had stepped out in front of traffic. Stepped out and tangled with things it didn’t understand.

Stupid, Lee thought, remembering hazily the way the kid had talked. The tough guy, always trying to impress the others and failing miserably. And that was the extent of the thought that he gave to the kid he’d known as Corey. He wiped off the blade on his pants, like he was wiping away what little emotion he could muster.

He slipped the knife back into its sheath.

Nausea roiled; the room swam.

He closed his eyes, breathed deeply. When the swirling feeling went away, he blinked a few times, then looked around to see if perhaps they’d had some supplies they’d carried with them into the attic. But there was nothing. Just dusty old pieces of outdated sports equipment, languishing in the corners. Perhaps saved as memorabilia. Who knew.

Lee bent down, grabbed the AK-47 up off the ground, then backed up a few paces. He stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Staring out the half-moon window in front of him like a high diver might stare at the pool below him. Planning it out. Going through the motions in his head. Knowing he only had one chance to get it right.

He realized his eyes were closed. His mind wandered into some half-light dream state, then jerked back, still holding the threads of whatever his subconscious was weaving. Something about money. Something about bullets being currency. He rode out a wave of sickness, then refocused himself.

Almost there.

He pulled the M4 he’d taken from Kev off his back and set it on the floor by his feet. He would need to make a fast transition from the AK to the M4. From his current vantage point, he could not see the street through the window, but he could see the front door of the antiques shop where he’d been. And he could see the roof. Where Deuce was still probably pacing about, wondering why yet another human had abandoned him.

“I’m comin’ back, buddy.” The words came out of his mouth in a slurry.

He was in bad shape. How he’d managed to sneak up on the kid, he didn’t know. He could barely remember coming up the stairs into the attic space. Remembered slipping down through the buildings and across the street a few blocks down, working his way toward the building where he now was. He remembered seeing Shumate and the Quiet Man slip out the front door of the shop and scurry down and across.

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