back as hard as she could.
'Get off my back, you little bitch!' Fink, bloodied and with his right arm broken at the elbow, somehow managed to squirm out of Clay's grip and pushed off his back, sandwiching Dee between him and the bulkhead. Dee's head slapped against the viewport so hard she saw stars and wobbled to her knees.
Dee was dazed but managed to make out that Clay had blood trickling from his lips. Then she realized that he had a red spot on his chest. He had been shot, too. Dee forced herself to her feet and shook the stars out of her eyes with the hopes of another assault on the crazed Fink. But even though Fink had a broken arm, he still managed to hold them off with blocks and kicks, and then out of nowhere came a knife. Clay managed to avoid it once by falling backward, but he had just lost too much strength from his wound, and Fink was soon on top of him.
Clay met Fink's lunge with both his arms, but Fink put all his body weight behind the knife. Clay couldn't hold him off much longer.
'The gun, Dee!' he managed to say as the blade of the knife inched closer to his throat.
Dee turned and scanned the deck of the shuttle wildly for the gun, but it was on the other side of the two men. Instead, she threw her body into Fink, knocking him over onto his right side. His broken arm rammed into the pedestal of the pilot's chair, and he screamed in agony. Clay managed to push him the rest of the way off him and kneed him in the groin. Unfortunately, Fink fell right on top of the railpistol. Seeing this, Clay pushed Dee backward into the bulkhead and rose between her and Fink just as the madman raised the weapon and fired.
There was absolute quiet for a brief second. Dee looked into Clay's eyes, and he smiled at her with his big, toothy smile. Red poured from the corners of his mouth and off his tongue.
'Sorry, Dee . . .' He collapsed dead on the floor at her feet.
'What did you do?' Dee screamed and started at Fink but then quickly froze as she was staring at the barrel of the railpistol.
'Quiet!' Fink shouted at her while waving the pistol in her direction. 'Don't you make a fucking move, or it
Dee did what she was told. Fink carefully approached her, then grabbed her left arm and pulled it behind her chair with his good arm. She briefly thought of trying to overpower him, but Fink jammed the barrel of the railpistol into the side of her head. He winced in pain when he did it, but there was no doubt he could still pull the trigger.
'Don't even think about it.' He then zip-tied her hand to the railing of the chair back and continued to do the same with her right hand.
'Why are you doing this, Fink? What do you hope to gain? You killed them. You killed Jay for no reason. You, k-k-killed Clay!' Tears ran down her cheeks. She and Jay had been classmates for years. They were wingmen, and at one point there had been some sexual interest. Now he was dead. She had known Clay since she had been six years old, and the man was one of her heroes. And for some reason this madman had just killed them both!
'Casualties of war, Dee.'
'Don't call me that. You don't have the right to call me Dee or anything else, you fucking monster! My father will hunt you down to the ends of the galaxy if you harm me. He will rip your fucking eyeballs out!' Dee screamed at him uncontrollably. But Fink only laughed at her as if she were a silly little girl.
'It won't be me that he will go after, girly. I'm just a middleman. And in about ten minutes I'll be a very fucking rich middleman.' Fink double-checked that Dee couldn't move. He pulled the ties tighter, and Dee could feel them cutting into her wrists.
Fink stepped back behind her and began rummaging through something in the back of the shuttle. Dee managed to swivel her chair, but as she did Fink brought the pistol up with his left hand. Once he realized she wasn't going anywhere, he set the pistol down and went about digging through the locker in the side panel of the shuttle. He finally found what he was looking for, apparently, and pulled it out with his good arm.
