“So what do you want?”
“Who’s there?” muttered Neil from the other room. “Holy shit! I have tits!”
Teague said, “Ever since we were kids, we’ve always competed with one another.”
“You won most of the time.”
“You won the girl. That beats everything else.”
“She wasn’t a prize to be won, Teague. She made her own choice.”
“WTF?” Neil said. “They’re real!”
Teague put the gun in its holster, and for a brief moment I hoped we were actually going to reconcile. It surprised me how good the idea of it felt.
My elation slipped away when he raised his fists.
“I’m better than you, Talon. And I’m going to prove it.”
I put up my dukes as well. “Like you proved it in the cornfield?”
Teague’s eyes narrowed. “I’m taking you in. No guns. No weapons. I’m going to break your neck, and leave you in front of the Cook County courthouse. And there’s not a thing you can do to-”
I hit him with a jab in the nose, then followed with a right cross to the chin. My right was weak; the arm had gotten number overnight. Teague shrugged off the blows and snap-kicked me in the ribs, sending me stumbling down the hall. I fell onto my back in the living room.
Neil stood over me, his hands up his shirt. “I need some time alone,” he said. “I’ll be in the shower.”
He still appeared groggy from the sleeping pills, so much so that he didn’t even acknowledge Teague when he passed him in the hallway.
Teague advanced casually, rolling his shoulders. Besides my bad arm, I ached in about a hundred places. Unlike Teague, I hadn’t had the luxury of an ER visit. He probably wasn’t feeling any pain at all. Me? It even hurt to blink.
I stared up at my former friend. “You win,” I told him. “You’re better than me.”
He seemed to consider the comment. Then he offered me his hand.
I took it. After Teague helped me up, he punched me in the gut so hard it knocked the wind out of me. I doubled over, unable to suck in any air. Teague yanked my Nife from my utility belt sheath, threw it against the wall, where it stuck, and then followed it up with a kick to the chest. I managed to twist away in time, taking the brunt of it on my bad arm, but it still knocked me onto the couch. I sat there for a moment, trying to get my diaphragm to work.
“Pathetic,” Teague said.
He was right. I’d gone through all of this-all the fighting and running and searching-just to die in prison. The worst part was I’d never find out who set me up. It was like fumbling the hyperfootball on the nine-hundred-and- ninety-ninth yard line.
Teague grabbed my shirt and lifted me up off my feet, a power play that served no real purpose other than to make me feel helpless. Which it did.
“You know what, Talon? I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to break your neck and let you die in jail.”
Through my fear, I managed to sputter, “Th-thanks, man.”
Teague brought my face to within inches of his.
“I decided I’m going to kill you myself,” he said.
THIRTY-NINE
His eyes were so cold, and his face was so calm, when he said it. Had he always been this way? Could my lifelong friend somehow be a closet psychopath, and I just never realized it?
Teague’s hands closed around my throat, his fingers digging in. I kicked him between the legs as hard as I could. He’d come prepared this time, wearing a jockstrap. My foot bounced harmlessly off his cup.
His thumbs found my carotid artery. If he blocked the flow, I’d pass out within seconds. Panicked, I scratched him across the eyes, then cupped my hands and clapped him on either side of the head, forcing air into his eardrums.
He howled, releasing me. I found my bearings and staggered to the Nife handle sticking out of the wall. Just as I snagged it, Teague grabbed me by my utility belt and flung me across the room, like I was a toy. I kept my hand extended, the Nife away from my body, but I dropped it on impact. The weapon went skittering into the bathroom.
I scrambled on all fours after it, seeing Neil in my peripheral vision. He was in the shower, a lopsided grin on his face, soaping up his new boobs. In fairness, they were pretty spectacular. And they would have been even more so, if he didn’t have all those curly chest hairs.
Teague grabbed my ankle, and began lifting me up. While his strength wasn’t that of Rocket, it was pretty impressive. He must have been hitting the roids for quite some time.
I stretched for the Nife, then stopped myself. The handle was facing the wrong way, and the only part I could reach was the blade. Grabbing a Nife by the blade was about as safe as sticking your hand in a spinning blender. But it was either that, or let Teague rip me apart.
Once I made my decision, I didn’t hesitate. I aimed carefully, then slipped my left index finger under the blade, clamping my thumb on top, just as Teague jerked me upside down.
He positioned me over the ComfortMax toilet, my head inches from the bowl.
“Here’s a good death for you,” Teague said. “Like the piece of shit you are.”
He dunked me. I held my breath, trying to judge if I still held the Nife. I could feel my fingers touching one another, and I didn’t know if that was because I’d dropped it, or because the blade was microscopically thin. I turned my wrist slightly, and noticed the extra weight.
So I had the Nife. Now what?
Teague lifted me up out of the water. I gasped for air, then choked when the automatic bidet kicked on, spraying warm water in my face. I couldn’t adjust the grip on the Nife using only one hand; plus I couldn’t see. Working by feel was a surefire way to lose a few fingers.
“Round two,” Teague said.
Before I could catch my breath, he dunked me again. I coughed, then couldn’t control my lungs, which sucked in toilet water. It hurt more than just about anything that ever happened to me, burning my nose and throat, causing my diaphragm to rapidly spasm. Even worse than the pain was the panic. The need for oxygen was so primeval, so reptilebrain, that it overrode all other brain functions. I lost all rationale, all personality, and became a starving animal whose sole reason for existence was to breathe again.
Teague lifted me up once more. I vomited water, tried to take in air, gagged, choked, vomited again, and finally got some sweet, sweet O2 into my aching lungs.
“Round three,” Teague said.
Not looking, not even caring, I brought my two hands together, feeling for the handle of the Nife. Miraculously, my right hand found it, and then I was bending at the waist, reaching upward, slashing at Teague with the blade.
I was dropped, suddenly, landing on my back. While in the middle of a coughing fit I managed to get to my knees. I checked my hand. My right held the Nife. My left still had all of its fingers, though the thumb was missing the very tip.
Teague wasn’t so lucky. He stared at his right arm, and the bleeding stump where his hand used to be. Then the toilet automatically flushed. We both looked, and watched his severed hand disappear down the drain.
Teague howled, sticking his left hand into the toilet, trying to rescue his right hand.
I raised the Nife, ready to gut him.
“Little privacy here,” Neil said. He must have been thinking the same thing I’d been thinking earlier, because he was shaving his chest.
Neil’s ridiculous, drug-addled actions brought some measure of humanity back to me, just in time. Rather than kill my old friend, I changed my course of action, sweeping my arm down and cutting off his foot.
Teague toppled. I coughed, spat, and got up on shaky feet.
