eyes popped out of his head.
But his leg wouldn’t obey. It buckled beneath him, and then he felt pain—a sudden, stabbing pain.
His vision blurred.
“Sayonara, Charlie.” The man who’d shot him stepped forward and raised his weapon again.
No. It couldn’t end like this. He’d taken on the best soldiers in the world, the most lethal terrorists out there, the cream of the scum, like Litton used to say. He couldn’t die on a pier in the middle of nowhere. No. Maria. Will.
“You’re my hero, Frank Castle.”
Get up hero, he told himself. Get up and live.
“Hey, hold on, Dante. I wanna do this asshole, right?”
Castle heard a door open, heard footsteps coming toward him. He tried to focus—was able to make out two figures coming toward him, one on either side. Flanking manuever. They would attack together, so . . .
He flipped the gun in his hand around so that he had the grip to use as a weapon.
Someone kicked it out of his hand. Before he could think of what to do next, he was being lifted up off his feet, two sets of arms holding him, yanking him hard in one direction and then the other. And then no one was holding him.
His back smashed into something—the dock railing— and he heard wood crack. Then he was falling.
A thousand-pound weight slammed into him from behind, knocking all the air out of his chest. Everything went black, and he lay still for a moment.
Voices from above reached him.
“. . . screwing around, and do this quick.”
“Quentin. Relax. Quick is a relative term, my friend. We can spare an extra minute.”
Castle opened his eyes. He was lying spread-eagle on the refueling dock. Every bone in his body felt as if it was broken. He tried to move, but the pain was too much. Too much.
The sun beat down on him. He blinked, and lay back.
“You’re my hero, Frank Castle.”
No, he thought. I’m no one’s hero. I fucked up so bad, honey. I’m so sorry.
Water lapped against his arm. The ocean—he could smell it, mixed in with the odor of gas from the pump nearby. Except, a second later, the gas smell became overpowering, and he realized that he wasn’t just smelling it. . . . He was lying in it.
He pushed onto his elbows and saw an overturned drum of gas on the dock ten feet away from him; the man from the passenger seat stood behind it, regarding him impassively.
Castle bit back a groan and pushed himself onto his feet. He swayed a moment, trying to gain his balance.
The driver was walking down the ramp from the pier to the loading dock, walking toward him, a broad smile on his face, a pistol in his hand. It was the first really good look Castle had gotten at the man.
He blinked.
It was Bobby Saint.
An instant later, he realized that it wasn’t.
It was Saint’s twin, John. He’d read about that; Howard Saint had had two sons.
Howard Saint. That was who—
The man stopped a yard away from him.
“My mother and father send their regards, Otto. Frank. Whatever the fuck your name is.” He raised the gun. “Sorry to tell you, chief—this time, they’re not blanks.”
He fired.
The bullet hit Castle square in the chest.
He gasped and staggered backward. Fell to his knees, right in the exact same spot from which he’d just gotten up.
The man from the passenger seat walked to the refueling pump and turned it on. He threw the hose on the ground— gasoline spewed everywhere, flooding what parts of the dock weren’t soaked with fuel already.
Then he joined Saint and the others, ascending the ramp, heading back toward the pier.
Castle tried to focus. He had to get off the pier, too.
Only problem was, his body refused to move.
He blinked and looked up at the men who’d killed him. Who’d killed his family. All because of a stupid accident that Castle would have done anything in his power to avoid.
From the pier above, John Saint waved down to him, then shouted something, a shit-eating grin on his face. The passenger knelt down next to the ramp, which all at once erupted in flames.
Get up, Castle. Get up or die.
The fire surged toward him, faster than he could conceive of moving. He could feel the heat from it, getting closer, and braced himself.
It would be over in an instant, he thought. A very painful instant, but he’d felt pain before. He’d been tortured before, and the trick was to keep your mind someplace else.
He put his where he always did. With Maria, right before he’d left for Desert Shield, the bus door open behind him, the engine running, tears in her eyes as she had looked up at him and said, “You’re my hero, Frank Castle.”
The flames leapt toward him, brushing past the gas pump.
And the world exploded.
“Sonuvabitch,” John Saint yelled. “Did you see that fucker fly?”
He was pointing down at the refueling dock, or what was left of the refueling dock, which had just blown sky-high, taking the gas pump, the little motorboat moored next to it, and Frank Castle right along with it.
“Like a fuckin’ Frisbee, boss,” Spoon said.
“Like fuckin’ Superman,” Dante chipped in.
“Not Superman. Just another dead Fed.” John Saint smiled and clapped Dante on the back. “That was good shooting before. Good work, everybody.”
Glass frowned. “I think,” he began, “it might not be a bad idea to find the body. Make sure that—”
“Ain’t no body left, Quentin. Look at that fire.”
Glass looked. It was a big fire, indeed, but still . . .
“That’s thirsty work. I need a fuckin’ beer, is what I need,” John Saint said. “Now where can I get a beer around here, hey?”
“Maybe back at that other place,” Dante suggested. “They had food there.”
“Yeah. That’s a good idea,” John Saint replied. “We gotta go back there anyway, get Cutter. Right?”
The three men started walking toward the truck. Glass continued to study the fire. As he watched, the refueling dock—what was left of it—slid into the water and disappeared from sight.
For once, he decided, John Saint was right. Castle was dead. No doubt about it.
But as the truck pulled back down the ramp, he continued to scan the ocean. Just in case.
The water was warm, and pink. Pink with his blood. Warm from the fire that raged above on the surface. He couldn’t swim through that fire, and he couldn’t swim around it.
All he could do now was die.
Frank Castle sank like a stone to the bottom of the ocean, too numb to feel anything at all, save his lungs, gasping for oxygen.
“You get the rest of ’em, Frankie.”
I tried, Dad. I swear I tried.
Something tugged at his belly. He looked down and saw a nurse shark—just a little one, not much more than a few feet long—helping itself to a piece of skin dangling from his chest. He swung awkwardly at it, and the shark retreated, its eyes never leaving his for a second.
Dead man’s eyes. The skull on the shirt his son had given him.
“It means you’re a badass, Dad. Not to be messed with.”
But they’d done just that; messed with him, messed him up as if he was nothing at all. Howard Saint and his kid and their goons. They’d killed his whole family, and there was nothing he could do about it. Not now, not
