“Get back,” Stone shouts as he and Crash return fire.
I drop to the ground, roll to the side, and take shelter behind a giant spool of cable. Grunting, I prop myself up on a knee and fire. There are three sons of bitches out there. They’re firing from three different spots, with automatic weapons and the high ground to their advantage, raining death from the second floor of an unfinished secondary structure.
There’s no way around them. We can only go through them.
Elsewhere in the site, I hear more shooting. Razor and Sarge running into their own fun.
Bullets crash into my hiding spot in a deafening roar. Sparks fly and spray across my face, smoking in my hair and beard, and I bat them away like angry, burning flies.
“Give me some fucking cover. I’ve got an idea,” Crash yells, and then he turns and runs back toward the perimeter while Stone and I raise our guns and lay down some lead protection for our brother.
I portion out my shots like a tight-assed bastard, even though every part of me is screaming to unleash; I’ve only got a single clip and one of these bullets has Anna’s name on it. Stone and I buy Crash some time with lead, alternating our shots while the man runs.
“Oh, that fucking lunatic,” Stone yells as he glances over his shoulder; his eyes are wide, but his smile’s wider; he looks like a kid about to sneak into his first R-rated movie. “Keep firing, Blaze, and get ready to get the fuck out of the way.”
Then there’s a roar. An engine with enough horsepower to make me hard fires to life, and gears scream against each other as a heavy-duty transmission kicks into gear.
The roar grows.
Bigger and bigger, like an approaching monster.
Giant tires grind gravel beneath their treads.
And one of the cement trucks comes into view, chugging along at an ever-increasing speed, heading straight towards one of the columns holding up our enemies’ hiding spot.
The door to the truck flies open and Crash dives out, just seconds before the multi-ton behemoth rams itself into the concrete column; there’s an explosion of steel and cement shrapnel that drowns out the screams of the construction workers as the structure collapses around them in a cloud of gray dust and twisted steel.
I hobble towards the wreckage, gun ready, fingers aching to pull the trigger that’ll snuff out the life of one of these bastards. Two bullets remain in the chamber, and I will make each one count.
A bloody head appears in the thick cloud, a body emerges, along with an automatic rifle that lowers itself right at me.
I fire. One shot catches him in the arm. He staggers, then raises his gun again.
I don’t hesitate — I fire, catch him right in the chest, and he falls face-down into the dirt.
There’s another crack and I look to my right to see Stone standing over a twitching body, gun in his hand and a wicked grin on his face.
“Really gets the blood going, doesn’t it?”
I shove the empty gun down the back of my pants and grab the assault rifle from the downed thug. Two seconds looking it over and I realize I wasted a bullet on him — the gun’s busted and doesn’t have a chance at shooting again. I chuck it aside and look around for another weapon.
I smile as I slip my fingers around the handle of an ax. For a moment, I flash back to being a firefighter. To being a hero. And I smile. This is my chance to recapture a bit of that, to be a hero again, even if it’s a lot darker and bloodier than before.
“Yeah, you might say that, brother. This will be fun,” I say.
Stone laughs. “First thing I’m going to do when we get finish with these motherfuckers is book a room in the seediest hotel in Lone Mesa and have Trish meet me there. We’re going to do the kind of shit that teenagers do.”
Behind us, feet crunch on gravel and busted cement. I turn, ax ready, and see Crash with the biggest, stupidest grin on his face.
“You fucking see that?” He says.
Stone and I meet eyes for a second. We need to tone him down or we’ll never hear the end of it.
Stone grins. “Nice job there, brother. You made a mess of that truck. You want me to celebrate your poor driving skills?”
“I knocked the fucking pillar down. I saved your lives,” Crash insists.
“Looks to me like you wrecked a fine piece of machinery and ruined countless man-hours of quality construction work. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo,” I say.
Crash’s smile melts, and Stone gives me a subtle nod.
“Come on, let’s stop staring at the giant mess Crash made and finish these assholes off,” he says.
The three of us advance through the wasted construction site, wary, pissed off, covered in blood and ready to spill more. The air is thick with smoke and the sound of a firefight in the distance. The ax sits light and familiar on my shoulder and my hand aches to bring it down on Anna Ebri’s skull, so I can see what it looks like when the blade splits her head open.
We advance deeper in to the half-finished wreck of a warehouse.
Stone holds up a hand.
“Hear that?”
I shake my head.
Crash does the same.
Stone points off toward the left. “Voices. One of them’s a woman’s.”
“That old and you still have hearing like a teenager, huh?” I say.
He grins. “Yep. Though the key to a happy marriage is knowing when not to
