I circle back around, making sure to keep a good distance between me and the remaining men.
Three of them are caught. One poor son of a bitch has already fainted. Blood pools around his nearly severed leg. He’ll be dead in minutes.
The other two have been caught at safer angles. There’s still blood, but not nearly so much.
They’re all still in shock. So in shock in fact, that no one really even notices me until my bullet buries itself in one of their skulls.
Three down. Six to go.
Of course, that gets their attention. The remaining able-bodied men open fire immediately.
I pivot to the side and unload a clip on these motherfuckers.
Dead.
Dead.
Five down. Four to go.
My eyes zero in on the last remaining youth, the only member of this misguided little gang whose leg is not stuck in one of my steel traps.
His arm is raised, his gun pointed at me, but I know already that he no longer has the confidence or the ability to shoot me.
Even if he does, I’m confident he’ll miss.
“Drop your gun,” I command.
“You’ll kill me if I do,” he says, his voice shaky.
Now that I’m looking at him, I realize his features strike me as familiar.
“You Razor’s kid?” I ask.
The boy flinches. Guillermo had mentioned he was nineteen, but he looks even younger to me. Nowhere near a man.
Not that that changes anything. He came for me. This is the price he’ll pay for that transgression.
“You killed him,” he says, but the accusation sounds weak.
“He messed with the wrong fucking don,” I reply unfeelingly. “I assume you found his body.”
“What was left of it,” the kid spat at me. “And there wasn’t much after the ravine spit him out.”
“At least you got to bury him in peace. That was a luxury I wasn’t afforded, and my father was a fuck ton more important than yours.”
“I’m going to kill you,” the boy says. His voice is shivering so pitifully that I have to resist the urge to laugh.
I glance over at his three men in my steel traps. Their unseeing eyes look up at the star-lit heavens.
“Is that so?” I ask. “Because you came at me with nine men and yet, here we are, mano e mano.”
“Fuck you.”
“Drop the gun,” I say calmly. “Now.”
His arm trembles but he refuses to lower it. I sigh with exasperation and jerk my head towards his comrades.
“They can’t save you, you know. It’s just you and me now, kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” he barks.
“No?” I ask. “Then shoot me.”
“I… what?”
“Shoot me,” I enunciate clearly.
He gulps like he thinks this is a trap. I spread my arms wide and smile.
It’s a tense standoff for a second, though I don’t understand why. I’m giving him the chance to avenge his father. Pull the goddamn trigger.
And then, he does.
The gunshot rips out.
But Lobo’s hand is trembling so badly that, even though I don’t move at all, the bullet only grazes across my left arm. It’s nothing more than a flesh wound.
Pity.
I stoop low and throw my body against his. His eyes go wide but he’s too slow or shocked to get out of my way.
We hit the ground in a heap.
The moment I’ve got him pinned underneath me, I rip the gun out of his hand and fling it into the dirt several feet away from us.
He struggles like a fish out of water until I punch him in the face. Then he goes limp immediately.
Just like that, the fight leaves him. Lobo looks up at me with defeat and hopelessness.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asks.
It’s a child’s question. Not a man’s.
I sigh. “Yes.”
I clamber off him, leaving him stunned and shivering on the earth.
He sits up a little on his elbows and looks around. He’s trying to determine what his odds are of getting out of this forest alive.
I pick up my gun and check the clip for my remaining ammo before returning to face the boy.
“Don’t even think about running,” I say. “It’s pointless. You’re not gonna get away. Not from me.”
“You killed all of my men,” he says. There’s an awestruck note in his tone.
I shrug. “I’ve been training since I was a boy. I was told I’d be in charge one day. Unlike you, I was prepared for that inevitability.”
“I am prepared. I… I… was prepared,” he stammers. But as he glances around at the bodies of his friends and followers, the last of his confidence snuffs out.
“I think the evidence speaks for itself.”
I take a step forward. He flinches and seems to huddle lower into the ground.
“I know what it means to inherit your father’s legacy,” I tell him. “It’s all worthless in the end.”
His eyes go wide. “Then why do you do it?”
“Because I have no choice.”
I raise my hand. The boy seems to understand that the conversation is over. His lower lip starts to tremble and I can see the desperation flit across his eyes.
“It won’t hurt,” I reassure him. “You won’t feel a thing.”
“I feel it now,” he replies. “I can feel it already.”
A tear slips down his cheek.
I still feel nothing.
My finger is poised over the trigger. I’m ready to pull.
Do it.
End him.
But I can’t.
I sigh in frustration and let my hand fall down to my side.
“Get out of my sight before I change my mind.”
His eyes go wide with disbelief.
“I said, go.”
The kid scrambles off, tripping several times before he manages to gain enough wind to disappear into the woods.
I stomp back to the cabin in the blackest mood I can remember. I’ll let the night foragers take care of the bastards’ bodies.
At the lodge, I kick in the door, drop my guns on the kitchen table, and collapse into a chair, head buried in my hands.
“What the fuck?” I mutter under my breath again and again. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck…”
A whine answers me.
I raise my head to see the mutt lying between my feet. He’s
