His eyes widened.
King dropped his shoulder low and braced for impact.
He didn’t slow down at all.
In fact, he pushed faster.
He crashed into Frankie’s upper back at top speed, sending the gangster hurtling forward into Danny. King and Frankie together topped four hundred pounds, and Danny was lean despite his strength, maybe one-sixty at best. There was no way the kid was stopping the oncoming freight train of mass. He flew back off his feet and fell in between Heidi and Alexis, knocking both their gun arms. Miraculously, neither of them impulsively fired, and they managed to half-catch Danny so he didn’t tumble off the slope.
Then King and Frankie smashed into the trio and sent all five of them over the edge.
70
Pain and blood.
Broken bones.
The world spinning.
A night sky full of stars, then moss and concrete.
Repeat.
King tumbled and rolled, out of control, unable to slow his descent or find purchase on the slick slope. He bounced off a hip, then a shoulder, then his ribcage, then the small of his back. His vision turned hot and agonising when his face grazed the concrete. When you’re falling there’s an element of pure shock, no matter how braced you are. You freeze up, each bolt of pain as unbelievable as the last. You think to yourself, Is this it?
But it was a slope, not a mountain.
They all spilled across the dry creek bed mere seconds after falling into the channel. The tumble had seemed an eternity. There were undiscovered injuries, unknown pain, that horrific pause that comes after you know you’re injured but aren’t sure how bad it is yet.
King didn’t have time to figure out how hurt he was.
He sprung to his feet with his Glock in his hand, hoping to take advantage of the chaos and confusion.
But everyone else had the same idea.
71
The flood control channel was gargantuan in comparison to their small silhouettes.
Against the backdrop of the sloped concrete walls that ran for hundreds of feet into the distance, narrowing to a dark point on the horizon, their problems seemed infinitesimal, unimportant.
But they were real.
They were important.
King and Alexis formed the lower half of a square. Frankie and Heidi faced them. They’d all risen and aimed their weapons simultaneously, and each of them had apparently registered that if one of them fired, they were all dead. So no one had.
And here they were.
In the sudden and tense stillness, King got a better look at their injuries. None of them — he and Alexis included — had been blessed with a gentle fall. His ribs ached and something burned in his left hip. He hadn’t tried taking a step forward, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to unimpeded. A torn hip flexor would be debilitating, and ensure that whatever happened between them, it had to be finished here. Any prolonging would put him at a huge disadvantage. He could feel blood running down his spine from where the concrete had shredded his shirt and torn the skin across his upper back. For now his aim was steady, but there was no telling what it’d be like in five, ten minutes when the shock wore off and the pain set in. Whatever he wanted to do, it had to be done quickly.
Frankie and Heidi were in no better shape. King didn’t dare turn his head to check on Alexis — he could only hope she was lucid and focused — so he rotated his gaze between the two in front of him. Frankie’s face was a mess, nose misshapen, scalp scratched and bloodied. His eyes were clear with adrenaline and the raised arm holding his gun was steady, but he kept his other arm pinned to his side. He might have torn a rotator cuff, ripped a bicep. Whatever the case, there was no doubt the arm was useless. Heidi’s wide eyes had lost none of their shine, but the rest of her face was similarly marked up, swelling already beginning to bloom. She hunched involuntarily, like something in her abdomen was torn, or her ribs were broken.
All four of them were broken. Five, if you counted Danny, who lay off to the side of the channel in a hunched heap. He was useless in the standoff, out of the picture.
None of the four who were standing would falter.
For better or worse, each of them was relentless in their own way.
Heidi, of course, got in first. She had the smooth tongue, all that high-stress business negotiation experience coming in handy. She had to keep her voice small so she didn’t betray the extent of her internal injuries, but she still got the verbal jump on them. ‘I think we can all see how this is going to go.’
King said, ‘Can we?’
‘I’m happy to wait it out.’
‘Are you? I’m double your weight. That’s a thin arm, Heidi. Not enough muscle. Looks like you’re already starting to shake.’
She wasn’t, but doubt doesn’t need to be grounded in reality to exist. Heidi blinked for what seemed like the first time ever, those owl-like eyes closing momentarily, but she composed herself. ‘Same goes for your girlfriend.’
King didn’t see the need to correct her. ‘She’s stronger than you, Heidi. You’re slim but you’re weak.’
‘Yes,’ Heidi said. ‘But your lady’s hurt worse than me.’
King couldn’t turn his head, but the silence coming from Alexis’ direction confirmed it.
No one spoke for at least thirty seconds.
To all of them, it felt like thirty hours.
Each moment was painstaking.
King would never admit it, but Heidi impressed him. Frankie Booth was a mobster, a serious piece of shit, and had no doubt been on the bad end of a gun before. At some point in his criminal career he must’ve looked death in the eyes. Alexis had, too, and King had done this too many times to count. To him it was almost normal. Heidi, on the other hand, was a novice. She’d ordered hits,
