Page 8 of Devotion

“Duck.”

“That’s a terrible comeback?—”

“Noduck!” He shouts and I’m almost too late.

I feel the swish of something heavy swing into the air where my head just was.

A scuffle behind me has me dropping back, snagging a pant leg with one hand as I hear Mat grunt, taking a blow across the shoulder. Yanking with all my strength, I pull the ambusher’s leg out from under him at an odd angle, twisting until I hear a snap.

His low wail of pain precedes his full body weight hitting me square in the face.

Shit.

It’s like wrestling with a sack of dumbbells to get the guy off me. Just in time to spring to my feet in the center of a ring of six KrestBratva brutes.

All of them armed.

All of them scarred with plenty of wounds from yours truly.

I disarm the first, whipping the shiv around and stabbing him in the forearm, disabling his hand. He just grunts, swallowing the pain like a true Bratva. Blood and pain are signs of pride.

Screams are for weaklings.

Well, lets see if I can get some of them screaming for me.

This place made me tougher than all of them. They tried to destroy me. They tried to beat me down. And I just smiled. It’s why they call me the Jackal.

That selfsame grin splits my lip in the dry cold and a laugh shakes my chest as two more rush me. But I see their fear.

I use it, making one flinch with a feint, kicking him in the side of the knee, whipping my elbow into the face of the other, spinning back to drive my knee into the falling guy’s sternum with a sickening crunch.

Another from the side, I flick out my hand lightning fast, crushing his windpipe in a single chop.

A chord loops over my head from behind and I barely get my hand up in time to keep from getting throttled. My other hand finds a handful of crotch and I squeeze with everything I have.

Now he’s screaming!

I hear cussing and shouting and know that it’s time to boogie. My choker is rolling on the floor as I hop over him, snagging Matvey from between two thugs and racing away.

“Hey!”

“More coming. Time to go.”

So we run. Hard.

We’re halfway to the gate when I hear Matvey yelp, but he barely stumbles, keeping pace behind me.

“Fucking zipgun!” He grunts followed by that strange, low-keening wail he cries whenever he gets stressed out. He was probably one of those nutcase kids that screamed when he got mad.

“Why are you yelling?”

“Helps me drown out your laugh. You know how crazy you sound? Gives me nightmares.”

“I wasn’t…” Oh. I guess I was.

Maybe I’m the nutcase.

“See? Just like when you forget how vicious you fight.”

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