Page 75 of Cole: Bloodlines
What crept through looked more creature than human—hunched down to all fours, its body thin beneath a baggy overcoat, dark stringy hair hanging in its face, and then it grinned at him, baring razor-sharp teeth. Clint took a startled step back, his grip on the gun tightening.
After a moment of them staring at each other, the creature beckoned to him. “Come, come.”The voice was that of a nasally child.“I’ll show you the way.”
Clint hesitated only a moment before slowly lowering his weapon; Cochise was hurt, and there was no time to waste. Clint holstered the gun and moved cautiously forward. “Show me.”
The creature—a young man in his early twenties upon closer inspection—jittered excitedly and backed quickly through the door. “Come, come—hurry.”Then he was gone, racing up the corroded steel steps.
Clint ran after him, heart pounding frantically, praying he found his brother alive upon arrival.
Cole gritted his teeth against the pain and rolled the Egyptian onto his side to check the entry wound. The bullet had shredded a hole through the back of the man’s thick jacket between his shoulder blades.
Fuck—please hurry!
The Mangler suddenly shifted, then moved, and began to drag himself along by his one working elbow, his other arm trailing uselessly. His legs didn’t appear to work, dragging behind him like dead slugs.
Cole reached for the machete, but the giant’s boot landed on the blade, pinning it. They stared at each other, man and behemoth. The giant bent down, not at him but at the Mangler, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, and lifted him effortlessly, intent on smashing him against the wall again.
“Don’t…” Cole rasped, and the giant went still, the killer dangling from his grasp like a rag doll. “Don’t… kill him.” He coughed and spat out blood, meeting the hulk’s black eyes. “He’s my…father…let me…”
The giant looked at him from the shadows of his hood, then loosened his grip, and the Mangler sagged to the floor. Just then, his jittery little companion scampered through the door and jumped onto the giant’s back. Seconds later, the cowboy burst into the room at a dead run.
The giant backed out through the doorway, Jitterbug leering over his shoulder, the two slowly fading into the shadows of the factory like ghostly apparitions.
CHAPTER 34: WHAT COMES NEXT
Clint crashed to his knees beside Cochise, frantically removing the Egyptian’s heavy jacket. Cole helped him, pulling the coat out of the way as soon as it slipped off the big man’s muscular arms. He wore a black, long-sleeve shirt beneath the jacket. Clint hurriedly checked the entrance wound, then his pulse, finally sinking back on his heels as he rubbed his mouth.
“He… He isn’t bleeding,” Cole stammered. “Is… Is that good or bad?”
The cowboy released a long, stiff breath. “It’s good.” He tugged up the rear hem of the Egyptian’s shirt to reveal the black ballistic vest underneath. Pulling it higher up his back, Cole’s eyes widened at the sight of the bullet embedded in the vest, stopped cold before it could puncture Cochise’s body.
“Fuck…” Cole fell back on his butt and covered his face with both hands, shaking badly. “I thought…” Tears thickened his voice as his entire body strained with emotion. “I-I heard the gunshot… and he went down… I thought…” His fingers slid into his hair and squeezed as his chest tightened with sobs. “He saved my life. I’d be dead if he hadn’t…” Cole slowly lowered his hands, tears running down his face. “Is he going to be okay?”
Clint nodded, clearing his throat. He blinked back tears of his own. “It just knocked him out cold.”
Cole looked at the cowboy’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding. Aren’t you wearing…?”
“Yeah, I am,” Clint rasped. “I got hit under the strap.” He sniffed, cleared his throat again, and folded Cochise’s jacket, placing it under the Egyptian’s head. The lingering terror in his jade eyes spoke volumes of his love for the man.
“What’re we going to do with them?” Cole looked at the two killers.
Clint turned deadly eyes on the two men. “Your call,” he spoke low, chilling. “Turn them over to the authorities, or…” He looked at Cole with a gritty stare.
“I want themgone,”Cole said thickly, vengeance grating his voice. “I want them fuckingdead—so dead they cannevercome back and fuck with my family again.”
Clint nodded, approval glinting in his eyes. He glanced at his downed brother, then turned toward the deputy, hellfire igniting behind his bloodshot eyes. The killer lay sprawled in an expanding lake of crimson, arterial blood pulsing from his thigh in diminishing spurts, a slower trickle oozing from the ragged tear at his neck. “We need to stop his bleeding. I want him fuckingalivefor what comes next.”
Clint stalked over, boots leaving bloody heel-prints across the concrete. He seized the deputy's shirt—a cheap polyester blend that separated with a sound like tearing flesh—and shredded it into strips with hands that trembled with barely contained rage. His fingers worked with mechanical precision as he cinched a makeshift tourniquet above the thigh wound, tightening it until the deputy's leg twitched involuntarily. The man stared up through eyes like stagnant ponds, devoid of fear or remorse. Clint's jaw clenched so hard that a muscle jumped beneath his stubbled cheek; one direct look, and his control would snap like an overtightened wire. He wadded another strip against the neck wound, where it immediately bloomed scarlet, and secured it with a knot that made the deputy's head jerk back.
Cole crouched beside the Mangler with effort; his arm curled around his cracked ribs. The Mangler’s chest heaved with wet, uneven breaths. Blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth with each exhale, and a spiderweb of burst vessels had turned one eye completely red.
“I’m going to need some help,” Clint said, wiping his bloody palms down his jeans, leaving dark streaks like war paint. Hedug out his phone and checked for a signal. “We brought radios because we didn’t know if phones would work in here.” His brow cinched as he got a signal and made a call. “It’s me,” he said. “I need some help.” He explained the situation and relayed the location. “Cochise is out, but his pulse is strong,” reassuring the person on the other end of the call. “He’ll be all right.”
“Who was that?” Cole asked when the call ended.
“Cruz.” Clint put his phone away and returned to the Egyptian, double-checking his pulse. “When he and Sanchez get here, and we move these fuckers out of the factory, I’ll call Detective Jordan.”
“Detective Jordan?”
