Page 76 of Cole: Bloodlines
Clint nodded. “There are some kids in the basement.”
“You found more kids?” Cole asked when the call ended, bile scorching the back of his throat like battery acid. His stomach clenched into a fist of revulsion. “In the basement?”
Clint nodded, the motion slow and mechanical, as if his neck had rusted at the joints. “Three boys. Threeliveboys.” He exhaled a ragged breath that seemed to deflate his entire frame. “One dead.”
“Jesus,” Cole whispered.
“And…” Clint started to add more, then shook his head. “They’ll need medical attention. And so will you.”
Cole didn’t argue as each breath felt like a knife stabbing into his chest.
When Clint walked over to the Mangler to move him, Cole rose to his feet, wincing in pain.
“I can do it myself,” Clint said, despite his bleeding shoulder.
“No,” Cole exhaled and shook his head. “I can manage. I’ll help.”
Clint hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He seized the Mangler's ankles while Cole gripped beneath his armpits, both men grunting as they half-dragged, half-carried thekiller's deadweight across the blood-slicked concrete. Cole’s ribs screamed, but he bit back the pain, pushing through.
The Mangler's head lolled at an unnatural angle, vertebrae grinding audibly with each step. They propped him against the wall, and Clint wrenched his shattered arm behind his back. Bone fragments shifted beneath the skin like broken glass in a sack, and the Mangler's scream echoed off the walls. His face had become a topographical map of trauma: left cheekbone caved inward, right eye swollen shut beneath a purple-black hematoma, teeth visible through a split in his cheek where his face had connected with the brick wall under tremendous force. A thin ribbon of bloody drool hung from his chin, swinging in pendulous arcs as he struggled to hold his head upright.
Clint seized the Mangler's jaw between thumb and forefinger, fingernails digging into the bruised, bloody flesh. His face hovered inches away, close enough for the killer to smell the metallic tang of vengeance on his breath. “You'd best be fucking glad you didn’t kill my brother,” he whispered, each syllable dripping with venom. “You don't want him waiting for you on the other side of that veil.” He leaned closer still, a muscle in his left cheek twitching arrhythmically. “I can only kill you once... but he would have flayed your soul layer by fucking layer foreternity.”
Cole approached Byrne with an unsteady gate, partially hunched. The deputy lay sprawled in a congealing puddle of his own fluids, his skin the color of dirty chalk against the crimson-streaked concrete. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven bursts, each breath whistling through teeth stained pink with blood. He stared at Cole through half-lidded eyes—defiant despite the glassy sheen of shock—tears of pain cutting clean tracks down his dirt-and-blood-spattered cheeks. Cole reached down, gasping as his ribs ground together, and yanked thebraided leather bracelet off Byrne's wrist with enough force to scrape skin.
Byrne's lips peeled back in a grotesque approximation of a smile. His chuckle emerged as a wet, rattling sound like loose gravel, phlegmy and wet. “If you kill me...”Each word emerged between labored gasps, bubbles of pink froth forming at the corners of his mouth.“… you're never gonna find... Ezra.”
Cole straightened slowly, the blood-soaked bracelet dangling from his fingers like some primitive talisman. The leather was worn smooth in places, darkened by years of skin oils before being baptized in Byrne's blood. “Ezra's dead,” he whispered, voice cracking along with his heart. “You're a liar.”
“Too bad... for Ezra, then...”Byrne's eyes gleamed with malicious triumph despite the gray pallor creeping across his features.“That you don't... believe me.”His chuckle transformed into a violent coughing fit that convulsed his entire body, spraying a fine mist of bloody spittle that caught the pale light of dawn like macabre glitter.
Clint joined Cole as they hauled Byrne's limp form over to the wall. The deputy's head bounced against the threshold with a hollow thunk that neither man acknowledged as they propped him against the wall beside Daniel, whose labored breathing filled the cramped space, where he was gagged and his hands and feet bound up tight.
Leaning against the cold brick wall, Cole hugged his ribcage, his breathing irregular as beads of cold sweat sprouted across his brow.
“You okay?” Clint asked.
Cole nodded, took a deep, painful breath, and straightened away from the wall. “I’ll make it.”
“Cruz?” Gabe emerged from a dark alcove outside the factory, his shirt stiff with dried blood that cracked like paint with each labored movement. The sudden appearance startled the two gangsters, who instinctively reached for their waistbands.
“Gabe?” Cruz's face shifted from alert caution to shocked recognition. His eyes widened as he examined the array of bruises and cuts on Gabe's face. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“It's a long story,” Gabe mumbled, wincing as he pressed his palm against the wound in his side. Blood seeped between his fingers, warm and sticky. “What're you doing here?”
“Clint called, said he needed our help.”
Fear gripped Gabe's chest like an icy fist; the echoes of multiple gunshots still rang in his ears. “Did he take down the killers?”
“Yeah,” Cruz said.
“Why does he need your help? I would’ve thought him and Cochise could handle it.”
Cruz and Sanchez exchanged a look that unnerved Gabe. “Cochise was shot.”
“What?”
“He was knocked out,” Cruz added quickly. “But he’ll be all right. He and Clint were wearing protective vests.”
