Page 64 of Deadly Aloha
I stood, mindful of the larger glass pieces. As the first man in the hall kicked down Tangaloa’s door, I snapped the knee of the sixth man, the one directly in front of me. Before he could cry out in pain, I broke his neck.
When the fifth man spun, his gun caught on the wall. I kicked, and the weapon flew from his grip. The fourth man had better luck raising his gun, but I shifted my position. The fifth man moved to attack me with his bare hands just as the fourth man fired, hitting the fifth directly in the back. As the fourth man’s eyes went wide behind his mask at shooting his own man,I leapt up on to the wall in a running jump. I landed between the fourth man and the third man, who was only just now realizing there was a problem at the sound of the gunshot behind him.
Reaching behind me, I grabbed hold of the fourth man’s head, bending him backward over my shoulder. He cried out in pain and shot his gun again, but the bullets only hit my ceiling. I twisted in such a way to dislocate his neck and rupture his spinal cord. It left him alive in a useless body.
Which meant he could answer questions later.
Dropping the fourth man’s dead weight, I moved just in time to avoid a bullet to the skull as the third man fired. The second man was smarter than his comrades. He shifted around the third to try to get at me, too. I ducked low, pulling a blade from its holster. Slicing the tendons at the back of the third man’s knees, I drove the blade down through the second’s boot. As the third man fell backwards and the second fell forwards, I aimed their gun hands at each other as they instinctively fired.
I took down all five men in less than a minute. There was no flare, no Hollywood dramatics. It was the Jackie Chan version ofWham Bam, Thank You, Ma’am. As the first came charging out of Tangaloa’s bedroom, his eyes going wide at the sight of his fallen companions, I felt someone approaching from behind me. While the bottleneck had been to my advantage to take down the Bloody Scorpions at my feet, it also left me just as vulnerable to attack.
Before I could turn to see who it was or assess which man was the greater threat, something collided with my shoulder. I fell forward, pain radiating up and down my arm.
The first man reached for me. I allowed my body to fall, using the momentum of the strike to take me to the floor. Avoiding landing on my shoulder, I rolled. The first man spun, following me, and when he snagged my now useless arm, both of us toppled over into my bedroom door. The wood collapsed, and wewent down. I felt something jab me in the side as whatever had been in the back of my shoulder came loose.
My blood ran cold as I saw what it was. A dart, like vets use to tranquilize animals. The bright pink feathers at the end were splattered in blood.
I felt my right arm go numb almost immediately. My vision blurred and I struggled to rise. I couldn’t find my footing and somehow got to my knees.
I barely saw the fist coming at my face. In all honesty, I didn’t know if I dodged it out of skill or because gravity was pulling me down. With limited mobility in my left arm, I reached for a blade.
When the blur of the man came over me again, I struck blindly, and only knew I’d hit home by his cry of pain and the hot splatter of blood hitting my face. As he collapsed beside me, I realized I was lying useless on my back in the splintered mess that had once been my door.
I blinked, my vision fading.
I knew the last Bloody Scorpion was approaching, knew that I needed to take him out before I went unconscious or he could hurt Lu and Pualani. Itried. I fucking tried to reach for another blade. I barely remembered how to breathe, let alone how to make my arm move. I blinked again, my vision making out the dark silhouette as he approached me through the doorway of my bedroom.
Cold metal touched my fingertips just as my world descended into darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
“Think he’s dead?”
The black void was slow to fade. I could hear things before any of my other senses came back to me. The loudest sound made me think of glass crunching under boots.
“Maybe. That’s a lot of blood.”
The more I roused, the more pain registered in my back and my right side just above my hip. My arms felt weird, like they were being held on puppet strings. I couldn’t feel my wrists or fingers.
“Fucker got me good. My shoulder’s messed up. I need to get to a hospital.” The words were clipped, pained. The accent was also midwest American.
“I don’t give a fuck about your shoulder.Pull!”
This time, I felt the tug against my shoulders. I was finally able to piece together that I was being dragged by my arms across my debris-covered floor. That’s what the pain in my lower back likely was.
“I’ve only got one arm.Youpull!”
I recalled the fight. Ironically, the pain was helping me wake up faster, making me more alert. But I wasn’t fully there yet.Which sucked, because I could feel my shorts getting soaked with blood and it felt like there was a hot poker in my side. I couldn’t quite feel my legs yet, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to just let myself get dragged.
I knew I’d taken down six of the Bloody Scorpions. The sedative in the tranquilizer dart must not be very strong if I was waking this quickly. I was not familiar with chemical sedatives enough to take a guess at which I’d been dosed with. I knew natural toxins taught to me by my father during my training. Like the neurotoxin the twins were fond of, there were a lot of poisons and paralytics in nature. One just had to know where to look.
The one who shot me with the dart was obviously the one without the arm injury. I was trying to figure out whose shoulder I had messed up when I heard the telltale squeak of my front screen door. It grated on my brain like nails to a chalkboard. Motherfucker, I needed toburnthat door.
I should have done it the day Lu walked out on me. Every time I heard that fucking door close, it was like a spike being driven into my soul. Even with her back in my life, I still hated that sound.
“Drop him!”
My body was jolted to a halt just before my stairs. It was only three steps from the top of my little porch to the dirt, but I was still not looking forward to being dragged down them.
