Page 35 of Volt
“Last chance,” the guard says.
The man looks over at his partner and that’s when I make my move. With speed that he hadn’t expected, I close the gap between us and have my arm around his neck before he knows what happened. I glance over and see Adam struggling with the other guard as the muzzle of the weapon flashes dully and a series of shots, no louder than a cough, ring out. So, they’ve got fire and sound suppressors. Good to know.
The man in my arms is flailing and thrashing wildly, and I feel my hold on him slipping. He’s strong and can obviously fight. I got lucky in getting the drop on him. But now I need to end this, or we’re going to be in a whole world of hurt. Using all the strength in my upper body, I give his head a vicious twist. The snapping of his neck seems as loud as the gunshots in my ears. After a couple of twitches, the man’s body goes limp in my arms. I glance up to see both Adam and the man he’s grappling with looking over at me. But then Adam presses his advantage and lays into the guy.
The guard manages to get his feet under him and launches Adam backward. He rebounds off the side of the van with a dull thud and the man is bringing his weapon to bear on him. He wasn’t smart enough to keep an eye on me though because while he and Adam were tangling, I managed to get the weapon off his partner’s limp body.
I raise the barrel and squeeze the trigger and revel in the feeling of the recoil vibrating through my arms and up into my shoulders. The sound of the muffled shots rings in my ears, and I watch the guy’s body twitch and jerk as each of my bullets find their mark. I watch as they punch through his body, spraying blood and gore onto the dirt behind them. It seems like my stream of fire is the only thing keeping him upright because when I cease fire, he drops, hitting the ground with a wet meaty thud that reminds me of the way Prophet fell.
“Holy shit,” Adam gasps. “Holy shit. What are we going to do, man?”
I stare at the bodies in shock for a moment, not because I haven’t killed before and am shocked, but because I realize we’re in a whole world of shit right now. Killing Zavala’s men is an open declaration of war. There’s no other way Zavala would interpret it.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“What are we going to do, man?” Adam asks.
My mind immediately kicks into crisis mode, and I start to formulate a plan. It’s far from a perfect plan and is really only buying us a little time than solving the problem. But then, there really is no solution to this problem anyway.
“Find anything in the van we can use to roll the bodies, Adam,” I order. “Tarps, blankets, plastic—anything.”
“On it,” he says.
As he jumps to do that, I glance down at Zavala’s house, wondering if the flash of the guns and muffled puff of the gunfire carried down there. I don’t see any activity or lights going on, so I’m going to assume we’re okay. At least on that front. I turn my attention to cleaning up the mess and grab the first body, dragging it over to the van. I strip the man of his weapons, phone, ID, and everything else I find. I leave him with nothing but the clothes on his back. Then I turn and do the same with the second, dropping everything into a pack I stripped off the first guy’s corpse.
“We’ve got a couple of blankets,” Adam says.
“It’ll do.”
We use the blankets to wrap the bodies as tight as we can. The only one I’m truly worried about is the guy I shot. He’s still leaking blood and the last thing I want to do is leave a trail of DNA back to the clubhouse. Once we get them wrapped and loaded into the back of the van, I start to kick dirt over the puddle of blood on the access road. I know there’s spent brass around, but we don’t have time to search for it in the dark. I’m not going to worry about it too much. The brass will be a lot more difficult to spot than a huge puddle of blood on the road.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Wait here, and get the van running.”
I quickly descend the hill to my perch and break down all my equipment. I stow it in the case then grab my sidearm and slip it back into the holster that hangs under my arm. I give the place one last look, making sure I didn’t leave anything of myself behind, then feel that post-fight giddiness I sometimes got when I was overseas. Some of the guys called it battle-giggles—a relief from having survived the fight so deep, all you can do is laugh. It’s always made sense to me because that’s what I always felt back in the shit. It’s what I feel now.
Not wanting to stand there giggling like an idiot, I quickly ascend the hill again. Adam flinches when I jump into the van and slam the door, making me laugh.
“A little jumpy, aren’t you?” I ask.
“You certainly seem chipper.”
I shrug. “We survived the fight. We won.”
“Dude, we just killed two guys.”
“It’s not like you haven’t been in a scrap before,” I tell him. “It’s not like you haven’t put a few guys down yourself.”
“Yeah, I just never liked it much.”
I turn and look at the bodies in the back then give him a grin. “What? You want to go pour one out for them or something?”
“Don’t be a dick,” he says. “I’m just… processing. It’s been a while since I’ve killed anybody.”
“Yeah, well, process while you drive. Get this van in gear and get us the fuck out of here.”
“This is going to look great if we get pulled over.”
“Look at it this way—technically, you didn’t kill anybody. You were too busy getting your ass kicked,” I say with a small laugh.
