Matt Hilton - Slash and burn

Huffman wasn't waiting to fillet him like a fish.

Larry scanned the room, saw that the door to the balcony was open. He moved quickly across the room and took a peek outside. A man was just disappearing round the corner of the building towards the back. He was dressed in those military fatigues that Huffman had made all his people wear like they were a bunch of yuppies on a paintball adventure. The short grey hair poking below the rim of his ball cap told Larry that it was Huffman.

As Larry stepped out on to the balcony to follow Huffman, a man lunged out from behind the adjacent building and lifted a shotgun. He was a large muscular man with dark hair, tawny skin, hooded eyes and a vivid scar on his chin. He didn't look like he was from around these parts. Larry had a split second to take in the man's appearance before he had to throw himself aside to avoid the buckshot that tore a basketball-sized hole in the wall next to him.

He fired back, his Desert Eagle bucking like a cannon, but the man pulled away, concealing himself behind the outbuilding.

'Who the hell is that?' Larry hadn't been party to Huffman's talk with Ruth Wicker, so did not know that the man shooting at him was Jared Rington.

An M16 rattled from the back of the house.

He saw chips of wood fly from the balcony railing, then a second afterwards Huffman came scrambling back into view, his hands shielding his head as though flesh and bone would be enough to save him from the high velocity rounds making matches of the wood around him. Huffman skidded down on his backside. Larry went towards him, watching over his shoulder for the guy with the shotgun. He grabbed Huffman and pulled him to his feet.

'Things ain't going the way we planned, are they, boss?'

Huffman slammed his shoulders against the house wall, eyes casting round. It was the first time that Larry had seen him looking anything other than mildly amused. He wasn't laughing now.

'There's a black guy out there with a machine gun,' Huffman said. 'The son of a bitch nearly cut me in half.'

Larry shot a thumb over his shoulder. 'There's a Japanese dude over there, as well. The hell's going on?'

Huffman scowled. 'Hunter got three at the get-go. One of those assholes must have killed another. Who does that leave alive, Larry?'

'Only person I've seen is Rourke.' Larry didn't think that Rourke would be around for much longer, though. 'He said that Grade's downstairs.'

'There're four of us against three. We still hold the upper hand.'

Larry did a quick count in his head. 'What about Wicker?'

'I gave her another job.' Huffman shook his head, then pulled the cap off and threw it down. It wasn't much of a disguise now that most of the others were dead. 'In hindsight, that might not have been my best idea.'

Larry blinked.

'Where is she?'

'I sent her to Tampa after the women,' Huffman said. Suddenly he crouched. Larry also dropped low and buckshot tore a wide pattern in the wall above his head.

'Son of a bitch!' Larry shouted.

'We're penned down here, Larry. We have to do something about that.'

'I'm going to kill Joe Hunter.'

'What about those other two bastards?'

'I'll kill them as well.' Larry bobbed his head up for a look and rounds from an M16 stitched a design above him. Larry flattened himself as well as a man of his giant girth could. 'But you're right: we have to get out of here first.'

Larry spied across the intervening space to the next building, then again into the house. Smoke was now billowing into the room they had their backs to.

'Can't see any way out of it,' Larry said. 'We either take the fight to them or we burn to death.'

'I'm not about to give in to these assholes.'

'I'm with you on that one, boss,' Larry told him. 'We're better than them.'

The corner of Huffman's mouth twisted into a facsimile of his usual smile. He racked the slide on his gun, lifted it so it was alongside his jaw as if he was a poster boy for the latest James Bond movie. 'You go first, Larry. I'll cover you.'

Larry looked at Huffman. To think he used to stand guard over this man, watching him suck the meat from a lobster claw and allowing him to disrespect his little brother by making Trent stand outside in the cold. For the first time, he saw Huffman for what he really was: a warped sociopath with delusions of grandeur.

Larry stood up tall, heedless of the men down below.

They'd never been shooting to kill him anyway. They were only there to contain him and Huffman while Joe Hunter came on them from inside.

He looked down at Huffman.

'OK, boss, I'll go get these two,' Larry said.

Then he sprang forward, placed one boot heel on the balcony railing, and vaulted into space.

There was a man at the top of the stairs.

Since Kate had told me about Rourke and the degradation he'd put her through, I wanted to kill him almost as much as I did Quicksilver. Kate told me about the way he'd watched as she'd performed intimate and private tasks, forever making lewd suggestions and promises. He had been rough in his treatment of her, and more than once his hands had lingered where it was unnecessary. Rourke hadn't physically raped her, but throughout her ordeal he'd been constantly raping her in his mind. His debasement of Kate required punishment in kind.

It was difficult not to charge up the stairs and pump bullets at him. But instead, I went slow and sure. He thought I was the man that I'd killed downstairs. Grade. Concealed by the thickening tendrils of smoke, he was none the wiser. Taking each step slowly, I groaned as if I was injured, lowering the man's reaction time as I made him wonder what had happened.

'Killed the bastard,' I croaked, 'but he got me good, man.'

'He shot you?'

Rourke's voice was no more than five feet ahead of me now. I kept my head down so that he couldn't get a good look at my face. The smoke helped. Even when I coughed, it sounded like a man who'd been hurt.

'You sure he's dead, Grade?'

'He's dead,' I said, finally reaching the top stair. The man was to my right and he was holding a gun, loosely, like he'd forgotten it was there. I stumbled towards him and raised a hand, as though looking for support. He lifted his own free hand and I wasn't sure if he was trying to help me or to ward me off. Either way, it didn't matter; I immediately plucked his gun out of his grasp.

He knew then who I was. I expected him to put up some kind of fight, but he didn't; he crunched against the wall bringing up his hands in a pleading gesture. Just your typical bully. Not so tough when he was up against someone tougher.

I jammed my SIG under his jaw.

'Grade's dead.'

'Please! Dear God! Don't kill me…'

I shook my head slowly. Smoke coiled around me and I could feel a furnace blast of heat pushing through my clothes. For the briefest of moments I felt immeasurably cruel. I wanted to make the man go down on his knees and beg for his life before I sent him into the flames crawling on all fours like a dog. But then I'd be the bully.

'Is your name Rourke?'

At first he wouldn't answer, so I thumbed back the hammer on my gun. I didn't need to, all I had to do was pull the trigger and it would fire, but it was quite intimidating.

'Yeah, man, I'm Rourke. But I'm nobody!'

'I know that. That's why I'm going to give you a chance.'

'You're going to let me live?'

'Yes. But you won't be a danger to women again.'

In my other hand was the gun I'd just taken off him. It was pointed low, between his thighs. I squeezed off a single round.

Rourke screamed and collapsed at the same time.

'If you can crawl out of here, you'll live,' I told him as I walked away. 'But that's down to you.'

Rourke was too concerned with screaming to crawl.