Page 143 of Agency

Working the trigger with my thumb, I let my weapon kick and fire and eject steaming hot brass up into the air as I fired one round after another. Brass clattered onto the linoleum, then my head, shoulders, and the back of my neck. I fired till I was dry.

No more shotgun, I gathered up my weapon and dropped my dry mag, slapping in another as I glanced back to the living room.

Morgan wasn’t visible. Neither was the combatant who’d first gone to open the door, which still hung open and slapping against the wall.

Weapon up, I advanced.

“Morgan!” I shouted as soon as I saw the combatant on top of my lover and comrade.

Dark-haired, leather-faced, heavy shouldered, I’d had the hostile in my sights on our initial approach. The guy I could have shot and killed through the window, right then and there. He had also been the man behind the door, the one I’d left for Morgan to deal with.

And, here he was, now trying to kill my lover.

I won’t lie. I paused as I saw him fighting Morgan.

Not froze. But paused. They trained you in the service to act in the clutch, but they didn’t train you to deal with your lover being on the verge of death due to your mistake.

“Shoot him!” Morgan growled from his supine position on the living room floor, his hands up and trying to wrest the combat knife from the door-man’s hands and direct its razor-sharp tip away from him.

The way the combatant moved, though, he knew what was happening. Twisting and turning, he leveraged his weight and gravity as he turned his vitals towards me in such a way that placed Morgan on the exact opposite side.

I couldn’t be sure a bullet wouldn’t pass through and hit Morgan!

“Fucking kill him, Ambyr! Kill him!”

“Dammit!” I yelled back, letting my primary weapon drop aside and skinning my combat knife from its scabbard.

“Kill him!” Morgan shouted. “Shoot him!”

I was around the couch already, though, knife drawn and ready. Hand across forehead to expose the neck, then sharpened edge across the throat. That’s all I needed. Cut the arteries, let him choke on his blood as his vitae pumped across the room.

Morgan shifted the combatant’s weight as I came around, though, and the enemy let out a gasp of surprise as Morgan flipped around and on top of him. “I’ve got it!” Morgan growled through clenched teeth. Full weight bearing down on the combat knife’s pommel, the tip of Morgan’s razor sharp blade began to descend.

The combatant was rightly struggling as if his life depended on it… and beginning to wrestle the blade away! He had too much weight and muscle mass for Morgan to contend with, despite the position reversal. And, now, I didn’t have an opening with my blade…

Shit.

“Fuck!” Morgan growled, his back and shoulders flexing and quivering beneath his gear as he pressed down with all his might.

I threw myself on my lover’s back, adding my weight to his struggle.

My fingers curled over Morgan’s shoulders, and we began to sink lower and lower

Together.

The combatant below us gasped, sputtered, choked, and began to beg.

A couple seconds later, he wasn’t gasping, sputtering, choking, or begging. No. No, he was just dead, and not trying to hurt either of us, and I was just sagging into Morgan’s back and trying to catch my breath.

“You okay?” he panted.

“I’m okay.”

“Management?”

“I don’t know.”

Gasping, Morgan rolled over, depositing me onto the living room floor in the process. My gun smacked the ground on one side of me, while my combat knife clattered to the floor on the other. Laying there, together, we continued to catch our breaths for another long moment.