Page 45 of Duke
There were groans coming from most of the guys on the ground, but I was too relieved to see Temple sitting up on her own to worry about them.
Once I was sure the two survivors had driven away, I scrambled to her side. “Hey there, Fancy. How do you feel?”
She moaned, clutching her head. “Hurt.”She dabbed at her face, glanced down at her chest. “What happened?”
I unbuttoned her shirt, pulled it off, and used it to gently wipe at the cut across her chest, which was long and messy but not deep. “We got knocked off the road.”
She hissed. “How do they keep finding us?”
I wiped at the cut to her face, which was even more minor, a little nick across her forehead. “That’s what I want to fucking know. You’re gonna be okay. A couple cuts, and you’ll ache for awhile, but nothing damaged that I can see.”
She eyed me. “You’re bleeding too.”
I thumbed more shells into the chamber of the shotgun. “Yeah, well, nothing to worry about. Cuts and bruises like you.” I stood up. “Stay here a minute.”
I trotted over to the nearest guy moaning on the ground and put my foot into his shoulder. I kicked him over onto his back, and then stuck the gun barrel in his face. “You speak English, dickhead?”
He’d taken the shotgun slug to the chest. His vest had absorbed some of the impact, but he was still in a bad way—those vests will stop a lot, but not a twelve-gauge from close range.
He glared up at me, spat at me. “Fuck you, fuckhead,” he said in a Bronx accent.
“Guess that’s a yes.” I knelt beside him, drew my KA-Bar from the sheath and stuck the point under his chin. “Listen, I really don’t wanna do this in front of the lady, but I will if I have to, yeah? All you gotta do is tell me how you fuckers keep finding us.”
He laughed, wheezing, coughing blood. “You must be dense.” He laughed again. “You think you’re winning? You don’t know shit. You can’t get away. You can kill some of us, but trust me when I say Cain is just playing with you. He’ll find you. And he’ll make you pay.”
I pushed a little harder. “Save the tough talk, numbnuts. How’s he finding me? Talk, or I’ll gut you like a fish.”
I could feel Temple watching. That tempered me, just a little.
The guy laughed again. “Do what you want. I don’t give a shit. He’ll find you.”
“He’s a piece of shit gangster. What’s he gonna do? Feed me to the fishes?”
Another derisive, wet, sucking laugh. “You don’t know shit,” he repeated. “You think this is about that rich bitch over there? You must be dumber than you look. Cain is more than you’ll ever know.”
“Ooh…ominous.” I sheathed the KA-Bar, wishing Temple wasn’t here so I could just pop the fucker in the head and be done with it. “Let me guess, he has a secret lab on a secret island, and he’s got a nefarious plan to take over the world.”
That fucking laugh again. “If ignorance is bliss, you must be the happiest shithead on the planet.”
I gave a disgusted huff, and then left him to bleed out; it wouldn’t be long. I went back to Temple and helped her to her feet then got her back into her shirt. I snagged the duffel bag from the ground, grabbed one of the AR-15s and some magazines from the back of the Tahoe, and led Temple to the remaining Jeep.
“HE’LL FIND YOU!” Came a shout, with another of those wet, gurgling laughs.
Temple tried to look back, but I hauled her in a near run to the Jeep. “What did he mean by that?” She asked, clearly trying not to sound hysterical.
“Nothing.”
Temple whacked me on the arm, which stung, because that was the arm that had been opened earlier. “Don’t bullshit me, Duke.”
I shoved her into the passenger seat and rounded the hood to hop behind the wheel. Thankfully the keys were still in the ignition. The engine started with a burly rumble, and I peeled out in a wide arc, bumping up the incline and back onto the empty highway.
“He’s full of shit. Talking some nonsense about how Cain will find us, he’s playing with us, blah blah fucking blah.”
Temple’s frown was worried. “Normally I’d call that bullshit too, but it does seem like they just…know where we are, or where we’re going. They just keep showing up out of the blue. It doesn’t make any sense.”
I scratched my jaw, and then shifted my torso, testing the sting of the various cuts and aches. “Yeah, you’ve got a point. And I’ve been pretty damn lucky the last couple times they’ve showed up. They underestimate me, and I pull out the win by the skin of my teeth. But my luck’s gonna run out sooner or later. You can only get into so many outnumbered gunfights before someone gets in a lucky shot, and it only takes one.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She craned her head to look back at the scene we were leaving, the overturned SUV, the bodies scattered around it. “How many were there this time?”