Page 72 of Duke
“How do you deal with it? When you do it for a living?”
“For us who make war professionally, it is different. It is still never easy, but I think we have learned to…separate ourselves from it, in a way.” Anselm passed his hand through his hair, ruffling it. “When we work, when we fight, we are a different person than when we are idle, or at play. But sometimes, for me at least, things have a way of coming back to me in the quiet hours of the night. This will happen to you, I should say. Expect it, deal with it as well as you can, and know that you will be okay, in time.”
I rinsed my mouth, washed my hands, and finger-combed through my hair. “What do we do now?”
“Now? I call Harris, and we formulate a plan to retrieve our comrade.” He moved out of the bathroom, and I followed him, doing my best to not step in anything messy while keeping my eyes off the yucky stuff.
The hallway was…there weren’t words. Bodies were piled on the floor, blocking the way forward, bullet holes pocking the walls, blood everywhere.
I stumbled to a stop, hand over my mouth. “Jesus. What…? What the hell happened here?”
Anselm grabbed me around the waist and lifted me past the worst of it, then set me down facing away from the ruin of battle. “Duke Silver happened.”
“He did this?” I glanced behind me, trying to fathom how it was even possible; there had to be at least ten or twelve dead men in that hallway. “By himself?”
Anselm nodded. “In less than a minute, with his bare hands and a single pistol.” He gestured at the front of the house, which I now realized was… essentially gone, shredded by that machine gun. “There is no way to shield you from the unpleasantness, I’m afraid. There is more out there.”
I nodded and followed Anselm through the wreckage that was the front end of Harris’s house and out into the yard. What I saw made me feel faint. The wooden porch we stood on was so full of holes it was a wonder it still stood. An SUV sat upside down, full of bullet holes. Another vehicle was burning several yards away, the flames flickering orange, sending black smoke into the sky. Behind that was another heap of burning wreckage, along with the remains of the helicopter. There was a bit of rotor hanging limp, the end broken and dangling, flames crackling and leaping, the skeleton of the aircraft blackening.
There were bodies everywhere.
I saw more smoke skirling skyward from the direction of the gate.
I leaned against Anselm. “You and Duke…you did—all this?”
“Mostly Duke,” Anselm said. “I contributed to a portion of the body count, and that burning vehicle by the gate, but the rest of what you see was caused by Duke.”
“Why is all this happening? What do they want?”
“I am not sure anymore.”
An electronic trilling sound came from inside the house, a phone ringing. Anselm trotted in and retrieved the ringing device and answered it.
“Ja, Harris,was geht ab?” He paused to listen, then answered in English. “Things are not so good on this end. They came in force. We held them off, but they managed to take Duke….No, they captured him alive.” He glanced up at the sky, and that was when I heard the sound of a jet overhead. “You have some rebuilding ahead of you, let’s just say that,ja? You will see what I mean. No, she is with me.Ja, see you shortly.”
I took a seat on the step of the porch while Anselm spoke to Harris, and finally had a moment to get a good look at the man.
At first glance, Anselm seemed average and unremarkable. He wasn’t overly tall or muscular, not like Duke, and nor was he as stunningly, classically handsome in the face like Duke was, but once you took a closer look, it became obvious that Anselm was anything but average, and far, far from unattractive. His attractiveness was understated, is how I’d put it. He had a strong, angular jaw shadowed with stubble, vivid, dark brown eyes, clean, symmetrical features, and an artfully messy crop of brownish blonde hair. He was clearly in incredible shape, as well, judging by the way he filled out the black para-military clothing.
Made me wonder what the rest of Duke’s…friends…were like.
I’d soon find out, I realized, when the sound of the jet approached, the aircraft appearing on the horizon, flying low and fast. It was a private passenger jet, but it was being flown more like a fighter jet, skimming the treetops at breakneck speed, and then when it neared the clearing it slowed and began a lazy bank, tilting and circling—so the pilot could get a look at the mess, probably. It made a partial arc around the clearing where the house sat, and then the jet took off at an angle, skirting wide before banking back around far in the distance. There was a landing strip out there somewhere, I assumed, since the jet was now approaching from the opposite direction, landing gear down, nose up, speed slacking off as it descended. It vanished under the trees, and then the sound of the engines faded. A few minutes later, I heard a different engine approaching, this one smaller and thinner; it sounded kind of like an off-road vehicle.
When it appeared, it was exactly what I thought, an off-road utility vehicle. It had no doors, only a roof supported by black bars, and a green body with yellow trim—something made by John Deere, though I knew nothing of that kind of vehicle, obviously.It was occupied by four people, one of them head and shoulders taller than the rest and nearly twice as broad, so big he had to sit in the pickup truck-like bed, and was big enough that his weight made the entire back end dip significantly. That must be Thresh, Duke’s monster of a best friend. The other three were two men and a woman.
The utility vehicle braked to a halt a dozen feet away and the four occupants got out. Thresh, the big one, was indeed a literal giant of a man, standing seven feet tall and so packed with muscle I’d believe him capable of lifting this entire house off its foundation with his bare hands, if he wanted to. His hair was white-blond and spiked in a three-inch wide mohawk, the sides of his head shaved to the scalp, although he obviously hadn’t had an opportunity to shave it recently, judging by the short stubble growing there. He had an arm in a sling and cast, held close to his body, and his eyes were so pale blue they were almost white. Those eyes were piercing, frighteningly intense and cold and hard as they scanned the battlefield wreckage.
The woman hopped out of the UTV and went to Thresh’s side, and his arm went around her, tucking her against him. She was stunningly gorgeous, with flawless caramel skin and thick inky-black hair done in a loose braid. She was tall, too, nearly six feet herself, and looked seriously buff as well as stupidly well-endowed in both boobs and butt while still maintaining a trim physique; I was a little jealous, if I’m being honest.
The other two men circled the front of the vehicle to stand by Thresh, shaking their heads and staring at the ruin. One was tall and thin and hard, with messy brown hair and a short beard, both shot through with hints of gray, wearing an all black paramilitary uniform; the other was shorter but nearly as broad and heavily muscled as Duke and Thresh were, though he stood maybe five-nine at most, and had an epic beard, his head shaved bald, the beard thick and black and braided to hang down to mid-chest—he wore a pair of black military pants with sagging-open cargo pockets and a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, some kind of gory, scary looking symbol on the front, probably advertising a heavy metal band, tattoos covering one arm. Each man looked hard, deadly, and dangerous in his own unique way—although, if you asked me, none of them could match Duke.
Duke was dangerous, obviously, but he was just gorgeous—pure, unadulterated sex appeal, sharpened by the fact that you couldn’t miss how rough, rugged, and dangerous he was, which only made him sexier.
But god, thinking about Duke brought tears to my eyes. Before that rifle went off, breaking the moment, Duke and I had shared something. We’d…gone beyond just sex, although now I wasn’t really sure it had everbeenjust sex between us, even from the very first time I’d touched him.
My head was spinning as everything started crashing in on me, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I mean, it was early evening at this point—six? Maybe seven?—and I’d been through more trauma and emotional rollercoasters in the last ten or twelve hours than in my entire life up until now.
Kidnapped, waking up in a strange place, handcuffed and gagged with a man I didn’t know—the escape, the sudden and gory violence of Duke killing those men…and then realizing I was attracted to Duke more intensely than I’d ever been attracted to anyone, and that he returned it in spades…followed by a series of mind-altering orgasms and giving Duke not one buttwoblow jobs within the span of a few minutes…god, what was wrong with me? This was, as my kid brother might say, batshit crazy. Duke had killed so many men—I couldn’t even begin thinking about the number, and that was justtoday.But he’d done it all in self-defense, and in defense of me. He’d protected me. Taken care of me. Showed me that he had a tender side, that he did have a big heart, but it was buried deep beneath his arrogance and machismo.