Page 156 of Think Twice

Still, he managed to lurch forward a foot at a time.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

You are stunned but also feel delirious joy.

He surprised you, Myron Bolitar that is, when he swung his arm and threw off your aim.

Good for him.

Still, the bullet landed in the cusp between his neck and his collarbone. Blood gushes, splashing you. You wonder whether you hit an artery.

Will he simply bleed out?

You wanted chaos and you got it. You hear screams. You see people rush for the park’s exit on the west side. You swim with the tide of people, another salmon heading upstream.

But then you remember: He had your photo on his phone.

Somehow Myron has put this together.

You can’t just wound him. You have to make sure he’s dead.

There is no time for you to think it all through. If you did, if you had a few more seconds, you’d probably realize that someone must have sent him that picture, that Myron never works in a vacuum, that if Myron has put it together, others, like Win, will know too.

But right now, you don’t have time for nuance.

You need to kill him. No matter what. If this is the end for you, if this is your goodbye, it will be his too.

Myron is badly wounded. He crawls away from you like a crab with no equilibrium. The stream of people heads in the other direction, getting in your way. You debate just firing, but your weapon is a six-shooter. No reason to waste the bullets. When you lose sight of Myron for a moment, panic sets in. You fight harder now, pushing past the crowd.

And there he is, still crawling by the benches. He starts to rise up a little.

You aim and fire. You miss. You aim and fire again.

You hit him in the back.

Myron’s body jerks. He falls hard now.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

After the first bullet hit him, Myron tried to straighten up, but the pain made his head reel in protest. He stayed low, more slithering than running. He stumbled to the left. His head screamed in protest. He had no balance, no stability.

People ran by him, bumped into him, pinballed him to and fro. Everyone was screaming. Myron tried to keep moving away from the general direction of the shooter. He heard another gunshot. Myron blinked hard, felt the blood pouring off him. He kept stumbling ahead. Another shot rang out.

A hot searing pain entered the small of his back.

The impact knocked Myron forward, his arms splayed. His spine bent backward as the air rushed out of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. His cheek landed hard on the corner of a bench.

Blood filled his mouth. Not from the fall. Not from banging his cheek on the bench.

The blood was coming up from his chest into his throat.

Drowning him.

Myron started to feel the darkness on the edges moving in. He was losing consciousness.

Hang on, he told himself.

But his body wouldn’t listen. Even his primitive survival instinct had faded away, grown distant. He rolled away, rolled under the bench. The darkness was starting to swim in front of his eyes now. Something inside of him was shutting down.