Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [92]
But it’s not over yet.
Oh, no.
The family is still in trouble, so we’re not letting you off the hook that easily. You’re part of the bigger plan here. So open your eyes.
Hardie, against his better judgment, opened his eyes. He could still see. He could still breathe.
Now sit up.
You’ve got a gun in your hand, sit up and raise your arm.
No, God. I can’t sit up. I can’t move either arm. One is numb and the other feels like a bag of granola. The gun’s still in my hand but it might as well be my dick, because I can’t lift my arms to save my life.
This isn’t about your life. So sit the fuck up. I could make Lazarus rise from the dead, you think I can’t make you perform one measly situp?
God, please, that’s enough. Really. Send someone else down there. I’m through.
Sit up.
I can’t—
Sit up.
I—
Sit up.
So Hardie sat up.
A.D.2 was trying to decide if it was worth shooting through the couch, or if he should try to flush them out first. Because the father was obviously cowering behind the couch, no question about it. But the insides of the furniture might stop the bullet or, more likely, cause some weird ricochet effect, and it could get messy.
This was why A.D.2 didn’t see Hardie sit up, gun in hand. What clued him in was the tinkling of shattered glass falling from Hardie’s chest.
A.D.2 turned to see Hardie’s eyes glaring back up at him, and a blood-splattered face that now twisted into a wicked grin, and then there were three miniature explosions ripping through A.D.2’s body and he was floating in the air and the house tumbled around him and then, all too late, he remembered his gun, in his hand, which would have been really useful about two seconds ago.
Hardie heard the next one approaching long before he appeared in his field of vision. To Hardie, it seemed like he had a weird out-of-body thing going on, because it was all happening like slow motion. The second gunman was taking what seemed like forever to get to him, to his line of fire. And when he finally did, seemingly hours later, it wasn’t difficult at all to turn his wrist a few degrees and line up the shot. Two in the center of gravity. The first one exploded a lung, sent the gunman spinning, and the second shot really put the English on it, striking breastbone and knocking him backward through the air. But Hardie didn’t bother to see where he landed, because he was already collapsing backward himself, back onto the stairs.
There, God. Am I done yet? Can I come home now?
31
You know what the trouble with you is? You’re too violent.
—Sylvester Stallone, Cobra
JONATHAN HUNTER counted the shots—three, followed by some frenzied footsteps, then two more. He didn’t dare move. He was covering his daughter’s body with his own, praying incoherently yet fervently. Waiting for the right moment.
All of his night terrors, those three a.m. torture sessions where his eyes popped open and he was again reminded of what happened to Kevin, how he hadn’t been here, how he was never here because of his stupid job…
Nothing compared with this nightmare.
He had a gun in his hand but he was frozen, unable to sit up and use it. Because he’d watched too many stupid cop shows in his time where somebody thinks it’s safe and looks around a corner and ends up with his brains splattered all over a brick wall.
Just like that poor bastard—Charlie? Is that what he said his name was?
The image of the man’s blood leaping out of his arm, his head jerking to the side, was horrible, almost pornographic.
But now there was no sound at all.
Except—
“Mr. H-Hunter?”
Jonathan hesitated. Could be a trap. One of the gunmen, trying to get a fix on his location. He’d seen that a billion times on TV, too. He’d produced countless shows featuring those kinds of tricks.
“Mr. Hunter, it’s me. Ch-Charlie Hardie. Out here on the steps. You might want to get over here quick. I have a way out for you g-guys, but it’s not going to last forever.”
Only then did Jonathan Hunter release his grip on his daughter’s tiny curled-up body and take a