The Corpse And The Crazy

Chapter 11 - 14

~*Corpse*~

'Boo.'

The man tenses up. I watch him reach for his gun, but he's too slow. I grab hold of his wrist, twisting it and pushing on his back. It causes him to land face-first on the car, breaking his nose and damaging his pride. The gun falls to the ground, and I kick it under the car. I'm not taking any more risks. 

He screams in agony when I break his arm. His buddy is standing perfectly still, frozen in his tracks. He won't be much of a problem either. 

While maintaining eye contact with the friend, I kick the other in the hollow of his knee. He folds like a fucking lawn chair, collapsing onto the ground. 

When I start walking around the car, the friend finally realises he's in danger too. He sprints to his car at the speed of a dying man. Sadly, even that speed isn't fast enough to get away from a vampire.

He opens his mouth to scream, but I'm faster. I grab his throat and slam him to the ground, forcing all of the air out of his lungs.

I bend down so that our faces are only a couple of inches away from each other, 'shouldn't have come after me.'

He tries wriggling his way out of my grasp, but it's futile. It doesn't take long for his body to go limp. I hold on for a couple more seconds, just to make sure he stays unconscious. 

I throw his body on the back seat of their car and return to the other man. In the time I've taken to hide his friend, he's crawled under the car. For a split second, I think he's just scared. That he's hiding in the hope that he might escape.  But then I realise what's under that car.  

The first shot doesn't hit me, the second one barely grazes my ankle. I don't wait around for him to regain his accuracy, I know I have to finish him. Right here and now. 

I jump on the roof of the car and signal Julia to start it. If he won't get out from under the car willingly, I'll need to give him a little motivation. 

Julia moves to the backseat, while I slide into the car through the window. I go straight forward, revealing the little weasel of a man. Blood is dripping from his nose. One of his arms is limp, laying in his lap. The other hand is clenching the gun as if it's the only thing standing between him and certain death. 

In a way, he's right. That gun could've saved him. If he had shot me in the chest or brain, I'd be rendered useless for at least a couple of days. He might have been able to kidnap Julia. He wouldn't have gotten far, though. The Duke's contacts are scattered neatly throughout America, so it'd only take a short week for me to track them down again. 

But if he'd just given up, turned away and left, I might have let them go. Maybe.

But it's too late now. 

He tries to flee. But a man running at top speed will never be faster than a car. Especially not when that man has a broken arm. Maybe he thought that I wouldn't come after him if he shoots at us until his magazine was empty. If he'd been in this line of work longer, he would have known that every good hitman has a bulletproof car, so that his shots don't do much. 

While I drive the car in a half-circle, I get a gun from the glove compartment. Sure, this man doesn't have a single chance of killing me and getting away. But that doesn't mean I can't make this a bit easier for myself. 

'Don't kill him.' I stop moving and look over my shoulder. 

It was Julia. She was leaning forward, eyes fixed on the man. She hadn't spoken or moved since I came out of the hotel, why did she choose to say something now?