My body felt refreshed but everything still ached with phantom pain. The level-up had patched the holes the lizardâs claws had torn in my side, but it hadnât touched the bone-deep exhaustion that was setting in. Magic, it turns out, doesnât do a damn thing for a brain thatâs running on fumes and traumatic flashbacks.
I picked up the sword discarded on the ground before letting it dissolve into nothing, vanishing back into my inventory. A sword wasn't the right tool for what was coming.
We rounded the ambulance, its back doors hanging open like a silent scream, a stark reminder of the butchery we'd found inside. I didnât dare look. The image burned so deep already that I knew exactly what it looked like inside. It wasn't a wreck. It was a tomb, parked neatly at the edge of a roadblock from hell.
And here was the epilogue to that particular shitshow.
Jonathan Kent, the grieving farmer, holding one of our Glocks. Pointed at the fresh hole in Monicaâs head. She was still cuffed, slumped against the tire like a discarded marionette whose strings had been cut. My earlier shoulder shot was a neat, tidy little hole. Especially compared to this gory mess. Brain matter and skull fragments had redecorated the ambulanceâs pristine white paint in a spray pattern that Iâd be seeing in my sleep.
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He turned, and the gun came with him, lazy but deliberate. His eyes weren't just empty; they were voids filled with only despair. Out of my periphery, Kira's shotgun came up, the stock nestling into her shoulder. Good. One of us was still running on all cylinders.
I put my hands up slowly, palms open. The universal symbol for âdonât shoot me.â
âEasy, Jonathan,â I said, my voice sounding like gravel in a tin can. âItâs over now. Letâs make sure no one else gets hurt. Just put the gun down.â
His focus shifted, looking right through me. He was checking out of this reality and death was the concierge holding the door. Then that terrifying clarity snapped back into his eyes. No more grief. No more anger. Just a finality that shook me to the core. Heâs not..
I opened my mouth to say something. Anything to ease the pain I knew was in his heart, but what do you say to a man who has lost everything?
As I racked my brain, Jonathan lifted the Glock to his temple, a slight smile on his lips as he closed his eyes. "Take me to them"
The gunshot was brutally loud, an exclamation point at the end of a very, very bad day.