While he was falling over, I spun around and plucked the knife from the wall. This time I wasn’t going to throw it, this time I was going to stab it in him with my bare hands.
The guy quickly balanced himself and picked up the couch cushion right as I came at him and sliced the cushion all the way through, the air exploding into a show of feathers. I kept coming at him until my shoulder was shoving him down and he landed on his back on the coffee table, the glass shattering.
He managed to pick up one of the shards and with bleeding fingers, cut open the side of my arm. I brought my knee down into his groin which bought me a moment of stability before I was able to chop into the side of his elbow on one of the arms that was trying to hold me back.
He cried out, arm buckling, then I put my weight on it until it twisted with a crack underneath.
While he struggled for purchase, I headbutted him until his head cracked against the table again, then I quickly dragged the blade across his throat, leaving it an open, gushing wound. His eyes rolled back, his body jerking, trying to fight, to live, but not today.
“I should have known.”
Esteban’s voice from behind made me leap up and pivot, knife held out.
He, naturally, was holding a gun.
But that didn’t mean I would lose.
“Where’s Alana?” I asked loudly, hoping she could hear me.
He smirked and with one hand brushed his long hair behind his ears. “She’s going to be out for a while. I don’t think she’s as strong as you’d believe. In fact, she broke much like a flower between my hands.”
I swallowed down the rage that threatened to consume me. This is why I was good at what I did. I had to compartmentalize. I had to focus on the task at hand before I could focus on her.
I had to kill Esteban.
Even though he was going to kill me first.
“This works out in my favor though,” he said, coming toward me, the gun still trained on me and just out of reach. He reached for the wall and pressed a button and the back of the boat shuddered and clanked. He was lowering one of the zodiacs to the water. “I’ll get to go back to the compound and tell Javier the sad truth. You were hired to assassinate his sister. It worked. But you both perished. Perhaps I even tried to save her life by killing you.”
I kept my eyes on him, trying to figure out what to do. If he came just a step closer, there was the off chance I could fly at him and knock it out of his hands before he fired. He wasn’t a very good shot to begin with.
But he didn’t come closer. In fact, he was moving a step backward and from the way his eyes were focused on my chest, I knew that if he missed he would fire until he didn’t.
There was too much pride in him to lose again.
“I hope you’ve atoned for your sins,” he said to me with a small smile. “Sadly, you’ll find no redemption here.”
He fired the first shot. I was already twisting sideways as he did so, anticipating his move. But the next shot would be too fast for me.
Everything went in slow motion. He grinned. Finger tightened on the trigger.
Then Alana appeared behind him. She looked broken, battered and beaten, close to death. But she was holding the base of a lamp, holding it above his head.
She brought it down with one brave burst of strength, her bruised features straining from the effort. My heart strained in response.
It shattered on Esteban’s head just as he pulled the trigger. The second shot grazed me, hitting the side of my chest and knocking me back to the ground. I lay there for a moment, my ears ringing, trying to go through the checklist of my body to find out how close I was to dying.
Suddenly Alana was above me screaming and I stared up at her. Her hands were feeling around my side and I managed to sit up and look. There was no blood. I quickly lifted my shirt. The bullet had nicked the edge of the C4 putty. Contrary to popular believe, the shit did not blow up when hit by a bullet. Thank god.
“You bitch!” Esteban screamed, grabbing his head and trying to get to his feet but failing. His gun was knocked out of reach.
I got to my feet first and grabbed Alana’s arm. “You need to head to the boat, he’s lowered one to the water and I have one out there, attached by a rope. Get in it and go, now!”
“What about you?”
“I’ve got something I want to do,” I told her. I grabbed her face, conscious of Este in the background. “Grab a life preserver too, a jacket, a ring, anything that will keep you a float and wrap it around you, okay?”
“Derek …”
“Go!” I screamed and at that she quickly limped away to the back of the boat.
I was going to deal with him once and for all. I picked up the gun but saw there were no bullets left. For what I was about to do anyway, I wanted him alive until the very last minute, until it was too late and heat tore apart his bones. I went over to him and pistol whipped him hard at the side of the head until he fell over to the side, unconscious. Then I quickly took off my shirt, pulled out the C4 and the waterproof box and stuck a piece of it at the base of the propane stove. I stuck in the detonator and then stuck two more pieces on opposite sides of the bridge. I could hear chains clanging and water sluicing and hoped that Alana was finding her way onto the boat. I was planning to leave with her now but we wouldn’t have much time.