HARDCORE: Storm MC(64)

Cain looked up just in time to see the night sky above him quickly eclipsed by four shadowy figures wearing ski masks. They lifted their boots and began to bring them down on Cain's body, over and over.



He tried to raise his arms to ward off the blows, but their boots seemed to immediately find his unprotected areas and stomp them hard. Several of the kicks struck him in the ribs, and he felt the bones snap and grind together. He hoped none of them would pierce anything vital.



The owner of the pointy-toed cowboy boot that had kicked his knee out earlier seemed particularly focused on mashing the hard heel into Cain's face and head. Cain saw his own blood pattering on the pavement inches away from his face like drops of rain. He felt consciousness swimming further away from him with each kick. He shut his eyes, willing himself to stay awake through the agony.



Cain knew these men weren't here to kill him. If they were, they'd have done it already. So he figured he just had to hang in until they'd finished sending whatever message they were sent to deliver, or until Keith finished peeing and came out.



He'd taken beatings before.



But none of them had been this sustained or savage.



The kicks just kept coming, and his body felt like it was being tossed around and smashed in a trash compactor. He felt the sharp jab of one of his fractured ribs again, and started to worry that if these men kept it up, they'd end up killing him whether they intended to or not.



Cain had given out his share of beatings, too, and he knew that it was probably the least predictable form of violence. When he shot someone, he knew where he was putting the bullet and what damage it would do. Likewise, when he put a blade into someone, he knew exactly what was being cut and the effect it would have.



But when it came to beatings, there was no telling what might get broken inside someone or which organs might get dislodged. He'd seen men survive getting bludgeoned half to death with a baseball bat, and he'd seen a single lucky kick to the temple kill a man instantly.



The boots kept rising and falling, rising and falling, as relentlessly as pistons. Cain's vision started to grow dark and sparkly around the edges.



He might succumb to unconsciousness or worse after all.



Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. At first, Cain thought he'd been wrong. The beating had only been a bit of foreplay before they shot him through the head. His skull certainly felt like a bullet had ripped through it, and as the seconds spun out in front of him, he wondered how long it would take for him to die.



Then he heard a second shot, and a third, and realized that his attackers were retreating. He turned his head, every bone in his neck creaking and shooting off firecrackers of raw pain.



Keith was running over to him from the doorway of the motel room, his gun in hand. “Yeah, you'd better run, motherfuckers!” he yelled at the fleeing men. “You hurt a Blood Eagle, you pissant cowards! Go home an' kiss yer kids, 'cause they're about to be fuckin' orphans!”



Keith kneeled next to Cain, inspecting his injuries. “Holy shit, brother. How bad is it?”



Cain's lips parted and a mouthful of blood dropped out, splatting onto the ground. “Not so good,” he slurred through bruised and bleeding lips.



“I'll call Hunter,” Keith said, grabbing his cell phone from his pocket. “He can come pick us up so we can get you looked at, okay?”



Cain shook his head slowly. “Nostril,” he said. It took him several tries to form the word with his battered mouth. “Set us up. Get him.”



“Right,” Keith nodded, getting up. “I'll grab him so we can fuck him up an' find out who did this. Just sit tight, man. It's gonna be okay.”



Keith jogged back to the door of the motel room. He tried the handle, and when he found it was locked, he kicked the door in and rushed inside.



Cain sprawled on the ground, groaning loudly. His eyes flickered over to the window of the adjoining motel room, and he saw a young girl staring out at him, wide-eyed with fright. She looked like she was about two years old.



How about that, Cain thought. Keith was right about the little girl after all.



Cain couldn't imagine what a traumatic sight he must have been at that moment, but the expression on the girl's face was making him feel even worse. He was worried she'd probably have nightmares. To try to alleviate her concern, he raised an arm that felt like it weighed a ton, opened his bruised fingers, and bent them in a feeble wave.



The girl returned the wave solemnly.



Cain wanted to pull himself to his feet, go over to the door of the room, knock on it, and warn the girl not to go playing around behind the motel.



Instead he laid his head back against the gravel and watched the world spin away from him until he was enveloped by the deepest darkness he'd ever known.