Saved by the Outlaw(188)

My heart, but not my confessions. She can never know what I’ve done. I couldn’t bear to see the reflection of that monster in her eyes.

It’s those kind of thoughts that risk becoming a liability at moments like these. I push them to the side. Not to let the other-me take over, as some might say, but to be the hard-edged blade the moment calls for.

More men need to die, and I’m the instrument to make it happen.

This time it’s a messy operation. There is no time for slow calculation. No single man to take out that’ll make the whole situation better. No. This time a whole slew of men have to die, and there is no time for precision.

The Irish gangs are mostly out of the picture, their time is past. But these young freaks are hoping to make a go of it again, driven only by a young man’s ego, and a passion for mischief. These six punks have left a swath of chaos, killing some low level enforcers working for the bratva, but also any witnesses or poor young women who happened to be so unlucky as to cross their paths.

“This city’ll be ours before long, lads!” says their round-eyed leader. Some twenty-something young creep, who might not have an ounce of Irish blood in him, but who got these boys to go along with his raping and pillaging, thinking themselves some barbarians of old.

They cheer and yell in their squalid lair, some dingy rat hole in a building that’s all but abandoned. It lays on the edge of some old dockworks that are the victim of de-industrialization. The ideal spot for some young criminals.

The top floor is where they gather for their party, a bunch of dirty heroin and some scotch -- because they can’t even manage to stay consistent on what they are about. I could’ve called this in to the police, let them wrangle these punks up. But they’d have blown it. They’d have dispersed and gone on to commit more violent acts.

It ends now.

Six men have to die now, I remind myself as I stand outside their door. My street clothes gone, instead it’s dark brown turtleneck and pants, gloves and hat. This is gonna be a fight, and I don’t use messy weapons like assault rifles. It’s a pistol and my knife.

I count the moments, watching through some cracks in the wall as they shoot up. Let them get themselves messed up for me. It’s a gambit, it’ll make them sloppier, but it’ll also make them more unpredictable. My bet is that they’d have been a messy gamble at the best of times, so might as well dull their reaction.

“I gotta take a piss,” shouts one, and my time is here. The door opens.

Springing out of the dark, I grab the blocky kid about the neck, dagger to his throat as I spin him around make him my shield.

“Shit!” one of them screams almost exactly in time with my gun. I was looking to take out the leader first, but instead I get one of his underlings. That head explodes into a mist of blood against the wall and he goes down.

That’s four now, five counting the one in my arms.

“Throw down your weapons!” I shout, but I’m no cop and I pop another punk’s head open, taking no time to watch the gore. There’ll be no prisoners.

“Shit! He killed Jimmy!” cries one of the guys, and then I see him, the boss. That round-eyed lunatic looking wild with rage. I try to shoot him, but then the guy in my arms struggles and fouls up the shot.

They’re starting to get their shit together and I slit the man’s throat in my arm. He’s a liability now, and the bloody, noisy death will hopefully distract them.

But it doesn’t. These freaks have done far worse to many a poor young thing, they’re immune to suffering. Only enraged because I’ve done in some of their backup.

Their leader pulls out a gun and fires, but I’m prepared. I was already ducking and retreating behind some ratty couch and the handgun blast goes wide. And though I want to take that shit-rat out, I have bigger concerns.

There’s two other guys, and one is pulling out guns. He has a shotgun in hand and is pulling out another to toss to his friend.

Shotgun’s are terrible. No dodging a shot from one of them at this range. So I put a bullet through the eye of the first guy, and now it’s just me, the boss, and the ‘lad’ fumbling with a shotgun tossed to him.

“You’ll pay for this you shit!” cries their leader, and he’s pumping lead into the couch with no concern for how likely any of them are to hit me. None do, but it’s a risk with each shot.

Sure, most of those potential hits would not kill me on their own. But even a grazing shot could make me flinch, and then the shotgun does me in.

I dive in close to Mr. Shotgun, jab my knife down into his shoe and he screams. The shotgun goes off.

But it’s wild, thankfully. He wasn’t aiming at anything, the squeeze of the trigger was probably the result of a spasm of pain from my knife slicing open his foot.