Page 168 of I Will Revel in Glory (Death by Daybreak MC 3)
The thing is, it’s never truly ‘bulletproof’ (which is why it’s more accurately called bullet-resistant or ballistic glass). It absorbs the impact of gunshots, but repeated trauma can break through it. Before Beast grabs my arm and pushes me inside the house, I see that happen.
One of the windows on the frontmost Cadillac shatters, and a shot goes right through the chest of the man behind it. Blood spatters the broken window before he stumbles back and then falls to the ground.
I turn away and follow Beast’s instructions, heading up the stairs and to the right. He checks every door, looking for attic access, finds it, and then thinks on it for a minute. He closes the door and continues down the hallway, taking me to the last room on the right. Coincidentally, it’s the same room that I was in before, with the old mattress, and my sisters’ names scratched into the wall and baseboard.
Goddamn it.
Melancholy follows. It follows and follows and follows. It never stops; it never rests. It simply walks after you until you’re too tired to move and curls its cold arms around you. Of all the places we could’ve had a final showdown, why here, in this dank, decrepit pit of memories?
Beast locks the door and closes it behind him, setting up the rifle next to the floor-to-ceiling window and then taking aim. I do the same with the second rifle as he glances over at me.
“You ever fire one of these before?” he asks, and I laugh.
“Cat is my father,” I reply, which is enough. Beast grunts as I position myself beside him. He’s stretched out on the floor with a Ruger Precision Rifle while I’m lying down with a Remington MSR and aiming around the edge of the window.
I search for a target, spotting the three runaway cars about three hundred feet down the road that leads out of the woods and onto the highway. The tires are blown out and the cars are parked haphazardly in the center of the road. I don’t see any people, but the doors are wide open.
I switch my attention back to the melee at the intersection only to see that the mafia has changed their tactics: they’ve abandoned the cars and are rushing the house instead. I can already hear shouts and gunfire from downstairs.
Shit.
The first thing I do is pick a mafia goon, squeeze the trigger, and put a round through the center of his face. We likely don’t have much time before the door is kicked in and we’re forced to switch to more intimate combat. Lovely.
While I’ve still got the opportunity, I pick off as many of the mafia’s soldiers as I can before they disappear into the woods or up the stairs of the Artefact’s sagging front porch. I switch the rifle out for my Magnum and Beast does the same. The sound of approaching footsteps makes him grit his teeth.
“Out,” he says, offering yet another single word command that has me blanching. He kicks both rifles right out the window and leaves them to tumble to the ground below.
“Onto the roof?” I choke, and he nods. Goddamn it. I hate heights. I’m not even sure the roof will hold my husband’s weight, but out he goes anyway, keeping to a low crouch. There’s a definite possibility of being shot up there, but there’s also the chance we’re going to find ourselves cornered inside this bedroom.
I see why he picked it and not the attic.
Beast seems to think there’s less chance of being shot out there than in here, and I trust his judgement. Here goes nothing.
I make myself climb out, taking care to test each portion of the roof before I put any weight on it. God knows there are parts of this building that are already in the process of collapsing.
He moves to the edge, turning and grabbing onto the roof, hopping down and then grunting as he makes contact with something below. I creep closer as Beast reaches up a hand for me. He’s standing on the roof of a rusted-out van that I never noticed before, giving him the height needed to safely descend from the second story.
Damn.
Talk about attention to detail.
I take his hand and join him before using the hood of the rusted-out shitbox to finish our climb to the ground. Beast pushes the rifles beneath the van with his foot; they aren’t useful to us anymore, and we don’t really have the time or leisure to deal with them anyway. He gestures for me to follow him around the back of the house, keeping a low profile and holding his gun in a firm two-handed grip.
The inside of the Artefact is alive with shouts and screams and gunfire, but it’s much quieter out here. No doubt there are men from both sides hiding amongst the trees, but the shots are fewer and farther between.
