Chapter 47 Chapter 47: Reckoning
I caught one last, fleeting glimpse of Guy’s retreating back, the tailored line of his coat, before the chaos swallowed him. They were splitting up, making for the warren of passages known as Hangman’s Alley, hoping to lose me in the maze.
The Alley was a world unto itself, a festering wound in the city’s side. Thieves, cutthroats, and bottom-feeders were unfazed by the small-scale war raging through the town. If anything, they thrived on it. They drank in the riots and the distant glow of Molotov cocktails like mother’s milk; their faces numb to the violence as their transactions continued in hissed whispers. They barely spared me a glance as I pushed through, a wild-eyed spectre in a torn floral dress and sheer tights, having shed the garish Ajax uniform in a back alley. I was a jarring contrast: violated femininity clutching a blood-smeared butcher’s knife in one hand and the cold steel of the M18 in the other.
I screamed his name, spat curses, shoved bodies aside…Just needing one clean shot at their backs to end this. But the universe conspired against me. Every meth-addled dealer lurched into my path at the last second; every street whore wandered into my sightline, a living shield of indifference. For one white-hot second, my finger trembled on the trigger, ready to empty my clip into the whole damned crowd. Then sense returned when I clocked the sheer amount of firepower these bastards were casually packing. So, I ran. Hard and fast through that claustrophobic maze, my breath sobbing in my throat.
The crowd finally thinned near the end of the alley. I burst onto the next street, gasping, just in time to see Charles and Guy split at a crossroads. Charles veering toward the cheap, neon glow of The Thrill, Guy heading north, back toward the fortified chaos of the Spil.
Charles first. The thought was a primal scream in my skull. The rapist. Guy could wait. His turn would come.
The thought had barely formed before Charles slipped inside The Thrill, the heavy door sealing with a final, mocking thud.
I ran as I’d never run before, lungs burning, each ragged breath a knife in my side. I slammed into the door…locked. I pounded on the wood, voice raw. “Open up! Open up, Jenny, it’s Tilly!” Desperation took over. I threw my weight against it again and again, my shoulder screaming, the door not giving an inch.
When it still didn’t budge, my vision tunnelled. I drew my gun, steadied my grip with my injured arm, and emptied a full magazine into the doorframe; where I prayed the lock was. Wood splintered, metal shrieked. The door sagged inward on shattered hinges. I ejected the spent mag, slammed in a fresh one, and stepped into the eerie hush inside.
Dust motes danced in the dim light. I moved forward, gun raised, sweeping the familiar reception. Then I saw her. Jenny slumped behind the counter, a nasty gash on her temple, unconscious but alive. A quick check: thready pulse, shallow breaths. A brutal testament to Charles’s handiwork. He always left a trail of broken things.
I turned down the hallway of private rooms. The first door was ajar. I kicked it open, gun sweeping. Inside, Donna, one of Jenny’s best, knelt ghost-pale and trembling. At her feet, a naked client lay in a widening pool of blood, throat slit ear to ear.
I motioned her to silence and moved on. I knew this place, barred windows, one way in or out. Jenny ran a tight, safe operation. He was cornered. He was mine. The next room was empty. So was the next, bed neatly made. At the fourth door, I turned the handle and eased it open, gun up.
Fresh violence. A half-naked man bled onto shiny black tiles, a deep stab wound in his gut, a steaming tub beside him. I stepped closer. He was losing blood fast but might live with help. Fear filled his eyes; a wet bubble of blood formed on his lips. I ignored it. Charles first, help later.
A shape peeled from behind the door. A knife flashed, slashing my gun arm. White-hot pain detonated. The M18 clattered across the floor. Before I could gasp, Charles’s other hand, a vice…Crushed my throat. I grabbed his knife wrist with my free hand, straining, but his strength was monstrous. He lifted me clean off my feet and hurled me into the scalding tub.
We crashed; water exploded over the sides. I clung to his knife wrist as his other hand forced my head under. Steam and silence. The world blurred, burned. The water turned pink. I kicked and thrashed, useless. His weight didn’t move. So, I stopped fighting. I went limp. Became part of the water.
My injured arm, numb and almost forgotten, brushed the knife still sheathed at my side. With one last surge of will, I drove it up, through the soft under-jaw, aiming for the brain.
His body convulsed, a gurgle tearing loose. His grip slackened; his full weight collapsed onto me. I erupted from the water, gagging, vomiting bathwater. He slid off and hit the floor, dead before he landed. The blade had found its mark. I sagged beside him, spent, in a slick of blood and water.
Gasping, I hauled myself up, my body one screaming nerve. I tore a towel into a strip and cinched it around the gash on my arm, the pain a clarifying fire. I retrieved my gun from the corner. Charles could keep my knife as a souvenir.
I staggered into Donna’s room, dripping and pale. “He’s dead,” I rasped. “Help the others.” I didn’t wait for an answer.
I was going after Guy.
My left arm hung useless, a throbbing weight, but I only needed my right to put a bullet through the other rapist’s skull. Half-running, half-staggering, I closed the distance to The Spil. Even from afar I saw the crowd, a tense standoff of town guards and Seamus’s Irish fighters outside the bar’s blown-out façade. Nate stood at the front, talking to Seamus…An island of tense negotiation in a sea of hostility.
The air crackled with unsaid threats.
I stumbled toward them, breath a ragged saw. At ten meters I called, “Nate!” a desperate, broken plea.
They turned. A dozen weapons twitched my way. Nate’s eyes locked on mine, filled with a terrifying mix of love and fear.
“I killed him,” I said, the words a guttural triumph cutting through the pain. “Charles is dead. He’s fucking dead.”
He started toward me, relief warring with alarm, as I took two more unsteady steps-
Then I saw him.
Guy.
Washed and preened, standing among the town guards. Smiling.
“GUY, YOU FUCK!” I yanked my gun up, my injured body fighting to steady the aim.
“NO!” Nate shouted, voice cracking like a whip. “Stand down! The Thinkers want him alive! He’s the key to stabilizing this!”
Guy raised his hands, palms out, unarmed, that smug, reptilian grin. “It’s true, darling. I’m to be the new mayor. A peaceful transition. And Nate here?” He gestured lazily. “My sheriff. We’re going to bring order back to this mess you made.”
I staggered forward, the world tilting, finger tightening on the trigger. Vengeance sang in my blood.
“Don’t do it, Tilly,” Nate warned and the worst sound in the world was the cocking of his pistol as he levelled it not at Guy, but at me. His eyes were hard, official. “Put the gun down,” he growled, each word a shard of ice, “or I’ll shoot you myself.”
The truth in his voice was unshakeable. He would. For his city, for his peace, he would. But my heart screamed for vengeance, for justice, for me.
I raised my shaking arm, cantered Guy’s smug face in my sights-
A shot rang out.
Not mine.
Impact slammed my side. I spun, crashed to the cobbles as another gunshot cracked overhead. Numbness, then a universe of white-hot fire. One of Nate’s overzealous guards had shot me…Seamus, loyal to the last, dropped the guard where he stood with a single brutal round.
Chaos erupted. Guns cleared leather on both sides, a hundred muzzles aimed in a hundred directions, everyone poised to kill everyone.
Teeth gritted against the pain, vision swimming, I reached with my good hand for my fallen pistol, fingers scraping the grip-
Nate’s boot kicked it, skittering it into the gutter.
He loomed over me, face a mask of anguish and resolve. “It’s done, Tilly,” he said, voice hollow. “It’s over.”
The song in my blood faded. The world tilted and a silent, welcoming darkness swallowed me whole.