Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

—Vizzini in the cult 80's movie 'Princess Bride'

***

A slow smile twists my lips. Life is fair sometimes: it's just sent Tommy to me and placed his life right into my hands. Tommy, who wouldn't take his sticky hands off of my girl. Tommy, who leered at her. Tommy, who breathed foul in her presence.

I know exactly what I would do to him.

Pine needles, roots and cones—they no longer hurt my bare feet as I prowl through the forest stalking the would-be hunter. I forget the dull ache in my ribs that tormented me for days. I tune out the warmth of the sun.

All of me is ears, as I crouch in a shrub by a trail, waiting for him to pass. If I had a knife, it would be a slash to the throat. With the leather strap of the whip, it's trickier. But have no fear, Tommy, I'm coming for you. I'm hungry, dirty and cornered; and I'm coming for you. You won't be sounding any alarms into your earpiece. You'll never see Bryn.

He passes me.

I rise and follow him, like a second shadow. My hands measure out the right length of the whip. I lunge and catch his neck into the loop.

He fumbles at the strap as it whips in front of his eyes, then stomps on my foot, works his elbows to nail me behind his back. Good luck with that. Pain has no hold on me...

I bend him backward, tightening my make-do garrote. His bulging eyes can see the cloudless sky and the waving crowns of the young trees. It's a decent view to die to. He doesn't deserve it. He deserves to be drowned in a shit-pit.

After his hoarse grunts and wheezing, the silence of the forest is lovely. It's the sound of success.

"I promised to bury you alive," I whisper over him instead of a prayer, "but I've lied. Sorry about that."

His movements slow to pointless jerking. He is too far gone to fight for his life intelligently. It's all just hopeless clawing at my hands, the legs kicking at the thin air, in an attempt to get one more breath.

"Permission denied, mother-fucker."

Once he's dead weight, I let him slump to the forest floor and pat him down. His shoes are a tight fit, but they're better than stepping on the cones or a sharp chunk of deadwood.

Next comes the real treasures: an earpiece; a Sig pistol; a knife and an MP-5 submachine gun. I set up the ear-piece into my own ear, and listen in. I need to hurry to jump as many of them as I can before they do the next roll-call, or clue in that Tommy's voice no longer comes up on the chatter.

But I don't have to hurry so much that I can't pull his pants down and stuff his useless dick past his swollen tongue down his throat. It looks like he is teasing me with two tongues. Well, I've had the last laugh, dick, and if someone comes upon you, they'll know that I mean business.

From their chit-chat, my biggest concern is Nino the Rat. By the sound of it, he's trifling with the lock on the doors Bryn and I unlocked or searching for the electrical panel to shut off the electricity to Angelo's dungeon. He swears profusely that he's wasting his time. Apparently, there is a bit of a maze in the castle's underbelly from the old times.

Did I make a mistake of not jumping him instead of dragging Bryn through the dungeon? But no.

My chief advantage—and the only one, given the shape my sorry ass is in—is that they don't know where I am. The moment I would have opened that door, showed myself, they'd converge on me like lice on a mangy pup, killing me, then Bryn. Bryn is better off hurt than dead. Death is final. Hurts heal. And I won't let Nino live long enough to open that door and get to her.

Bryn will be fine. Breathe.

My breath slows down just in time: my next kill is coming toward me.

This one is easy: a slash across the throat, exactly why I wanted a knife from the start. I don't know his name. He stumbles for a few steps, his fingers squeezing back the first squirt of blood, slicker with its red warmth and clumsier with every step. When he drops, he is already dead, though his heart pumps out a few glugs of blood. His shoes look even smaller than Tommy's, so I don't bother with his corpse, after driving the knife across his throat a couple more times for assurance, opening the aorta beyond a chance of survival. It's amazing what the maggots could survive.

That leaves me with two more to take out in the castle—the clown in the basement and Olof whom Johnny always keeps with him in case I'm stupid enough to head straight for him. Plus the three morons searching the woods for me.

The shadows are lengthening. Deepening. The sunset approaches. Cursing erupts in the earpiece when Joe finds Tommy. Suddenly chatter cuts off. They know enough to stay silent. They're scared.

I race through the woods to get to Joe before the other would, but no such luck.

A round tears through the leaves, showering me with sharp-smelling greenery. Dirt explodes by my feet in fountains with needles and cones and all that. Really? What is it, a fucking paintball? I suppose if I have to roll, it would be easier on my ribs than the concrete, but still... fighting in the woods? In the fucking woods?

I zigzag between the trees, high on adrenaline. It overpowers even the pain of the cracked bones. On the downside, I will have blisters from running in Tommy's stupid too-small sneakers. It also could be a bleeding hole blasted through my skull, but let's stay positive.

The fight is so much easier for me than it is for them, I almost pity the bastards. For me, if it moves, it's an enemy, so I shoot everything that moves. They have to worry about which black shape crushing through the woods is me. Poor, poor bastards...

Apparently they don't worry enough about not hitting one another, as one of them clips their friendly. The idiot yelps, and I silence him with a round in the yelp's direction. An interrupted scream and a thump tells me I hit him, but I double back, and put a bullet from the Sig in the back of his head to be on the safe side.

It doesn't take a Nostradamus to foresee my actions though.

The thickening twilight explodes with the dry rattling of the MP-5 shredding the foliage inches away from me.

I toss myself sideways and roll, lifting the pistol up, pain exploding in two places at once. The cracked ribs, naturally, and some Hawkeye had grazed my ankle. But I get a shot off, also hitting someone into something non-vital. God knows what or who. Visibility is still shit. But he screams. That's a fucking rhapsody in blue to my ears.

The moron breaks their radio silence to urge Olof and Nino to stop cooling their heels and come out to play. I take it that the whiner will be on alert against my spraying the weeds with lead, so I hobble with all the stealth I can master, searching for him.

There.

He has his back to the thickest tree he could find. Well, it's too bad the tree doesn't go all the way around him, encasing them in bark.

I drop and crawl, biting my lips till I taste metal—there will be time to scream out the pain later—point the Sig from a few feet's distance and squeeze the trigger.

He ducks at the last moment, because the cowards have the best sixth sense, so he takes a bullet in his side. He flattens himself to the ground. Then I leap to shoot again, ignoring his return fire.

Ugly as fuck, but it gets the job done.

That leaves me with one more foe in the woods, then it's Olof and Johnny; then Nino. Then I get Bryn out and she changes her mind, and we go home happy. Yeah.

The last man doesn't make me wait or leads me on a chase round the woods. He comes out, hands up. "Listen, Matty, I have nothing against you personally, okay? I always liked you more than the old motherfuckers. You're more democratic and stuff. So, we're good, right?"

Fuck, I hate doing shit like that. "Wrong."

I lift the Sig and squeeze the trigger in one fluid motion.

He topples over, still looking surprised.

Sorry, pal, no time to tie you up, and anyway, I left the strap with Tommy. Plus, you've seen Bryn. I might need to cook up a story that would protect her best. That she'd died in that dungeon. Probably would have to buy her a new ID and... I'll think about it later. Unless Frankie comes through and then all will be fine.

On the earpiece, Olof's gruff accent inquirers if the three of them, pussies, had taken down one mother-fucking punk.

"No," I reply. "The pussies didn't take me down. And I've only fucked your mother. But, who didn't?"

With the Nordic stoicism he breathes heavily into the com instead of taking the bait... not that it's a good bait, but that's just trash-talk, not stand-up comedy.

Okay, so I'm about to have company. I trudge through the woods, dragging my leg a little, to get eyes on the castle. Here, the perfect place with a view of the front door. Down I go into a crouch.

Fat Johnny and Olof exit through it like on a cue. Johnny surveys the thickening shadows. His eyes run over where I am crouching, nursing my ribs. Did he catch the glimmer of my eyes? By now, I wouldn't be surprised if they burned with hatred like coals in the dark. To my surprise, he turns his back on the woods and trots toward...oh, shit.

He trots toward where they've parked their fleet, with Olof in tow. The fat bitch is running from me.

"No you don't!" I growl and make to intercept them, sprinting on a new flash of adrenaline. I pray that my ankle smartened enough to hold me. Racing after a man you hate would make a bullet lodged in your meat feel like tickles every time.

We arrive at the overgrown gravel patch where they've parked all the cars, including Bryn's tiny rental, at the same time. Scowling, I lunge on Johnny's back and fling him away from the car door. Fuck, he's hefty. I hold on to him for dear life, and grab the knife from my belt.

Olof grunts from the driver's side, climbs out of the car, leans over the hood, aiming.

"Go ahead, shoot us both."

Olof's watery-blue eyes squint. He harrumphs, lowers the gun and lumbers over to pry me from Johnny. He's not a talkative man, but he manages to communicate plenty with grunts, clearing his throat and the like manly sounds.

Despite his bulk and age, Johnny still remembers how to fight, so he catches my knife on the arm, not in the throat. I want nothing more than to gut him like a fish, let that blubber out, but Olof's meaty knuckles would crack my jaw if I persist in slashing at Johnny.

I hop to get the momentum going for a roll. Roll to duck a crushing blow, then lift my Sig up with the knife in the other hand. I squeeze the trigger, shooting from the ground. The shot goes wide. Fuck, I'll get more target practice if I live through this.

Olof coughs up a round out of the MK-5 sitting on his abdomen, so I keep rolling to put a truck between us. His shots explode the metal and windshield, showering me with glass.

Johnny still whizzes, his arms and legs making flaccid motions in the air, bringing to mind an overturned turtle.

I don't want to fight Olof. The asshole is big, and my ribs are screaming against falling and rolling on the gravel. The bones send flares of pain that explode behind my eyeballs. Hopefully, they're not throwing clots into my blood flow.

Thinking is hard, but I reason that if I finish Johnny—when I finish Johnny—maybe then I don't have to fight Olof. He's not the craven prick in the woods, he's a respected man... maybe we can deal. Maybe he'll understand about Bryn. Maybe he won't string me like a fish to dry.

I crawl behind the cars, head down, ribs screaming at me like why don't you just die already?

Olof decorates the side-panels from his machine gun with holes like a robot.

It's art, you dumbass... Bryn's voice whispers in my mind and I snigger, because I am that dumb.

In a now or never moment, at the first tiniest pause in the firestorm, the smallest jam of his too-perfect gun, I pop up to return fire.

The bullet rips meat from Olof's unprotected flank, the second reddens his ham-sized ankles before he takes cover...

And he dashes for the castle after Johnny.

Johnny! Fuck!

I give chase. The steel curtain of bullets furrows a trough in front of me. Then chases me, then overtakes me. Thankfully, there is more to Olof than his sniper skill. He's more of a bruiser, than a sharpshooter.

Plus, this is my moment of invincibility, when nothing can hit me. Nobody can touch me. I'm flying through bullets and they might as well bounce off of me. If one kills me, I won't give a shit. It has to hit the heart to stop me.

I forget everything, everything, in this mad plunge after my prey.

Johnny still reaches the door in time to slam it into my face.

The last thing I want is to be pinned against the stone wall as a target practice for machine gun fire from an upper floor window. I pepper the door next to the lock with holes and crush my foot at the same spot. It flies open.

I burst through the doors and into the castle without losing the momentum or as close to it, as to make no difference.

Nino was in the basement, now he could be anywhere. With that thought in mind, I flatten myself on the ugliest carper I had ever seen behind the plastic covered couch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! This is paintball, only with blood instead of paint.