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Asa
Lauren lurched forward in my arms, her body shaking and convulsing as she fell against my arm.
“Lauren!” I cried out, grabbing her, trying to hold her upright.
Her body thrashed loose of my grip and she flung herself to the concrete floor.
“What in blazes is happening to her?” Dalton asked. “What's wrong with my daughter?”
“She's having a fucking seizure or something!” I yelled, trying to flip her over onto her side. With my back blocking her face from view, she quickly opened one eye and winked at me.
Seemed like every time we got into a scrape, she had some wild plan to manipulate the situation. “Lauren!” I screamed again, shaking her shoulders as she continued to gurgle and convulse.
“Is she okay? What's happening?”
I looked back at him. “She's having a fucking seizure! Of course she's not okay!”
“Honey!” Dalton Saylor yelled as he jumped up from his throne, detonator still in hand as he ran to us. “Honey, you okay?” Her jaw locked together and foamy saliva came out from between her lips. “You get the fuck away from her!” he roared as he pulled a cruel knife from a sheath on his hip, began to wave it at me.
My martial arts instructor used to have a saying. In a gunfight, the loser dies on the street. In a knife fight, the winner dies in the ambulance. Knives are just as deadly as any other weapon, no matter who has one. I backed off from her, giving him room as I scrambled back on my haunches. “Do you have a doctor here?” I asked in a frantic voice. “Someone who can help her?”
“Back up further,” he said, waving the detonator menacingly.
I got up, backed away slowly as he approached her twitching form. Had to hand it to my woman. She was doing a pretty believable job. She would have been a shoe-in at the Oscars for Best Epileptic Fit in a Feature Film. I stopped when I was about eight feet away, my back against a bail of crushed crystal meth.
He crouched down next to her, knife still in hand. He glanced my direction before bending down to her still shaking body. “No,” he said, going to put away the knife. “But we can fly one in.” As he glanced back, the knife almost back in its sheath, she made her move, reaching for the detonator.
I lunged forward, tried to make a grab for the hand with the knife. Dalton Saylor was fast for a geriatric psycho. He pulled the detonator from out of her reach, his knife hand flailing wildly as I tried to grab hold of him. Three slashes later and I had blood running down my right arm and leg, and a slash down my ribs.
“Asa!” Lauren screamed as I reeled back from the blade, falling on my ass as the blood started to gush from my wounds. My eyes stayed on Dalton Saylor as he grabbed Lauren by the ankle and yanked her behind him and he took off down a hall that split off from the main chamber, dragging her across the concrete floor.
“Asa! Help!” Lauren screamed again, her voice echoing weirdly as her daddy lurched down the hall, cackling like a mad man.
I heaved myself to my feet, my right leg almost going out from under me. I could feel the blood flowing down my leg like a waterfall, pooling in my boot as I stumbled after him in a fog of pain. I was in more pain than I'd ever felt, and each step felt like I was jamming a red-hot poker in my thigh. He had to pay for what he'd done to Richie, and he still had that detonator in his hand that he could set off at any moment.
More importantly, he had Lauren. He had the woman I loved.