Weekend Reading and November Sales!

10/31/2024

He was dragged along the floor, feet stumbling to keep up and failing. Thrown to the ground, they left him there, shivering and shuddering against the cold. Despite how he struggled to stay awake and alert, light and sound drifted in and out of focus along with Kyle’s consciousness. Thoughts of Daniel and their sparring matches bloomed in his mind’s eye and faded away. Daniel had been teaching him to defend himself and Kyle had sparred with Pierre and a few others, but none of them had ever beaten him nearly senseless. He wondered how they kept their wits and functioned through something like this. No one was teaching him that form of defense.

They came back some time later, he had no idea how much later, and questioned him again. He pleaded with them to stop, trying to point out he’d told them the same story over and over. Kyle had no idea what other information they wanted or why they thought he had it. He was lying on his side, unable to escape when his ribs were repeatedly kicked, knocking the air from him with harsh grunts.

When the floor he was on shook and explosions ricocheted around somewhere outside the door, the brutal beating was stopped. Shouting and gunfire sounded close by. Struggling to lift his head, Kyle squinted through bruised and puffy eyelids at the door when it slammed open.

It was the invasion in his apartment all over again, only this time Kyle saw the subtle differences in the riot gear. These people stampeding through the door were from the Freedom Militia.

Kyle struggled to sit up and get off the floor, but it was impossible. Breathing was torture as he shifted his weight and inched around enough to get a better view of the new arrivals.

“Get away from him,” one man snapped.

Kyle immediately recognized that voice as Daniel’s. He’d know the man’s rambling gait anywhere. Daniel advanced on the three people still standing over Kyle. They scattered, but the others from the Militia fanned out, meeting them head-on. There was scuffling and fighting. Kyle cringed away, again trying to get up, to get away from his captors.
“I said get away from him.” Daniel clasped his hands together and brought them up, driving them into the face-plate of the man beside Kyle.

The man staggered away a few steps but didn’t go down. Drawing a handgun, he stood straddling Kyle’s ankles, gun pointed at his head. “You know I can’t let him live. He knows too much.”

Daniel stopped short and squared his shoulders. “You?”

“It was you?” Pierre sidestepped until he was closing in on the man from the other side. Kyle caught a glimpse of the other Militia people; he was able to count three more besides Daniel and Pierre now. They had his assailants face down in a row, heads pressed against the wall perpendicular to the door. “Get them out of here,” Pierre snapped, waving one arm.

The sound of bodies being moved filled the room for a short time; then it was just the four of them.

In motion, going so fast he was hard for Kyle to keep track of, Daniel covered the last few feet to the person holding a gun on Kyle. Before the agent could react, Daniel had his wrist in a grip Kyle knew from their sparring as an iron-like vise. He twisted with enough force, Kyle heard bone snap. The man screamed when Daniel yanked him closer, flipped him around, and held him against his chest.

The gun clattered to the ground, kicked away by Pierre. Daniel used his free hand, reached to the man’s riot visor, and tugged it off his head. “You set them up!” he growled. “Set them up and killed them the same as if you’d pulled the trigger yourself.”

Kyle saw the man’s face when the helmet was removed. He lifted his gaze to look into first Pierre’s and then Daniel’s face.

“We all trusted you.” Pierre’s voice was harsh and raw. “Keller, an entire barracks trusted and followed you. This is how you repay all of us?”