"You stupid bitch. You're only prolonging the inevitable. He has no weapons and his friends in the special forces aren't here to back him up. It's just a matter of time before I put a bullet through both of your brains."
Ivan comes up behind Brad and pops his wrist with the gun in it, "Oh, Brad Johnson, how wrong can one man be. I thought you were clever." Brad punches him in the face but Ivan doesn't let go. Both men go to the floor and roll around in the water.
Ace gets to my side, he's been fighting the leftover men from Johnson's team keeping them from getting to Ivan or Brad, "FYI, you might not want to use what we both know you picked up because that's not water they're rolling around in." I look at him, if this isn't water what the hell else could it be? "It's Kerosene."
"Excuse me?" I must be going deaf because I thought he said Ivan and Brad Johnson are rolling around in Kerosene. "Why the hell is Kerosene all over the damn floor?
He gives me a stupid little shrug of his shoulders like this is no big deal as he uses a dish towel to take the knife out of one darkly clad guy's hand. I can't do shit now because Ivan is in the stuff too. What the hell am I going to do? I can't stand here and let this man die for me without doing something. Brad has already pulled another knife out and swiped dangerously close to Ivan more than I care to acknowledge. In fact, I think he may have got him a time or two.
Brad knows what he's doing. He was Special Forces too. Both men are bleeding and neither man is giving an inch to the other one. More and more shit seems to be breaking or catching on fire the longer the two of them fight and my mind is blank on ways to help. Most of the men that came with the Senator are gone or dead. Ivan reaches the table where we were just about to have breakfast not two hours ago. That seems like a lifetime ago.
He reaches down to pick up a butter knife from a plate and just barely blocks Johnson's hard downwards swing with the knife. Johnson leans hard into him and I can tell the blade of the knife is sinking further into the flesh of Ivan's arm as he's bent back almost flat on the top of the table. In the space of a heartbeat Ivan has the butter knife up and stabs it into the side of Brad Johnson's head. The sickening sound it makes as it sinks in makes my stomach want to revolt. But Ivan takes the palm of his hand and hits the knife sending it in further. Johnson pulls back away from Ivan.
He staggers in front of Ivan with a dazed look on his face like he wasn't expecting what just happened to him before he falls to the floor at Ivan’s feet. Ivan also looks stunned for a second before he backs away and walks over to retrieve his gun from the floor, putting it in the waistband of his jeans. Ace and I both rush to help him. I have the presence of mind to grab a dish towel, one of the few that aren't destroyed, so I can wrap it around his cut forearm.
Ivan has a busted lip and I think his nose might be broken and of course, his arm is going to have to be sewn up but he's alive and that is all that matters to me. I kiss him and hug him as tight as I can with him being so hurt. The three of us stumble outside, stepping over bodies and leaving the carnage and rubble behind.
The sound of crunching gravel has all of us turning to confront the new threat we're going to have to fight through but the big, dark SUV is carrying some of Ace's men and nothing more. Jim starts coming towards us when something catches his eye and pulls his attention away from us. All three of us turn at the same time to look at what has his attention. Johnson lurches out of the kitchen and a flood of cold washes over me when I realize the butter knife is still sticking out of his head.
He has a wild look in his eyes, one I imagine an animal has when it understands it's about to die. He raises his arm and aims the gun. A big, bloody grin on his once charming face makes him look like the monster he is on the inside. At last, he appears how he truly is, a horror movie villain. That shouldn't make me so happy but it does. Without thinking a lot of things through I grab the gun from the back of Ivan's waistband and raise it.
Ironically all I can think about are the lyrics to the Eminem song about how I only have one shot and not to mess it up. On the side of the porch is a bag full of crap that I am well aware Ace and Ivan use to make their flash bomb thingies that alert them when someone causes them to fall or drop. It's what blew up in the stairwell of Ivan's apartment building telling us to run, and what he set out in the motel room to alert him to anyone trying to get in. I am intimately aware of what happens when they go off. I aim for the bags. They're a bigger target and I have a better chance of hitting them than I do Johnson. Even if I can distract him for a second it'll give Jim and Ace enough time to stop him from hurting Ivan. I squeeze the trigger and feel the gun jerk in my hands, sending up a silent prayer that the bullet finds it's mark.
I smell the burnt scent from shooting the gun. The bullet hits the bag and everyone holds their breath to find out if anything is going to happen. And it does. The bullet actually ignites the bag, bright light makes it too hard for me to keep my eyes open and then there is so much noise and an earthshaking boom that causes me to fall back. When I blink my eyes open the house is on fire and so is Brad Johnson. Ivan has me in his arms with his body wrapped around me, trying to keep me safe. Turns out it's not safe to roll in Kerosene and stand next to a hundred pounds of Tannerite when some fool is trying to shoot it. Who knew? Not Brad Johnson apparently. He is on the ground writhing as the flames consume him and I have to look away.
"You blew up my house!" Ace gasps out in a shocked voice that makes me feel really awful.
"I was trying to cause a distraction."
Ace's eyes shoot wide and his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. "Y...You...A distraction?"
Ivan pulls me further into him and kisses me hard. His one good hand wrapped around my waist so I don't have a chance of getting away from him, like I would ever want to. Behind him, Jim lays his hand on Ivan's shoulder, "See, the type that would run you down with a car...just saying buddy."
Ivan throws his head back and laughs. I have no idea what they are talking about but for some reason I think I might be the subject. The scent of burning powder and flesh is too strong for me to stand much longer. I lean up and whisper in Ivan's ear, "Take me home, my love. Wherever that might be." As long as I'm with Ivan I am home. I don't care where it is as long as he is there with me.
Oh, and we don't have to blow anyone up or shoot any more people. That would be nice too.
Epilogue I
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Ivan
It took some time for us to clean everything up and answer all of the unanswerable questions. It was a bureaucratic nightmare cleaning up the whole Brad Johnson murder. Thankfully I have some guys who are very good at cleaning up messes and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to bend the story so that Johnson looked like he was at one of his 'safe houses' and got careless. With the number of unmarked weapons out in the barn, there was enough evidence to make the claim legitimate.