I reached out to grab the folder, intending to take it to the state troopers in the next town over.
Before my fingers touched the paper, the heavy steel door of the motel room slammed shut, plunging the room into shadows.
I spun around.
Standing inside the doorway was the local deputy. His weapon was drawn, pointed directly at the center of my chest.
Stepping out from the bathroom behind me, where she had been waiting in silence, was Karen. She was holding a large, pre-filled medical syringe with a thick needle. Her fake, tearful demeanor was completely gone, replaced by a cold, calculating smirk.
“I told you he would come back, Deputy,” Karen said softly, tapping the syringe against her leg. “These hero types never know when to walk away.”
The deputy cocked the hammer of his gun. “You should have kept riding, old man. Now you’re trespassing. Resisting arrest. And I’m afraid things are about to get very tragic for you.”
The click of the revolver’s hammer being cocked echoed in the small motel room like a firecracker. The deputy stood with his feet planted wide, his hands wrapped tight around the grip of his service weapon. His eyes were hard, entirely devoid of the cautious authority he had displayed in the parking lot. This wasn’t a cop doing his job anymore. This was a man protecting his paycheck.
“Put your hands behind your head and get on your knees, Rollins,” the deputy barked, his voice tense. “Do it now.”
Behind me, Karen stepped closer, the needle of the syringe catching the sliver of sunlight slipping through the curtains. “Don’t aim for the chest, Vance,” she warned coldly. “If he thrashes, I won’t be able to hit the vein. Shoot him in the kneecap. We’ll dump him in the old mine shaft off Route 9. The coyotes will take care of the rest by morning.”
I looked at the deputy. His knuckles were white. He was sweating. He was corrupt, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded cartel hitman. He was a local cop who had gotten in too deep with a smuggling ring, and the reality of murdering a man in a motel room was shaking his nerves. I needed to exploit that hesitation.
“You sure you want to do this, Vance?” I asked, keeping my voice dangerously low and steady, not moving my hands. “She’s a broker for a black-market organ ring. You think she’s going to leave a loose end like you walking around once this delivery is made? The minute she gets her payout, you’re going in that mine shaft right next to me.”
“Shut up!” Vance yelled, the gun trembling slightly in his grip. “On your knees!”
“Shoot him!” Karen screamed, stepping forward, raising the syringe to plunge it into my neck.
I didn’t kneel. I exploded.
With twenty years of suppressed violence surging into my muscles, I kicked the small, heavy wooden table directly into Vance’s legs. The edge of the table caught him hard in the shins just as he pulled the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the confined space, but the bullet went wide, shattering the bathroom mirror behind me.
Before Vance could recover his balance, I closed the distance. I grabbed his gun wrist with my left hand, twisting it violently upward until I heard a sickening pop in his shoulder. He screamed, dropping the weapon. I didn’t stop. I drove my right elbow directly into his jaw. The crack of bone echoed off the walls, and the heavy-set deputy collapsed onto the stained carpet like a sack of wet cement, completely unconscious.
I spun around just as Karen lunged at me with the syringe. I caught her wrist mid-air, the sharp needle stopping an inch from my eye. She snarled like a feral animal, using her free hand to claw at my face.
“You’re ruining everything!” she shrieked, kicking my shins. “I owe them! They’ll kill me if I don’t deliver the kid!”