The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

his size, but she was still on him. Then he caught her with a glancing blow to the head that had her staggering backward.

Atlas’s heart dropped into a lower gear and he ached to get in there and help. He wouldn’t intervene, however, not unless Kiera asked for it. He knew the rules on these sorts of things.

The beast blocked a weak punch, then kicked her into the floor-to-ceiling window, spider-webbing it where her back struck the glass. He moved in fast but she parried off him, checked a punch then barely managed to get out of the way of another big kick.

She looked winded, but the fight was wearing on the big guy, too.

Two more men rushed into the foyer, but Atlas’s body recovered enough for both shots to find their marks. One of the downed guards was still breathing so he broke away from the fight to put a bullet in his skull. He did this while keeping an eye on Kiera and the giant.

The beast of a man was dead no matter what. He seemed to know this, so he worked on Kiera like she’d be his last fight, the one he wanted to win before the coward spectator—NorCal State Prison’s finest—shot him in the back like he was a prison bitch.

Beyond the windows, in the pool, he saw Esty drowning the guard who tackled her. The look on her face was purely homicidal. The guard started to get loose, then Esty jammed a thumb into his eye and once the orb popped, he was done for.

Kiera seemed to regain her balance but she was shaken and unnerved. An inside kick to the knee hobbled him, but he managed to get that long reach far enough to backhand Kiera right in the mouth. She took two awkward steps sideways; the beast drove in hard and tackled her.

She fought him with all her might, but he still managed to get his hands around her throat while taking punch after punch from her like it was nothing.

Atlas moved in from behind. Kiera was on her back, unable to pull some kind of guard, and though she was driving her heels into his hips in an attempt to push him off, he merely widened his base, impervious to her frivolous attempts to free herself.

With the beast’s hands still wrapped around her throat, she was turning red, her eyes starting to bulge. When Atlas saw her slowing down, he knew it was all over now.

Moving in fast, Atlas bent down behind the man, jammed his pistol into the man’s butthole, and pulled the trigger. The fight stopped instantly. Oddly enough, something unexpected happened. This hulking psycho didn’t fall; rather he seemed to have been put on pause.

“What the hell?” Atlas asked aloud.

The brute didn’t move and he certainly didn’t fall. He just remained on his knees and elbows, his hands still circling Kiera’s neck. Fortunately, the shot loosened his hands enough for Kiera to push herself free. When she was finally out of his grasp, she leaned forward and started coughing, her throat raw sounding and raspy.

Atlas was about to get up and see what the deal was when he saw the man’s ribcage expanding and contracting. Instead of putting one more bullet into the poop shoot, Atlas lowered the weapon to the bulge that was the back of this guy’s balls and pulled the trigger again.

That was when the tower that was this mammoth man collapsed. He toppled over onto his side and lay curled into a fetal position, his face beet red. Not a single word left his mouth, only the soft sounds of a man in excruciating pain.

Kiera walked over to him, looked down at his face, and then stomped on it with all of her might. His head lolled to the side, but it didn’t fall. She stomped it again, and this time it fell on the ground. But then his eye creaked back open and he took a shallow breath. Kiera stomped on him a third and a fourth time and that’s when he stopped moving altogether.

“Why not do a fifth time?” Atlas said sarcastically.

Her only response was to go and pick up her gun, walk back to the fallen giant, and fire three rounds into his skull. When she was done, she looked up at Atlas and nodded.

Outside the large window, Atlas had been keeping an eye on Esty. Leopold was now helping her out of the pool. Behind her, there was a body floating face-down, the pool water now clouding with red.

“Let’s clear this place, see if we can find the family here,” Atlas said.

She nodded and they took two separate hallways. At the end of the hallway and coming from one of the rooms, Atlas heard loud music playing, almost like club beats turned up to an obnoxious level.

He went to the door, turned the handle, found that it was locked. Rearing back, he kicked the door open only to find a naked man on top of a nude baldish woman. He was thrusting in and out of her while she just lay there taking it.

He whipped his head around, firing Atlas a look. When he did that, Atlas recognized the woman’s face immediately.

Sydney Fox.

“Santiago Cardenas?” Atlas asked, aiming the weapon at him as he stalked into the room.

“Jose!” Santiago screamed.

“Jose is dead in the foyer,” Atlas said, turning off the music. He was sickened by a great many things these days, but this was one of the worst. “All of your men are dead.”

Santiago glanced around to the nightstand farthest from the door and lunged for it. Atlas shot him in the butt cheek. He cried out in pain as he collapsed onto Sydney. Atlas closed the distance between them as Santiago reached for