Hunters by Matt Rogers (books for 5 year olds to read themselves .TXT) 📕

a gymnast, bent down, and snatched up the knife. It was a beautiful piece — its handle the colour of bone, its blade curved and serrated. She spun with it just as Alexis bore down on her.

Alexis knew she couldn’t stop her momentum.

She never intended to.

Antônia thrust hard at Alexis’ centre mass with the tip of the curved blade, intending to puncture the biggest target she could find. She understood the room for error was tiny. If she missed, Alexis could hit her again in the nose, which was already swelling, puffing her lower eyelids. Soon her skin would bruise and mottle, and she’d be unrecognisable, and maybe the pain would overwhelm her.

So she thrust hard.

Alexis knew it was coming.

She eyed the blade as it jerked forward, intercepted it with an open palm, and clamped her hand down on the knife.

The blade ripped straight through her palm and came out the other side of her hand.

The knife embedded in her hand, she clamped down with her fingers, willing her body to respond.

It did.

She grabbed the knife at the hilt and held it there, stifling further movement.

Antônia blinked, like maybe it was a dream.

Alexis nodded and grinned through the pain, stifling any physical reaction with sheer willpower. ‘Come on, bitch.’

Antônia froze up.

Only for a fraction of a second.

It lined her face up like a flashing target.

Alexis headbutted her again, this time standing, but she put the same amount of force into it as last time. Her tender forehead landed again on the broken mass of bone that used to be Antônia’s nose, and the whole appendage shattered. It was a sickening sound and Antônia reacted suitably.

She let out a visceral gasp that came from deep in her core and sunk to her knees.

It was the sort of injury that determination and mental toughness couldn’t keep at bay. A sharp blade through the middle of the palm — that’s unimaginably painful, but you can ignore it for a minute or so. Getting your face rearranged … that’s slightly more debilitating.

Alexis grabbed the hilt of the knife with her other hand as Antônia released it. She took a deep breath, then ripped the blade out of her palm with a scream that echoed in the lobby. It left a sizeable jagged slit of a wound going all the way through the skin and bone, but Alexis didn’t see that, because she bent down and plunged the knife into Antônia’s neck.

Antônia opened her mouth wide in shock.

Blood gushed out.

Her gaze drifted up to Alexis, her lips flapped, then she keeled over and died.

Alexis hovered over the body, and the deathly silence of the spectators became apparent. She realised she was panting hard. Now the imminent threat was no more, her body started returning to baseline.

She sat down hard on the second step, just above Antônia’s body. She wrapped the material of her dress tight around her mangled hand and pressed it into her lap. Then she let out a soft moan — the only weakness she was willing to show.

She turned her attention to Violetta, who looked on with an expression of total shock.

‘Go to Torres’ place,’ Alexis said, keeping her voice level as best she could. ‘King needs you. Opal and Topaz will come for him.’

Violetta seemed reluctant to leave an ally behind. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ve given it everything.’

She felt the tendrils of unconsciousness creeping at her vision.

From above, Vásquez said, ‘Between Torres and I, we have the Armed Forces. Your friend is safe.’

Alexis shook her head as she watched the guards rush to her to administer medical attention. ‘Whatever you have ... it’s not enough.’

She started to pass out.

Her last image was of Violetta racing for the front door, squeezing past the guards.

101

King was in motion before Topaz had cleared the terrace balustrade.

He rolled over the giant concrete slab that comprised the surface of the outdoor dining table. He knew if he stayed in position, attempted to shoot it out, it wouldn’t have mattered how much better his reflexes were, how accurate he was, how lucky. A semi-automatic pistol against an automatic rifle is never a fair fight. So he simply didn’t engage in the fight.

He toppled to the ground on the other side of the dining table hard, sacrificing comfort for haste. He shifted some of the torn muscle in his left forearm, but the shock of bullets tearing through the air just above his head took his mind off it.

He fired a couple of shots through the thin gap between the stone bench and tabletop, which ripped out the other side. One of them hit Topaz in the thigh, and the other sailed on past.

But it only grazed the man’s leg. It wasn’t a direct impact. Topaz’s reflexes were equally wicked — they had to be, given his Tier One status — and he threw himself behind a giant metal barbecue wrapped in weatherproof tarpaulin as soon as he realised he’d missed King.

King saw blood spray as skin came off the side of the man’s leg, then he was gone.

King felt suddenly cold, and his head hurt, and a sickening sensation came over him like he was disconnected from reality.

He just wanted this all to be over.

He shouted, ‘All your friends are dead!’

No response.

The barbecue sat there, motionless, hiding the operative behind it.

King said, ‘You’re the one that doesn’t talk, right?’

He sensed movement before Topaz materialised on one side of the tarpaulin. The powerfully built man popped out to fire a burst with the M4 in his hands, and King returned with a pair of shots. It all unfolded in a split second, and it was impossible to tell what had happened until they both retreated behind cover, assessing the damage.

King was still alive.

And he didn’t think he’d been hit.

Topaz was gone, back behind the barbecue, so he wasn’t dead, but there was no way to discern whether he’d been hit.

King shouted, ‘We have César Vásquez. You know who that is?’

Nothing.

Not a peep.

King said, ‘If you kill me, it