Chapter 50
50 If I don’t move, I die. Moving means breathing. Breathing means pain. Maybe the lung is punctured. If it is, I’m dead. Fingers digging into the ragged cavern wall, I pull in a breath. It’s agony. Some bastard’s dipped the right side of my chest in jellied gasoline and thrown a match. The gray ring around my vision stabilizes. I push the air out and drag in more. My mouth is full of the bright coppery taste of fear—but not the sharper tang of blood. I’m not exhaling blood. Not yet. I can see again, almost. The kid stands a few feet from the huge square doorway, babbling into a little radio as he stares at me. He’s twitching, feet shuffling in excitement, almost tripping over the forgotten aluminum stepladder he’d carried in. The giant thug has his truncheon level with his hea
- Writer
