Free Chasing The Dragon by Nicholas Kaufmann Page B

She tried to wipe the blood away with her thumb, but it had already dried to a crust. She used her nail to chip away as much of it as she could, then slipped the photo into her wallet. There, she thought. Now they would always be with her.
    She resumed her search, sifting through the debris, pile after pile, separating out the books from everything else, but she didn’t find it. The Book of Ascalon was gone.
    The meat puppets’ shuffling footsteps came closer, the sound echoing off the warehouse walls. Only one shell left. Georgia tried to push away the fear that crawled in her belly like a spider. She pulled the shotgun close, her finger on the trigger, bringing the recoil pad toward her shoulder. She started counting to three, but all she pictured in her head was the horror in her parents’ bedroom. Had it hurt? She tried counting to five. Did her parents suffer when the Dragon killed them? Would Georgia suffer? She decided to count to ten. She stared at the barrel of the shotgun and wondered if it would be better to kill herself with it. It probably wouldn’t hurt — not as much as what the Dragon would do to her, anyway — and then everything would be over. She could have blanket peace forever.
    When she reached ten, she spun and aimed the shotgun over the top of the table.
    One of the meat puppets stood only a few feet away, pointing its gun in her direction. It was close enough for Georgia to see the trenches dug into its face where the Dragon had shredded the skin. The exposed jawbone made her think for a moment of Roy Dalton and his missing teeth. Then she looked at the gun in its hand.
    She steadied the shotgun against her shoulder — Don’t miss, make it count! — and fired. The meat puppet’s head blew apart and it fell limply to the floor.
    Three , she thought. The shotgun was empty.
    She crouched down again and surveyed the scene. Two of them moved through the shadows along the wall to her left. Three more were approaching from the right.
    Georgia lay the shotgun on the floor as quietly as she could. She looked at the corpse lying just beyond the overturned table, at the automatic pistol it had dropped.
    The others inched closer to her position.
    Georgia sprang for the pistol. Her injured knee sent sparks of pain up her leg. It gave out in mid-stride, and she tumbled to the floor. Wincing, she reached for the gun. Her fingertips brushed the rubber grip, but it was too far to pick up. She heard a gunshot crack the air like a whip, felt something hot whiz past her scalp. A skull-faced meat puppet loomed over her, ready to fire again. She pulled herself forward along the floor, grabbed the gun and rolled onto her back, pulling the trigger three times. The bullets punched through its face and blew out the back of its head. It fell. She grabbed its pistol too and, with one in each hand, rose to her feet. She kept one pistol trained on the two meat puppets to her left and the other on the two to her right. She stood there, arms out like Christ on the cross, and wondered how many shots she could squeeze off before one of them put a bullet in her head, or her heart, or her belly. Her sore knee wobbled under her weight.
    The meat puppets kept their guns trained on her, and the Dragon said, “You are persistent, child. I give you that. I have listened to so many beg for mercy that it surprises me when someone does not. What is it you want? What keeps you fighting?”
    Georgia didn’t plan on answering, but the words spilled out, surprising her. “You killed them.”
    “I have killed many.”
    “My father. My mother. Zack.” She was breathing hard. Her hands shook. Her knee felt like it was going to crumple.
    “It is the way,” the Dragon said. “Your bloodline. You. Me. We are a knot. A tangle from which neither can break free. It has always been this way.”
    Her cheeks felt hot. She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the tears rolling down her face. “I don’t care. You took everything