Free Gabriel's Sacrifice (The Scrapman Trilogy Book 2) by Noah Fregger

surely more were coming, coming to meet the rifleman atop his roof.
    He swapped his magazine for a full one, waiting for the rest to come through the mezzanine on his hunt.
    But the white door never moved.
    They must be waiting him out on the inside.
    And then there was pain–intense pain–like a shard of glass through his midsection. Mohammad tried to cry out, but a hand came quick to choke it back. He was thrown violently, the knife removed from his side, as his rifle came loose from his grip. He landed, clutching his wound, his hands becoming moist with blood.
    “The rifleman, I presume?” A man asked, standing over him. It was the same voice from the radio, the man who referred to himself as the hunter–the one who stood on the hybrid grave a week before. He brought his boot hard into Mohammad’s stomach, sending him to wrench forward, the taste of blood on his lips. “You killed five of my men, Rifleman.” He came to kneel beside him. “That’s eight men I’ve lost on your property.”
    Mohammad coughed violently, the sensation of blood beginning to trickle from the corner of his mouth.
    “Now where is the woman, Rifleman?” The hunter tangled his fist in Mohammad’s hair as another man came to stand beside him. And from the floor Mohammad could feel the footsteps of others coming.
    “There is no woman,” Mohammad mumbled. “You already killed the hybrid.”
    “Don’t lie to me, Rifleman!” he said, extending a finger to Mohammad’s nose. “I’m not talking about the hybrid. I’m talking about the girl who killed three of my men.”
    “There … is no woman,” Mohammad repeated, receiving the hunter’s fist to the jaw.
    “You almost had me there, Rifleman,” the hunter said, shaking the pain from his knuckles. “Thank God for Beetlejuice; his blood ran all the way to the floor. Even in death he served me well.” The hunter pressed his boot to the side of Mohammad’s face. “Nice little hideout you got here, Rifleman. Now I’m gonna ask you one last time. Where … is … the … woman?”
    “There … is no wom…” Mohammad’s words were cut short by a man’s sudden shrieking, prompting the hunter to remove the boot he had pressed to his face. The screams were coming from a large black man, trying to free himself from something wrapped around his torso.
    It was Radia.
    She was shrieking, too, between the mouth-fulls of flesh being ripped from the man’s neck and shoulder.
    “Holy Christ!” the hunter shouted, the others raising their weapons.
    The man, bulky as he was, was unable to get a grip on Radia to pull her off. “Shoot her!” he was screaming. “Shoot her!”
    But then she was gone, jumping free from the large man as she took cover behind a run of ducting. They opened fire as she moved, losing her behind the immensity of metallic cover.
    “Hold your fire!” the hunter shouted. “Hold your fucking fire!”
    The three men obliged, lowering their weapons.
    The hunter knelt again, patting Mohammad on the shoulder. “This one is all mine.”
    The hunter followed his prey as she wove the industrial setting, droplets of blood being left in her wake. The hunter, at first, believed them to be from Jackson, dripping off her lips as she’d had her teeth within his skin; but he’d come to find this was not the case.
    The hybrid was injured. And she was slowing down.
    The traces of blood were becoming more abundant, the bare patches between scrap becoming larger as she propelled herself forward with increased difficulty. She was practically crawling. The hunter lowered his weapon, walking casually, slightly disappointed that his men wounded her so soon.
    “Pitty,” he said, finding her beneath the shade of ducting. Her eyes were closed, but her chest moved with signs of strained respiration. “I suppose you are the very last.” He raised his weapon. “Time to end your suffering.”
    “Ty … tired,” the hybrid spoke.
    He lowered the gun. “What?”
    “Tired,” she