He groaned and did as I instructed.
“Now, hold still.” I crouched beside him and began wrapping his wound with the makeshift bandage.
“You should get back in the closet. Leave me.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, wrapping his wound and applying pressure to it.
“I’m supposed to keep you alive. Not the other way around.”
That instant, two more appeared at the entrance, but before Konstantin could even blink, I’d already fired. Twice. They dropped dead.
He was speechless.
A small device was hurled in through the broken window. Upon its landing, it began emitting smoke, which soon enveloped the air.
We both started coughing, choking as breathing became impossible.
“Come on, we can’t stay there anymore.” I helped him up, swinging his hand around my neck.
“You really don’t have to do this.” He strained in pain.
“Yeah, well, I’m choosing to.”
He leaned on me as I pulled us both out of the smoking room before we choked to death. The hallway was littered with bodies. Ours and the enemies’. The walls were stained with blood and human brains.
I almost froze at the familiar sight. Nostalgic. And traumatizing. But I kept going, even with the weight of Konstantin’s buff form slowing me down.
With what little strength he had, he fired, shooting down the enemies in his line of sight. I did the same while dragging him across the hall with his arm around my neck.
The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, mixed with the metallic tang of sweat and blood.
Out of the blue, a figure dashed through the hall and knocked us both to the ground. I fell and hit my head so hard that it affected my vision and hearing. The sounds around me were muffled, and my vision was blurry.
I saw Konstantin and this man struggling across from me with the man on top. He was throwing heavy punches at Konstantin’s face and his wound.
After a few blinks, my vision cleared, allowing me to observe the scene more closely. This man was bigger than Konstantin, and he had him pinned to the ground. The punches on his wound had weakened him, and he was already passing out.
I quickly grabbed a discarded knife from the floor nearby and got to my feet. To build momentum, I ran toward this huge man and then hopped on his back. In the blink of an eye, I stabbed him in the neck multiple times, making sure I severed an artery.
Like a wounded lion, he groaned, trying to shake me off, but I wouldn’t let go. He managed to rise, swinging as violently as he could. But I still didn’t let go. Even after my knife fell off, I improvised by burying my thumb in his wound.
He yelled in pain.
An average man would’ve already collapsed on the first strike. Yet this Goliath was still stumbling back and forth. He hurled himself against the wall and, in the process, slammed my back hard against it.
I groaned. But still held on while jabbing my thumb violently into the wound on his neck. I knew it was only a matter of time before he dropped, considering how much blood he was already losing.
And I was right.
Soon, he bled out, and I hopped off him after I was sure he was gone. His limp body thudded to the floor at my feet. Dead.
This man was twice Artur’s size, and Artur was twice my size. Do the math.
Yet I killed him.
I rushed over to check on Konstantin, and luckily, he was still breathing. “Hold on, buddy,” I whispered softly, kneeling beside him.
Coughing up blood, his eyes locked with mine. “Istrebitel’ velikanov,” he said in Russian, knowing full well I wouldn’t understand what he said.