Minotaur by David Wellington Read Free Book Online

you.”
    “Yeah, right. After I just took four shots at you.”
    Five , Chapel thought. He’d been counting. Judging by the sounds of the gunshots, Stephen had a revolver. Which meant, most likely, he only had one shot left.
    Assuming he hadn’t brought any reloads with him. And that he only had the one weapon. And that Chapel had, indeed, counted correctly. He’d been under stress when he was adding up shots.
    Chapel needed another way out of this. “I can be very forgiving,” he said. “Listen, Stephen, you can still walk away.” Not very far, though. As soon as the cops caught up with him Stephen would be looking at a manslaughter charge, at the very least, for what he’d done to the cook. But Chapel didn’t figure it would help him if he said that out loud. “Is there a door in this room, leading outside?”
    “There is.”
    “You can just walk right through it. I won’t follow you, I promise.”
    Another chuckle.
    “No, seriously. You’ve got the gun, Stephen. I’m helpless here. Totally defenseless. You walk away and I’d be an idiot to chase you.”
    Stephen was silent for a long time. “Stand up,” he said, finally. “Show me your hands.”
    “Come on, Stephen, I’d be a real idiot to—­”
    “Do it or I’ll shoot you in the goddamn heart!”
    Chapel slowly rose to his feet, just poking his head over the counter. Expecting the top of his skull to be blown off. He lifted his hands. His artificial hand first.
    He saw Stephen standing not three feet away. The snub-­nosed barrel of a big, nasty revolver was pointing right at Chapel’s chest. Stephen must have had some training, he realized, in how to shoot. He knew to go for center mass, rather than trying to shoot Chapel in the head.
    “Okay,” Chapel said. “I did what you asked. Now—­”
    You couldn’t dodge a bullet. No human being was fast enough. Not at that range, certainly. So when Stephen fired his sixth and final shot, Chapel had nowhere to go.

 
    14.
    C hapel had been shot before. More than once.
    He remembered what it felt like, knew the incredible sharp pain of it, then the wave of nauseating numbness as the pain went away (temporarily), as the body went into denial and refused to believe it was injured.
    He knew exactly what it felt like, but it still came as quite a shock. He’d been sure he could talk his way out of this, that Stephen would listen to reason. So for the first split second after the bullet entered his chest, he was mostly just surprised.
    Then—­slightly relieved.
    Stephen could have shot him through the heart, like he’d said he would. He could have killed Chapel outright. Instead he’d shot Chapel low and to the right, well clear of his heart and lungs. The pain was still going to be unbearable, and he started bleeding out instantly, but he might just survive this.
    “That’s just to slow you down,” Stephen said. “So you don’t come after me. You tell them—­you tell them I could have killed you, but I didn’t. You tell them it was basically self-­defense!”
    “Tell . . . who?” Chapel wheezed.
    “Your cop bosses, whoever.”
    Chapel pressed his hand tightly against the wound. The blood poured through his fingers like water. “Not . . . a cop.”
    But Stephen wasn’t there anymore to hear him. Chapel heard a creaking sound and felt cool air on his face. He looked up and saw a door to the outside flapping open. Stephen had run for it.
    That was when a whole fresh wave of pain hit, and for a while Chapel could do nothing but lean against the counter and clamp his eyes shut and try not to scream.
    Blood. He could hear his own blood dripping on the floor. Mixing with the blood of the cook. He had to do something about that, had to—­
    Pain interrupted anything like a clear thought. It drove everything else out of his had. God damn, it hurt. God—­
    With a shaking hand Chapel grabbed a towel off the counter and pushed it hard against the wound. The blood kept coming but it