Page 106 of The Triangle

I position my bare feet on the smooth concrete floor, angle my body like an Olympic runner getting ready for a race, and don’t even think twice when I launch forward—feet slapping on the floor, arms reaching for his rifle—and I knock into him with the full weight of my body.

He’s turning when this happens, so I hit him in the hip. His rifle does not leave his tight grip and I know, right then, this was a mistake. I’m not going to get that weapon. And the only way I get out now is if I run.

So that’s what I do.

I run.

The whole time I’m darting through the door and out onto the deck. The whole time I’m running down the stairs, thump of tactical boots right behind me. The whole time I wait for the rifle to cut me in half. The whole time I wait for the bullets to the back.

Because I deserve that. I deserve to go out this way.

I am the traitor. I am the reason these people are here.

I am the only thing that could pull Danny Fortnight and Alec van den Berg together again.

And now that I have, I will be the weapon that takes them down.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - DANNY

The room where Alec has his weapons stored looks like the hideout for a James Bond villain or some shit. There’s no secret entryway to get in, it’s just a door with a lock. A biometric retinal scan and fingerprint pad lock, but still. Just a door and a lock. I dunno why that’s something I notice. But I do.

Inside, it’s laid out like a showroom. Guns and weapons of various shapes and sizes strapped to the walls. Machine guns. Handguns. Shotguns. Sniper rifles. And…

“Is that a fuckin’ RPG?” I ask.

“I believe it is, yes,” he says.

I believe it is. Leave it to fucking Alec to have so much shit lying around that he doesn’t even know what all he owns.

He runs over to the wall and pulls down a couple automatic rifles. As he reaches up, the muscles in his bare back and shoulders tense and expand. It’s not something I should be noticing, I suppose, and I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but he looks bigger. Bigger than I think of him. Bigger than he appeared even a few minutes ago when we were together. It’s almost like he’s found a way to fill the space around him so that he can become more than he was.

Or else my mind is playing tricks on me. Either way wouldn’t shock me.

He tosses me one of the guns and then grabs a duffle, starts loading it with spare clips, and chucks that over to me that as well. I sling it over my shoulder, feeling the tug of the canvas strap against my naked back.

I want to ask him… If this house was built as a secure haven, a place where he could stay close to me, a paradise manufactured for the purposes of giving the three of us a refuge one day—even if he wasn’t sure that day would come—then why did he build a room to store enough firepower to wage an invasion?

But then I realize that I know the answer.

Because this is our life. This is the life Alec brought us into. He’s a fucking diamond smuggler and thief. And so are Christine and I. The possibility that a war will be fought has always been just around the corner for us. None of us recognized it while it was happening, I don’t think, but everything we ever did just propelled us further and faster in the direction of this moment. This moment where the monster we’ve been feeding over the years has grown too big for us to control and now we have to put it down or be devoured.

Our world is a beast and we no longer hold its fuckin’ leash.

“Grab the RPG,” I say.

“Yeah?” he asks, skeptically for some reason.

“Yeah, dude!” I shout. We don’t have time for this shit. “There’s however the fuck many of them and there’s two of us! A fuckin’ rocket-propelled grenade could come in handy!”

He stares at me for less than a second and then says, “Three.”

“What? Fuck are you saying?”

“There’s three of us,” he says.

My mouth tightens, I blink the emotions out of my eyes, and nod my head.

“Yeah,” I say. “Three.” Then I grab the RPG and add, “Let’s fuckin’ go.”