Page 36 of The Man with a Treasure

Except, there was only a click and not a boom!

This was nothing I had been trained for. My ears rang so loudly as my own natural desire to live kicked in. The stranger lifted his weapon to point it at me. This was it. I didn’t have time to retrieve my other gun, so I swung the butt of the dead one in my hand and smashed it into the stranger’s face.

His head violently jerked to the right as his jaw went slack, and he rolled and fell into the side of the truck then slid down. A heap on the ground, he was unconscious.

There was no need to wonder where the driver now was. Sal running toward me, screaming, “Noooo!” was all I needed to know. The driver was right next to me. Sal fired his aimed gun at the stranger, but again, all that could be heard was Click! Click!

With no time to understand how both of our guns were malfunctioning, backhandedly, I swung the butt of my gun to hit my oncoming attacker, but he got me first. Wham! Something hit me on the top of my head. My knees instantly buckled, and I fell to the ground, landing on my hands and knees because I was too stubborn to go all the way down. My best friend was going to need me.

Stunned due to the strike to the head, I was only able to watch Sal’s shoes as he ran past me, all the while making the click, click, click. My mind was struggling to focus on anything else. It was as if it knew that sound was a death sentence.

Then there was an ounce of more clarity. Sal.

I wanted to yell for him not to go near the driver because we had been set up, and we were weaponless, but my mouth had yet to work as it should because my brain was still dazed.

From my hands and knees, I looked up just in time to see Sal take a hit to the face by a butt of a rifle. My mind cleared, immediately. Rage had me roaring and charging forward. As my dear friend fell to the side, laying defenseless on the ground, I passed him like a phoenix on fire demanding revenge. Getting low, I barreled forward, catching this asshole around the thighs, and lifted, all the while thundering my wrath. I carried him for a couple of feet to create distance between him and Sal, then threw him to the ground. I was too angry to comprehend my sudden strength.

On his back, the driver slammed to the ground, his expression full of shock before his eyes slid shut in a wince of pain. Since I knew I had no guns of use, I snatched his rifle and pointed, then pulled the trigger. Once again, I had gun-failure. That should have been a clue to what was happening, but my mind was too consumed, replaying Sal falling to the ground, to see clearly. Lost in a haze of survival, I threw the gun and retrieved my pocketknife.

Once the stranger on the ground opened his eyes, he lifted his hands, begging me not to kill him as I lifted the blade into the air, preparing to do as much damage as possible with such a tiny knife.

“Angelo!” yelled a voice I recognized, even in my fury.

With my hands still over my head holding the knife, my eyes searched for the man speaking to me. Sweat and blood dripped into my insane eyes.

My father was supposed to be in another country searching for Scarlett, but he was here now. Due to my temporary insanity, I doubted my mind to the point that I wondered if I had actually been shot and was now in another place, wanting to see my father one more time. That had me afraid that Sal had been killed, too. I spun on my feet. “Sal!”

Due to his head injury, Sal was stumbling to his feet, but still with a gun in his hand. Somewhat falling forward, he aimed toward the man I had on the ground in front of me. His trigger finger pulled and pulled, but again no bullets were flying. “Goddamnit!” he roared.

Beyond him, back by the Giordano house, Suits were reappearing, all proudly smiling.

I’m not dead. This was a—

Sal tripped toward me, eyes fighting to focus on the driver, still pulling the trigger. Click! Click! Click!

Glaring at my father and Mr. Rossi turning the corner of a barn, I snarled, “This was a test,” while pulling Sal to me—an embrace to steady his struggle. He instantly sagged into me but had his arm underneath mine, defending my back. Click! Click! I held him. “It’s over. It was a test.”

Sal leaned back to try and see me, but his eyes kept rolling all over in delirium. “What?”

“They tricked us.” I wiped blood from his face, but it was just replaced with more that kept dripping from the top of his head. Giving up on the fruitless attempt, I pulled him back to me and growled over his shoulder to our fathers. “Stay away from us.” They both lifted their palms in surrender, seeming to completely understand I was still filled with tremendous adrenaline and protective fury both racing through my veins. As far as I was concerned, they had struck Sal.

Feeling betrayed, I backed us away from all the staring eyes. They all looked pleased and overjoyed with my and Sal’s fight, clueless they had just shoved another wedge between us and the Giordano way of life. I was holding one of the only ones I would stay loyal to.

Another soul I would die to protect was now charging the men to blame. Mrs. Rossi was angrier than I had ever seen, screaming at the fathers who had just deceived us. She somehow knew not to approach the stunned young men trying to get away. I guess she had seen this tactic before with her husband and my father. She knew this was a crucial moment. That Sal and I had to go and lick our wounds together. Maybe it was that the woman who could see beyond her eyes knew Sal and I were headed to the water she had trained us to search for, to keep us grounded while walking through Hell.

To be sure no one was following us, I kept backing away.

Mrs. Rossi had now removed her apron and threw it to the ground, yelling the whole time. Grateful for her loyalty to her boys, I dared to turn my back and put an arm around Sal to help guide him to our water.

Once at the water’s edge, far from the men in our life that were epically misguiding us, I sat Sal down. There was such an expression of hurt on his face as I went to the water to wet my shirt. Ringing it out, I walked back up to him. “I’m here, Sal.”

He kept blinking in shock. “Why? Why did my father allow that man to hit me?”

Those words damaged my soul. They were that full of hurt.

Ignoring my own injury, I plopped down next to him and pushed my balled-up wet shirt to his head. “To prepare us.”

“For what, Angelo?”