Stolen Lives: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Underhill Chronicles Book 1) Keith Ahrens (best e reader for epub txt) 📖

I keep pounding until my arms grow heavy with fatigue, my knuckles splitting even under the buffer of the heavy leather and steel of my gauntlets. I sit back on my heels, breathing heavy, my rage and anger spent for the moment. I look over and see the fog beginning to shift a bit with the wind.

“My turn.”

“Wha—?” is all I manage as I look down and see Jesse smiling at me. The bones under his blood-covered face shift back to their original shape as I stare in shock.

He throws a solid punch right into the center of my chest, launching me backward, head over heels, and tumbling. Lucky for me, the breastplate absorbs a lot of the blow. Still hurts like hell.

I stagger to my feet when a deep breath sends a jagged wave of pain through my chest. Crap, I think he cracked my sternum. That’s a new one for me. I cough, sending more pain rippling through my upper body, and I taste some blood in my mouth. Shit, that’s not good. I pull my mace and get a strong, two-handed grip.

“You may be worth a lot more alive, but I'm willing to lose some money on account of how broken you're gonna be,” Jesse says as he advances, a brutal smile on his bloody face.

He comes in low and fast. I throw out a snap kick, intending to stop his charge, but all it does is knock me off balance when he crashes into me. We hit the ground with my knee wedged and crushed between us, both of us wrestling over the mace stuck between our bodies.

He's strong, really damn strong. Like, angel dust and crack strong. So, I let him have my weapon. When he pulls again, I push and let go of my grip. He rocks backward, almost falling over, but regains his balance. The mace goes up and back for a finishing blow that is sure to split my skull like a melon.

In the brief second he takes to catch his balance, I wrap the manacle around my left fist. I punch him in the throat with a solid straight jab. The metal bolt of the shackle tears across his crushed trachea and opens the external and internal carotid arteries.

Jesse tries to scream in rage and pain, but blood floods his airway, and only a loud gurgling sound emerges. Streams of blood pump high in an arc across the clearing with each rapid beat of his heart. He drops the mace and clamps both hands over his ravaged throat. I kick him off me and roll away.

Aching all over, I get to my feet and grab my mace. Cautiously, I walk over but stop just out of arm's reach. I stare at him dispassionately as his face takes on the dusky blue color of suffocation. His airway continues to fill with blood, and I watch him drowning right in front of me. The blood pumps slower and more feebly from his torn artery, and yet, I still do nothing.

A distant voice in my head starts reminding me what to do. Secure the airway and stop the bleed. Treat for shock, replace the blood loss with some IV fluids. I ignore that voice. Clinically, I know he has less than a minute unless I do something, but I just stare as his frantic movements slow down and then stop. His hands go slack and fall to his sides, blood dripping from his fingers. His heels slow their frenzied drumming in the dirt.

I turn away and walk over to Nian. He's still breathing, but he has a large patch of burned fur showing through a tear in his leather armor. The pulse in his throat is strong and steady, so he's probably not in immediate danger. I plop down on the ground next to him, thoroughly exhausted. I try to keep my breaths shallow because of the cracked ribs. I do my best not to think too hard about what just happened. But it doesn’t work. I just killed Jesse… twice.

“Well now, Caleb, how many more times you think you'll get that lucky? Hell, I didn't know ye had it in you.” Jesse's amused voice assaults my ears like nails on a chalkboard.

I cringe and freeze for a second, wondering if I just imagined it. Then I get back up to my feet, and I turn to face him, my mace held low. “Jeez, man, what does it take to put you down for good?”

“Hah, more than you got, boy!” he answers through a bloody grin. His pistol is out and pointed at my head. We are only about twenty feet apart, but that bullet will travel a lot faster than I can. Check and mate.

“STAND DOWN!” the Sarge bellows in his most commanding voice. We both freeze in place and look at the dark figure limping into the clearing.

Haynes is leaning on a tree branch he's using as a cane. As he steps more fully into the moonlight, I can see a trail of blood running from his right temple.

“Jesse, I said stand down!" Haynes barks once more. "Soldier, that was not a request!”

Jesse smiles and replies, “Now, Sarge, I think I'm done taking orders from you.”

“Jesse, what the fuck is going on here? What happened to you? And why do you have a gun on Caleb here?”

“Well, Sergeant Haynes, this would be a lot easier if you were sleeping over there with the rest. But since you're up, let’s talk facts for a minute,” Jesse says in a casual tone, his normal accent leaving his voice. “The simple fact is, you guys are screwed. There's no way you're gonna make it through that gate. It’s been fortified and reinforced; hell, they know exactly where you are and where you're going! You're all going to be captured or killed. That’s just a fact. Having said that, this whole group