Distortion Offensive Read Online Free

and he cocked the hammer with a sadistic sneer curling his lip. He was a young man, no older than seventeen by Grant’s estimate, and already he wore a fierce scar down the left side of his face, cutting a white streak through the dark stubble and red acne that covered his jaw. Grant’s dark eyes flicked across the room, noting the man’s accomplices in an instant before turning his attention back to their leader. They were all dressed in muted, unwashed clothes, and none of them looked to be much older than twenty, maybe twenty-five.
    â€œI done fucks like you for just looking at me, man,” the leader announced through gritted teeth. “I’ll do everyone in this room if you fuck with me, you understand?”
    Grant fixed his dark eyes on the bandit leader as, somewhere close to the door, a dog barked anxiously. “Oh, yeah,” he said softly, almost conspiratorially, “I understand.” Hands held loosely at his sides, Grant took a step back toward the open crate of rations. “You want me to hand them over one by one, or are you and your boyfriends going to come here and carry a crate out?”
    The gunman glared at Grant, irritation on his frantic features as he considered his options. “You. You can carry it,” the man decided.
    Grant snorted, his eyes still fixed on the nervous young gunman. “Can’t help you,” he explained. “Thisis a two-man job, buddy. You want to feel the weight of this bad boy if you don’t believe me.”
    Irritated, the gunman spit a curse and strode toward the line of tables, stepping onto the nearest desk and clambering over it, his hollow boot heels echoing loudly against the wood like the clip-clopping of a horse. As he did so, Grant seized his opportunity, his leg snapping out and his foot slamming into the front of the table as the gunman climbed onto its surface.
    The table’s legs screeched as they dragged across the floor with the impact of Grant’s powerful kick, and the gunman found himself toppling forward, losing his balance as the table disappeared from under him. The young man snapped off a shot at Grant, a bullet blasting toward the huge ex-Mag with a resounding crack, several people screaming in its wake.
    Grant felt the bullet cut the air just past his ear, missing him by a quarter of an inch, but he was already rushing forward to meet his assailant. All around the church hall, the gunman’s allies were beginning to react, turning their own weapons on the man who had attacked their leader.
    â€œBunch of amateurs,” Kane muttered as he and Brigid readied themselves in their hiding place in the shadows of the porch. As the gunmen targeted Grant while he was safely protected behind the tumbling form of their leader, it gave Kane and Brigid ample opportunity to mount a surprise attack from the rear.
    Over by the line of tables, Grant pumped his sledgehammer fist into the lead gunman’s thorax, knocking the man back up into the air as he continued to fall, driving the breath painfully from his throat. The gunman toppled sideways, crying out in pain as he slammed against the wooden floor with bone-shaking finality.
    A trained ex-Mag like Kane, Grant was working on instinct now, and his leg snapped out once more to kick the snub-nosed .38 out of the gunman’s hand before he could bring it to bear. A stray bullet powered out from the pistol’s barrel as it flew out of the gunman’s hand and across the floor, embedding itself in the side of the water pump, water spraying everywhere.
    As the gunman fell, his companions began blasting shots from their own weapons at Grant, peppering the wall behind the ex-Mag with shots as he leaped out of their path and rolled behind one of the tables. From his crouching position behind the scant protection of a desk, Grant extended the outstretched toe of his booted foot, hooking the nearby chair and scooting it across the floor toward him. His long