The Odds - Jeff Strand Page 0,40

me,” said Harry.

“You’re getting a pretty sweet deal. I wouldn’t complain if I were you. We’ll do the left leg first.” The man crouched down and placed the barrel of the pistol against Harry’s upper leg. “It’s going to go in here...” He tapped the other side of Harry’s leg with his index finger. “...and come out there. Which sounds really bad, and kind of is, but it won’t go deep. It’ll stay near the surface. It’ll hit the bookcase when it comes out. I don’t want to mess up your books, so how about you turn around—like this—yeah, like that—see, now it’ll hit the wall. All set? Say yes or I’ll shoot you in the head.”

“Yes,” said Harry.

The man squeezed the trigger. Harry screamed.

“I apologize,” said the man. “I got the angle wrong on that. It’s okay. We’ve got three more chances to get it right.”

Grendie’s first swing with the butcher knife missed, but not by much.

His second swing, which he was able to get in before Ethan did his first, slashed Ethan across the left arm, crisscrossing the cut that was already there and slicing right through the bandage.

Ethan winced in pain.

“First cut already!” said Grendie, holding up his arms in victory. “It’s like you don’t even want the clue.”

“Hold up, does that count as one or two?” asked the skinny guy. “He’s bleeding on both sides of the bandage. I think he needs to take it off so we can see if it’s one continuous cut or if the bandage blocked part of it.”

“What the shit kind of loopholes are you trying to find?” asked Grendie. “It’s one cut.”

“Just trying to help you out.”

“You think I need your help? I don’t need to win this on a technicality. Go somewhere else. Nobody appointed you referee.”

The skinny guy hung his head and stepped out of the way.

“You ready?” Grendie asked Ethan.

“Yeah.”

They both lunged at each other at the same time. Both missed.

“Nice one,” said Grendie. “I felt the air swish.”

Grendie slashed at him again. This swing would have, if it hit its mark, cut Ethan from nipple to nipple. He stepped back out of the way and tripped on one of the hundreds of pieces of garbage on the floor. He reached out to keep his balance, grabbing the woman who’d been on his lap. They both struck the floor.

Grendie laughed. “I’ll let you get up.”

Ethan got up. Something was stuck to the back of his shirt but he didn’t reach back there to find out what it was.

“No more freebies,” Grendie told him. “We’re playing for real now.”

“He grabbed my tit,” said the woman. “That’s ten bucks.”

“He grabbed your arm,” said Grendie. “I saw it.”

“Then you weren’t watching very close.”

Grendie lunged at Ethan with the butcher knife. Missed again. There was no rule saying that Ethan had to stay in the same general area, so he hurried past a few people into the kitchen area.

Grendie followed.

Ethan quickly spun around, hoping that Grendie’s momentum would take him right into the blade.

It didn’t.

Grendie swung the knife. The blade slashed across Ethan’s knuckles and he dropped the meat cleaver.

Ethan looked at his hand. It wasn’t bleeding. “It didn’t break the skin.”

“You need to sharpen this thing,” Grendie called out to the skinny guy. Then he swung the knife again before Ethan could even think about retrieving his weapon.

Ethan grabbed a frying pan off the counter, which stuck to a plate, which stuck to a fork. He took a swing at Grendie’s head that fell short, though the fork came loose and almost hit a woman who was standing in the corner.

“He can’t use other weapons!” said the skinny guy.

“That wasn’t in the rules!” said Ethan. He might only get credit for cutting Grendie with the meat cleaver, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t knock him unconscious with a frying pan first.

He took another swing. This time the plate came loose and struck Grendie’s face. It fell to the floor and shattered.

Grendie had previously seemed to be having fun with this whole experience. Based on his expression, that was no longer the case.

He stabbed at Ethan with the butcher knife. Ethan deflected it by using the frying pan as a shield. Grendie lunged with the knife, aiming lower this time, and the tip of the blade tore across Ethan’s side. He cried out and clutched the wound.

“Let’s see it,” said Grendie.

Ethan removed his hand and held up his bloody palm.

“Two to zero,” said Grendie.

Ethan bolted away. He scrambled back around the