Sater’s nose broke the first time Diren’s boot made contact with it. Diren followed this first stomp with a frenzy of kicks, a look of focused consternation on his face, like he’d discovered a rat on his kitchen floor and was trying to crush it completely.

He was sitting upright in the corner of the Humvee hatch, one elbow resting on the back of the backseat. His shotgun was gripped tight in both hands, propped on one leg, the end of the barrel pointing at Sater’s face.

Sater found himself staring into the bore of the shotgun, the way one might be transfixed by a deep, gaping hole in the earth. Occasionally he would bring up his hands in an attempt to block or deflect the kicks, only to have his own knuckles shoved back into his face.

His nose no longer felt like a part of his body, something that belonged to him. It was an aching, throbbing piece of pulp, attached to his face by wire. Any second now it would begin to break apart, sliding off his face in chunks. That or the chunks would stay, but they would be pushed up and inside his face, lodging there, perhaps even entering his brain.

Blood flowed. He couldn’t taste or smell anything else. It was like having a molten nickel lodged inside his head. It flowed over his lips and down the back of his throat in streams.

Then, after an indiscernible amount of time—but for the omnipresent night still brushing against the exterior of the Humvee’s tinted windows—the kicking stopped.

Diren panted, practically wheezing. A layer of sweat gleamed on every visible part of his body, running over his tan, leathery skin like oil on the ground.

Sater coughed and sputtered, scattered specks of blood from his nose and mouth. It felt like he was breathing through a wet, sloppy noodle.

“Was that good for you, too?” Sater said. His voice sounded alien, contorted.

Immediate regret. He got another stomp to the face, boot heel making contact with the lower half of his face, rattling his jaw. He felt a shooting pain in his mouth, like being stabbed, and a fresh gout of blood. He spat onto the floor of the hatch, and white spots poking out of the red.

For a moment, he just stared, taking a mental snapshot of the bits of broken teeth. Then, he started laughing.

It was the kind of laughing fit he’d used to get into as a little kid, when his older sister was teasing him, wouldn’t stop tickling him. The manic, uncontrollable kind. It just came out.

It didn’t sound the same, though. It was guttural, sputtering. Like an engine turning over. Tiny flecks of red shotgunned around, hitting various parts of the hatch, landing on clothes, and gunmetal, and the scratchy fabric on the back of the car seat.

Diren’s face twisted into the visual representation of a growl.

He opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say, he didn’t get a chance to say it. A bullet tore through the hatch door, punching a hole in the seat and splintering the windshield in an array of spidery cracks.

“Do I need to get up there and drive myself!?” Diren roared.

There was no answer, only the clamor of the engine as the driver slammed on the gas. The Humvee vibrated. An infinite conveyor belt of pine trees rolled past, melded together in a kaleidoscopic blur.

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More gunshots. Sater could hear them zipping past, like little airplanes. Occasionally, they glanced off the exterior, thumping loudly. In Sater’s head, they were making little sparks, like in the movies.

Sater erupted in another bout of laughter.

It was all so ridiculous.

Diren lurched forward, shoving the barrel of his shotgun into Sater’s gut, punching the wind out of him. He held it there, pushing.

“Don’t you worry, boy,” Diren said. “You and your buddies aren’t dying today. You’ve got your whole lives ahead of you. A life with the Wolves.”

He pulled back, leaning on the seat again, seemingly at home with the situation. “Yeah, we’re going to get along well. Real well.”

Sater slumped sideways, struggling for breath. “Somehow...I doubt it…”

It was Diren’s turn to laugh. “What a find! Our very own Bannerets. They even know how to use the Black Darts, too. There’s two, right? Between the one your friend has on him and that guy in the wheelchair?”

Diren watched Sater, waiting for an answer. Didn’t get one. Didn’t need one.

“That’s the next phase of our plan, you know,” Diren said. “Retrieving the other Dart. One is good. Two is better. We learn how to use one, keep it safe. The other...well, I know a guy who says he can disassemble and reverse-engineer the thing.”

Sater’s gut did a loop-de-loop. Though maybe part of that was the bullet that had just pinged off the hatch, not far from his head.

More Dart’s in circulation, huh? Great plan. Excellent.

“Let me get this straight,” Sater said, propping himself up. “Someone convinced you to bring them a Black Dart?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Diren said. “An amateur? Diren’s always two steps ahead. If not more. Look where you are.”

“Being shot at by Federal Agents?” Sater said. Also, did you just refer to yourself in the third person?

As if on cue, a bullet ricocheted off the top of the car.

Diren’s jaw clenched. He was tense, but it seemed like kicking the shit out of Sater had soothed him somewhat, kept him more level-headed. It had been a release. That was the feeling Sater had, anyway.

“Coming up on the target.” Said someone in the passenger seat up front. “Should be a couple minutes.” Diren nodded, before turning back to Sater. “You don’t give me enough credit, you know.” He said. “You never have.”

Diren was a brute force kind of guy. Literally. Rithium wasn’t just a game, to him. He’d show up at your door, break into your house. Sater had always known that much. He was a criminal first, Rithium player a far second.

Perhaps because of this, it was hard to imagine Diren’s problem-solving skills were particularly sophisticated, overall. Though, the events of today may have punctured a bit of a hole in that.

Because really, the man did have a point. He had showed up at the right place, at the right time. He hadn’t managed to get Oscar as part of the deal—yet—but he seemed to have been prepared for that. He seemed to still have a plan.

“Running a crew isn’t about being the smartest, or the toughest.” Diren said. “It’s about who you know. It’s about making sure the people who are have your back. I learned this a long time ago.”

He leaned back, setting the back of his head against the window, resting the shotgun on his leg. The driver seemed to have put some distance between us and the feds, and there hadn’t been any gunshots for a good minute, now.

“Do you know how tall those vans are?” Diren pointed back, in the direction of the pursuing van down the road.

Sater only managed to take a deep breath, inhaling blood. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Everything was swelling up.

“The top of the van is about…” He held up his hand flat, palm down. “Ten feet off the ground. Nine-point-twenty-five feet, actually.” He lowered his hand, as if moving it down a scale that Sater couldn’t see. “All the seats have the same height. If you calculate the average height of the teams, their heads come to about a foot below the roof.”

“Average?” Sater said. He coughed. He was starting to feel light-headed. “Calculate? Those are some five-dollar words for you, Diren.”

“Like I say,” Diren said. “It’s about who you know.”

“Someone you know...is playing you…” Dark spots were popping in and out of Sater’s vision.

Diren didn’t seem phased. He pulled a phone out of his pocket, seemed to be checking something. Once he put the phone away, he turned toward the front of the car. “Slow it down. Just a little. I want our friend to see this.”

He grabbed Sater by the collar, dragging him over to the hatch door window. “Don’t pass out just yet. The fireworks are about to start.”