Faulkner took a step toward her. “Beatrix?”

She took a step back.

She didn’t want sympathy.

She didn’t need help.

Her arm dipped, her aim dropping from Duffy’s head to his chest.

Not now.

I have too much still to do.

She raised her arm again. It was a struggle.

“Come on, Rose!” Duffy protested. “I told you what you wanted to know.” They were just words, meaningless, ways to spin the time out as he assessed his odds.

She coughed again, wheezing, assailed now by a battering wave of fatigue. The gun felt very heavy in her hands. She had the urge to put it down, to just lay it on the ground.

Please.

Not now.

Just three more.

I’m only halfway done.

Faulkner put a hand on her shoulder. “Beatrix?”

Beatrix and Faulkner had both taken their eyes off Duffy for a moment.

A moment was all he needed.

He kicked down with his right foot and sent a spray of sand into their faces.

Beatrix was blinded, and as she raised her hands to her burning eyes, she dropped the Sig.

Duffy roared as he stretched his arms, hard enough to pop tendons as he stepped his feet over his wrists.

He burst out, barrelling into Faulkner and shoulder-charging him to the ground. He forced the assault rifle away to the side, and when Faulkner fired off a round, the bullets scattered harmlessly into the air. Duffy was big and fuelled by desperation, and Faulkner was blinded and had been taken by surprise. He squinted through the grit in his eyes as Duffy pinned his right arm beneath his right knee and then forced his left into a similarly constrained position. He prised the FN F2000 from Faulkner’s fingers, reversed it and used the stock to bludgeon him about the head. He grasped it between both taped hands, driving down into Faulkner’s face with all of his considerable strength.

One.

Two.

Three.

He looked demonic.

Faulkner stopped struggling after the third blow.

His body spasmed, his leg twitching.

Beatrix threw herself at Duffy, knocking him off Faulkner’s body and driving him into the desert. The FN F2000 fell and was kicked away as they struggled. He rolled as they hit the ground, both of them wrestling to be on top. Duffy was twice Beatrix’s weight, and she was already weak from coughing. He rolled again, forcing her beneath him. They had fallen near her discarded pistol, and he reached for it, his fingertips brushing the muzzle and then fixing around it as he stretched out. Beatrix elbowed him in the face, but he absorbed the blow, moulding the grip into the palm of his right hand and slipping his index finger through the trigger guard.

There was no safety on the Sig; it just needed a firm squeeze of the trigger to shoot.