Chapter 35

                                    

                                          
A gunshot rang throughout my eardrums. But instead of seeing the blinding lights of death, I heard glass crash to the ground around me, and suddenly felt strong enough to be able to move again. 
                          
That's when I noticed Hyde's remote shattered on the ground. The same remote that had been paralyzing me with pain for the last few minutes. And Hyde distractedly trying to figure what shot it out of his hands, causing him to drop his pistol onto the floor. 
                          
This sudden opportunity gave me the chance to quickly push his pistol away from him. And with an energized power within my leg prosthetics, I swung them at Hyde's legs, taking his legs out from under him and causing him to tumble down to the floor. Then, I quickly grabbed my revolver out of my hip holster and got up to a standing position. Turning the tables on Hyde, as now I was the one standing over him with the gun.
                          
At the same time, this unexpected distraction also allowed Olivia to throw her head back to headbutt Killigan in the nose. Causing him to loosen his tight grip over Olivia's upper body, allowing her to duck under and spin away from the knife caressed on her neck. Then, before Killigan could react, she grabbed his arm and twisted it around her shoulder. Forcing Killigan's whole body to flip over her and slam onto his back on the hard marble.
                          
Yet, this wasn't enough to stun him. As he instinctively kicked Olivia in the face with such force that she fell and hit her head on the ground next to him. Seeing that she wasn't recovering fast enough to block or dodge his next attack, Killigan lunged at her to put his hands over her throat and rolled into a dominant position on top of her. 
                          
Her legs were pinned, so she couldn't kick him. And with her arms, she tried scratching and punching at him. But Killigan was too strong for her and was slowly squeezing the life out of her.
                          
She did all she could to try to fend him off, but as he squeezed harder and tighter, her attempts grew weak and tiresome. I couldn't save her because I had my gun drawn on Hyde. So I turned to Peyton.
                          
"Save her!"
                          
Peyton was fading in and out of consciousness from the lost blood. But he was still able to hear my cries for help, as he struggled to pull his hand off his wound on his other shoulder to unbuckle his revolver shotgun from his hip. Then, with a weak and wavering of his gun, he took aim to shoot. Clicking back the safety and closing his left eye, before taking a deep breath and taking the shot.
                          
Killigan looked up at him just in time for the bullet to blast through the flesh of his other eye, with blood spraying out of the back of his head all over the wall behind him. His lifeless body crumpled on top of Olivia.
                          
Olivia gasped, as Killigan's hands hold over her neck released. She panted for air for a few more seconds, trying to grasp her bearings after almost dying to Killigan. 
                          
She gently pushed Killigan's body over to the side, squeezing her legs out from under him and standing up. Before turning around to face us with blood and sweat splattered all over her face that made it look as if she'd come straight out of a horror movie. 
                          
But she didn't care what she looked like at the moment and didn't have time to fret over her emotions. She was stronger than that. So immediately after getting up into a standing position, she grabbed her first aid kit and ran over to Peyton to try to save him. 
                          
"He's still alive. He's very weak, but I can save him." Olivia shouted after she slid to his side and put her finger on his neck to look for a pulse.
                          
A rush of relief filled my heart as now we were in control again, even if it weren't the best circumstances. Because we still had Cam lying unconscious and Peyton fighting for his life. But we'd taken care of Killigan, and I was standing above Hyde with a gun pointed at him.
                          
"Do what you can to save him! I'll take care of Dr. Hyde."
                          
Then I heard a flutter of movement of some sort of invisible object flying around us. Immediately after, I heard as a flying drone uncloaked right in front of me, and I instantly recognized who was responsible for providing the distraction we needed to turn the tides on Hyde. It was Jules.
                          
A second later, I heard a buzzing in my earbud of someone trying to radio us. And that's when I heard Jules' joyous British accent on the other end.
                          
"Hey, Dak, I hope you appreciate my little gift. I figured you'd need some help with Hyde being a bad guy and all."
                          
I gave a little chuckle and answered. 
                          
"Yeah, I thought we were goners before you helped out. I assume you heard everything, then?"
                          
"Yes, sir, I did. My jetpack was damaged from the crash landing on the roof here, and I'd already patched up Mr. Crenshaw as good as I could. He's still unconscious beside me, by the way. Anyways, I had nothing to do but watch all of you through my drone and hope that I could help when you needed me.
                          
Then when I heard Peyton talking about Dr. Hyde and saw them betray you, I had to do something. That's when I ran to get my rifle out of the jet and used my drone to set up a shot. And to be honest, it was a blind shot. Because those windows on that floor are so tinted that all I saw was black.
                          
"Oh, nice. Well, I'm glad you were around when we needed you. You saved our lives."
                          
"No problem, boss. Now finish off Hyde already and save the world. I'm getting impatient over here."
                          
"Will do. Dak out."
                          
At that point, I still had Hyde in my crosshairs. But, for some reason, something was stopping me from shooting him. I don't know what it was, but maybe it was because he believed in me when no one else did. Or that he'd trained and given me the tools to take my life back. So in the back of my mind, I had the feeling that I should give him the same chance to redeem himself and be the kind, compassionate person that I thought he was.
                          
Yet, even though I had a gun pointed at his head, Hyde was smiling right now, which was strange because I'd defeated him. Then he surprised me by letting out a loud, evil cackle of a laugh that I swear, even Jules could hear across the street.  
                          
"What are you laughing about? Don't you know? Your plan is done." I said in a confused yet angered tone.
                          
But he just kept laughing for a couple more seconds, until abruptly stopping.
                          
"You haven't beaten me, Mr. Wilson, I can assure you. Because no matter what you do right now, I've already won. This whole world is mine, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. So have fun pickin' up the pieces, cripple." 
                          
BANG! 
                          
I shot him in the head as he'd made my decision easy by just trying to get in my head once more because I'd grown confident enough in myself not to entertain these sorts of insults anymore.