Harem Apocalypse: My Seed is the Cure?!

Chapter 367: Williams Beaten

Williams staggered backward, one hand clamped over his injured arm while the other tried and failed to keep the blood from pouring through his fingers. It ran hot and fast, slicking his palm, dripping from his wrist, spotting the ground as he reeled away from Keith in a crooked half-step that almost turned into a fall.The grin he’d been wearing vanished. What took its place looked worse.

He fixed Callighan with a dark, ugly stare but he didn’t make another move. Not yet. Hard to indulge your temper when there was a gun aimed squarely at you.

Mei rushed to Keith at once, dropping beside him so fast her knees hit the ground hard enough to sting. Her hands went to him without thinking, one hovering near his face, the other catching his shoulder as she looked him over in a panic. His face was a mess, blood smeared across his skin, his breathing rough, his whole body carrying the aftermath of what had just happened, and still she asked anyway.

"Y—You okay?!"

It was a stupid question and she knew it the second it left her mouth, but she needed to hear him answer. Needed something from him that sounded alive.

"Y—Yeah..."

The word barely came out. It scraped up from his throat hoarse and broken, thin enough that it could’ve disappeared in the air if she’d been any farther away.

It still loosened something tight in her chest.

Callighan caught that exchange in a brief glance from the side. His eyes moved over Keith’s battered face, then over Mei where she crouched beside him, her clothes torn, her breathing still uneven, her whole body wound tight with shock and anger and the effort of holding herself together. After that, his attention shifted back to Williams.

"I was sure I made myself clear concerning her and any acts such as sexual assault," Callighan said.

His voice came out freezingly cold.

Williams gave a short snicker through gritted teeth. "She’s a prisoner and you are treating her better than us, Callighan."

He took a step forward.

That was all he got.

The sharp, distinct press of Callighan’s finger against the trigger stopped him cold. Williams saw it, heard it, understood it. His body locked before the second step ever landed.

Then the sneer came back, meaner now, twisted by pain. "Right, ex-marine who got himself found with the Great Wolves, but what the fuck are you without the guns?"

He spat the words out like he wanted them to sting more than the bullet had.

Callighan just looked at him.

There was nothing loud in his face, nothing expressive, no outburst, no threat thrown back. That almost made it worse. He stared at Williams with the same hard, unreadable calm, then lowered the gun and tossed it onto the ground.

The sound of it hitting dirt snapped through Mei.

Still holding Keith’s head, she stared at him, tense all over. She couldn’t believe he was actually doing this here, now, after everything that had already happened. And worse than that, a colder thought pushed in right behind it.

What if Williams won?

She didn’t even want to follow that thought to the end. Not with Keith half-conscious beside her. Not with her own clothes torn. Not after what nearly had happened.

"Right after shooting me. Quite easy work for you, Callighan," Williams said.

His hand slipped away from his bleeding shoulder.

Callighan said nothing.

Instead, he moved his left arm behind his back and stood there waiting, eyes locked on Williams.

Williams narrowed his eyes.

Then he rushed Callighan.

He was bigger by a clear margin, taller through the shoulders, heavier through the chest, built like the kind of bastard who had spent half his life winning by being willing to hurt people uglier than they expected. He charged with one arm half-useless at his side and the other swinging hard, not careful, not clean, just violent. The punch was aimed straight for Callighan’s head.

Callighan moved a fraction to the side.

The fist tore past his face close enough to stir the hair by his temple, and he answered at once, driving the heel of his hand into Williams’s injured shoulder.

Williams hissed through his teeth and lurched, but pain only made him nastier. He threw a kick without warning, boot snapping toward Callighan’s knee. Callighan pulled his leg back just enough that the kick clipped instead of landed, then stepped in before Williams could reset and hammered an elbow into his ribs with his free arm.

The sound that came out of Williams was rough. He shoved forward anyway.

That was the difference right there. Williams fought like a prisoner, like somebody used to cramped rooms, ambushes, cheap shots, and ending things before anybody could stop him. Every move had spite in it. He stomped for Callighan’s foot. He lashed another kick toward the groin. When he got close enough, he tried to smash his forehead into Callighan’s face.

Callighan saw it coming.

He caught Williams by the wrist, turned his body just enough to spoil the line of the headbutt, and drove a short punch into the side of Williams’s jaw.

Williams staggered a step, then surged right back in with a snarl.

Mei flinched where she knelt beside Keith. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from it. The whole thing had the ugly speed of a real fight, no circling, no showing off, no pause long enough to breathe. Williams kept throwing everything cruel he had left. A wild hook. A straight punch toward the throat. A kick whipped at the side of Callighan’s leg. Another toward his stomach. He fought like he wanted to tear something apart before his body gave out.

Callighan gave him nothing easy.

He blocked high, parried low, stepped off line, turned his shoulders, made Williams miss by inches and pay for every one of them. He used timing more than force. When Williams overreached, Callighan chopped a strike into the inside of his bicep. When he came in too square, Callighan slammed a punch into his sternum. When he tried another low kick, Callighan checked it with his shin and answered with a fast shot to the mouth that snapped Williams’s head back.

Blood sprayed from Williams’s lip.

He smiled anyway, teeth red now.

Then he rushed harder than before, like brute force could make up the gap. He came with a huge looping punch and his shoulder behind it, trying to crash straight through Callighan and put him on the ground by weight alone.

Callighan pivoted.

Williams’s momentum carried him past center for one second too long, and Callighan punished it at once. He slammed a short punch into the side of Williams’s ribs, then another into his face. Williams answered with a savage backhand that clipped Callighan across the cheekbone and split the skin there. Mei sucked in a breath when she saw the blood, but Callighan barely reacted. He just reset his feet and watched.

Williams came stomping forward again, chest heaving now, his injured arm hanging lower, blood running down to his hand. He threw a kick toward Callighan’s knee, and when that failed he swung high, then low, trying to catch the body, trying to hit somewhere soft, somewhere that would break rhythm. Nothing about it was trained, but it was dangerous because he committed all of himself into it.

Callighan gave ground for the first time, one step, then another.

Williams mistook that for weakness.

He lunged.

His fist shot toward Callighan’s face. Callighan knocked it aside, stepped inside the reach of the next swing, and buried a hard punch under Williams’s ribs. Williams folded a little, more from surprise than damage, and Callighan used that split second. He hooked his foot behind Williams’s ankle and drove his shoulder into his chest. Williams stumbled, caught himself, and lashed out with a short brutal kick that scraped up Callighan’s thigh.

Callighan answered with a punch to the nose.

Cartilage crunched.

Williams reeled, furious now, half-blind with blood and rage, and he charged one last time with a roar in his throat. He threw everything into it, one huge ugly rush, fist coming down, knee rising, body trying to overwhelm through sheer mass.

Callighan waited until the last possible second.

Then he stepped in and brought his knee up hard into Williams’s solar plexus.

The hit landed deep.

All the air left Williams at once in one broken, gutted sound. His whole body seized. His mouth dropped open, but nothing came out except a thin gasp that never turned into breath. The fight ran out of him for a second. His legs buckled, and he crashed down onto his knees, both hands failing to catch him in time.

Before he could recover, Callighan kicked him over.

The boot slammed into him from the side and sent his larger body spilling backward. Williams hit the ground flat on his back with a heavy thud that shook dust loose around him. He tried to turn, tried to roll, but Callighan was already on him.

He straddled Williams’s chest and drove the first punch down so hard it snapped Williams’s head to the side.

Williams threw his thick forearms up on instinct, trying to shell up, trying to cover his face, but Callighan punched straight through the guard. He hammered one fist into the arms until they shifted, then split the opening with another shot that landed on cheekbone. Williams tried to buck him off. Callighan dropped his weight lower and kept going.

Another punch.

Then another.

Each one was short and powerful. He battered at Williams’s defense until those heavy arms stopped looking solid and started looking desperate. A hit smashed into his mouth. The next buried into the side of his face. Another cracked against his brow when his guard slipped a fraction too low.

Williams grunted, cursed, tried to turn away. Callighan caught him with a punch that flattened the motion before it started and followed with two more that drove his head back into the dirt. Blood spread across Williams’s nose and lips, smeared across his own forearms where he kept trying to shield himself. It didn’t matter. Callighan kept breaking through, ruthless and steady, pinning him in place and pounding him down while Williams’s arms shake under the weight of each hit.

Eventually, after what felt like a long, dragging stretch of time to Mei, Callighan finally moved off him.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute. Maybe less. It only felt longer because she’d watched every second of it with her whole body locked tight, half braced for Williams to somehow turn it around, half already knowing he wouldn’t.

When Callighan rose from over him, Williams barely looked human for a second.

He was still conscious, maybe, but only just. His face had collapsed into blood and swelling, his chest jerking hard as he tried to drag air back into himself, his big body no longer looking dangerous so much as broken. Completely beaten. Completely overwhelmed.

Mei stared.

One arm. Two arms. It wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.

Callighan had just been better.

He was just stronger.

He stepped away from Williams without hurry, breathing hard but controlled, one side of his face bloodied, his clothes marked from the fight, his expression still stern in that way that made him harder to read than anybody else there.

Then he turned and walked toward the gun he’d thrown down earlier.

The weapon lay in the dirt a few feet away, half-dusted over from the struggle. Callighan bent, picked it up, and checked it in one smooth motion like his body already knew the sequence better than thought did. Then he pulled the hammer back.

The click sounded small.

It still cut through everything.

He started walking back toward Williams.

Williams was trying to move. Not to get up, not really. More like his body still hadn’t understood the fight was over. One arm twitched across his middle. One knee dragged uselessly against the ground. Blood ran from his mouth when he coughed, and he made a wet, ugly sound in his throat as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t force it through.

Callighan kept coming.

"Now, now, now, Callighan. Come on, don’t go for the killing immediately."

The voice slid into the moment before the gun did.

Everybody’s attention snapped toward it.

Gaspar was approaching. There was amusement in his face already. His eyes flicked once to Williams on the ground, took in the damage, and the corner of his mouth lifted a little more.

Callighan looked at him.

The stare he gave him was still cold. Gaspar didn’t seem especially bothered by it.

"He can still be useful," Gaspar said, rolling one shoulder as he came closer. "If you want him dead, let me handle him. He’ll be a good pawn against Marlon alive than dead."

That smirk stayed on his mouth the whole time he spoke.

For a moment, Callighan said nothing.

The gun remained in his hand. Mei couldn’t tell whether that silence meant he was considering it or whether he was only deciding how much of Gaspar he was willing to tolerate.

Then he turned slightly away from Williams.

"Get him out of my sight," he said.

Gaspar’s grin sharpened. "Got it."

He reached one hand out.

Something yellowish snapped loose from his arm in a fast movement, not one tentacle but several, slick and quick as they lashed forward and coiled around Williams’s battered body. Mei stiffened on reflex. Even after everything she had seen, the sight of them wrapping around a man’s limbs and torso like living restraints turned her stomach.

Williams let out a low, ruined sound as the tentacles tightened and dragged him.

Gaspar didn’t spare him a second glance. He just started walking, hauling the bigger man away.

On his way out, Gaspar turned his head toward Mei and gave her a brief smirk.

It was small, and fleeting but it still made her skin crawl.

Then he was gone.

A couple of minutes later, at Callighan’s demand, the doctor arrived.

Pamela came in fast, carrying what she needed and wasting no time on questions that didn’t matter right now. She took one look at Keith and went straight down to work. She checked his face first, then his breathing, then the damage around his ribs and jaw, speaking only when she needed something handed to her or space cleared.

Keith winced when she touched one side of his face.

Mei leaned in a little without meaning to.

Pamela noticed, but she kept working.

"Get her to her room and get her new clothes," Callighan said.

"No."

The word came out before Mei had time to soften it.

She stopped there, still covering her chest with one arm, clothes torn, skin dirty, the whole shape of her looking more vulnerable than she wanted anybody to see. But when Callighan glanced at her, she didn’t look back at him. Her eyes stayed fixed on Keith while Pamela treated him, following every movement of the doctor’s hands as if looking away might let something worse happen.

"I’ll stay until he’s treated," she said.

Callighan watched her for a moment.

He didn’t argue.

Instead, he told someone nearby to bring Mei a change of clothes, then turned and walked off with the gun still in his hand, leaving Pamela crouched over Keith and Mei planted beside him.