Brothers of Chaos (The Unstoppable Titans Book 1) Read Free Page B

it. He glanced
back at Marco and Michael. They were talking. About what, Les wasn’t sure. And
he didn’t want to stick around to find out.
    *   *   *
    Marco
and Michael continued staring at each other after everyone left. The arcade was
empty save for one cashier behind the front counter. He was leaning back in his
chair, dozing. Michael eyed the clerk, his head turned in that direction.
    “We gonna do this or what?” asked Marco.
    Michael
held up a hand to hush the boy. Marco wondered what he was doing. He looked
like he was checking for any stray customers.
    “We’re
alone, bud,” Marco said. “Besides the guy behind the counter. Unless you want
to go outside.”
    Michael
slowly turned to face him. “I’m going to give you a choice. You can either
apologize to me, or you can choose to let me kill you right here, right now.”
    Marco
tilted his head to the side in confusion. “Apologize for what?”
    “For
wasting my time.”
      “That’s not much of a choice,” Marco said to
the redhead.
    “It’s
the only one you get. Choose carefully.”
    Marco
chuckled. “How about I choose to beat you down?”
    “That
wasn’t one of the choices.”
    “Well,
then, I guess I choose to let you try and kill me.”
    Michael
stood there for another moment, and then suddenly walked over to the cashier.
    “What
are you doing?”
    “Getting
rid of any witnesses,” said Michael as he slowly wheeled the cashier into a
backroom behind the counter. Marco was leaning against a pinball machine,
feeling uneasy, when the redhead returned.
    Michael
stood across from him now, his hands at his sides, palms up. “I’ll let you
throw the first punch.”
    Marco
studied the kid for a second. Michael was fairly tall, but really skinny and
pale. Marco outweighed him by fifty pounds, at least. He approached the lanky
redhead and looked slightly upward at him.
    Then
he launched a fist at the kid’s face.
    The
punch never landed. Michael had caught it in his own hand and was now crushing
Marco’s fingers. Marco could actually hear them breaking. With his other hand,
Michael grabbed his opponent’s throat.
    And
then Marco was flying through the air. He landed facedown on another pinball machine, breaking the glass. Before he could even think
about what had just happened to him, he felt rough hands grab his shirt and
yank him off the machine. Suddenly he was flying through the air again, this
time crashing face-first into a fighting game. He landed on the floor in front
of the game.
    “No
more,” he heard himself say through a mouth filled with blood as he tried to
crawl away from Michael.
    “You
made your choice,” the redhead said behind him.
    “You
said you’d let me throw the first punch,” Marco said next, not knowing why it
even mattered.
    He
was suddenly in the air again, but this time Michael merely held him up. Marco
realized subconsciously his feet weren’t touching the ground, and he had to
look down at Michael.
    “I
did say that, didn’t I?” Michael grinned. “I said I’d let you throw the first
punch. And you did.”
    Marco
spit blood in Michael’s face. “You really going to kill me?” he asked
sarcastically, though he really was scared.
    Michael
used one hand to wipe away some of the spit from his eyes, and Marco was
startled to see he was still being held up. How strong was this guy?
    “Yes,”
said the redhead. “I’m definitely going to kill you. I gave you a choice, and
you chose.”
    “You’re
crazy!”
    Suddenly,
Marco was thrown straight to the floor. The breath was knocked from his lungs
and at first he couldn’t move. He just lay there for a moment, faintly aware of
a voice yelling from behind the counter—the cashier, trying to get out of the
storage room where Michael locked him.
    Looking
around, Marco saw the entrance to the arcade only a few feet away. He had to
get outside.
    He
started crawling, not knowing where Michael had gone. At that moment, he didn’t
really care. He just