by Strand, Jeff
He was still there.
Was there a way to reason with him? Negotiate?
Probably not.
She concentrated on him again, envisioning his legs shattering beneath him, the bones breaking into a million shards. She even tried gesturing with her hands, as if practicing witchcraft, but it had no effect.
She couldn’t hurt him from here, but he couldn’t hurt her from there.
Though she’d watch for an opportunity to escape, if he brought the fight back to her, she’d be ready to destroy him.
12
“Forrest is dead!” Daxton blurted into the phone as soon as Winlaw answered. “She killed him just by looking at him!”
“Calm down,” said Winlaw. “Explain to me exactly what happened.”
“I’m not going to calm down! He came up behind her, and when she looked at him his goddamn teeth started to fall out of his mouth! There was blood coming from everywhere! She killed him without even doing anything!”
“Are you trying to scam me, Daxton?”
“No! I need you to send more men! Send a dozen! Send them all at once! Get them here as soon as you can!”
“I can’t get you a dozen men.”
“Get as many as you can. Right now. As far as I know, I cut off her communication, but I can’t keep her trapped in the house forever. Think of what you could do if you had somebody like her under your control!”
“I can get you four or five,” said Winlaw.
“Five. Make it five. You might lose some of them.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’m not playing around. Forrest is dead. You need to take this seriously.”
“I promise you that I’m taking this seriously, and I’m warning you to watch your tone. Stay where you are. I’ll get some reinforcements out there right away.”
“Thank you. Tell them to hurry.”
Winlaw hung up. Daxton shoved the phone into his left pants pocket, and took Allison’s phone out of the right. Password protected. He was no hacker, and he didn’t have any great plans for her phone if he could get into it anyway, so he put it back in his pocket.
If she did have a second cell phone, he was screwed. He couldn’t just drive away—she’d be able to describe him to the cops. It was possible that she might not want to say a word to anybody, since there was a corpse on her living room floor, but he couldn’t count on that. He just needed Winlaw’s men to subdue her. He’d hand her over, show his boss what she’d done to Forrest, and try to make the case that she could be an amazing asset for him.
He wasn’t going after Allison himself, though. No way in hell.
He hadn’t anticipated anything like this. He’d figured that maybe she’d see Forrest coming, fling his spooky ass against the wall, and then while she was doing that Daxton would grab her from behind. The idea that she could just...crush him from the inside out like that was terrifying.
Or maybe that’s not what she’d done at all. It didn’t matter. Other people could worry about that.
He desperately hoped that Winlaw sent the reinforcements out here right away. If they took too long, Daxton might lose what little courage he had left and flee the scene.
Daxton was still out there. Right now Allison really regretted living in such an isolated area. She’d often go hours at a time with no cars driving past her house. If a car did drive past, that could give her the opportunity to run out her back door without him shooting at her.
Or she could get an innocent driver killed.
She walked back into the kitchen and looked into the pots. Tiny bubbles were forming at the bottom, so an intruder bursting into her home now could expect a splash of warm water on his face.
She returned to the living room. A long-shot idea occurred to her. Since her current plan was “wait around to fuck up anybody else who tried to attack her,” she decided to give the new idea a try. She opened the door and peeked her head outside, figuring he wouldn’t be a skilled enough marksman to get in a head shot from that distance.
“Hey!” she called out.
Daxton looked as if he was unsure whether or not to answer. Finally, he said, “What?”
“Your friend is still alive.”
“Is he?”
“Yeah. But he’s lost a lot of blood.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Call an ambulance.”
Daxton shook his head.
“I’m not wearing my contacts so I can’t see what you’re doing,” Allison called out. This wasn’t true, but any fake advantage Daxton thought he had might help her at some point.
“I shook my head,” Daxton said.
“You don’t care if he dies?”
“I assume he’s already dead.”
“He’s not. You could save him.”
“The world is a better place with him dead. If I came back inside I’d just spit on the body.”
“Why are you still here?” Allison asked.
“You have to sleep sometime.”
“So do you.”
“That’s true.”
“Why don’t we try to work something out?”
“Nah,” said Daxton. “I have nowhere to be right now.”
Allison tried again to break his bones. Nothing happened.
“This isn’t going to work out for you,” she called out. “I very strongly suggest that you leave.”
“I’ll take that under consideration.”
Allison stepped back into her living room and closed the front door. He had to be waiting on reinforcements. She once again thought about taking her chances and fleeing out the back door, but that still didn’t seem like a smart idea. For now, she’d just wait.
Ten minutes later, Daxton’s phone rang. It was Winlaw.
“They’re on the way,” he said.
“Yes! Thank you!”
“I’m assuming that you can’t possibly be so stupid that you’d make me waste my time.”
“I’m not,” Daxton assured him. “How long until they get here?”
“Half an hour. They’re traveling separately to a meeting spot and then they’ll travel to you together. Look for a white van.”
“Have the van stop before they see me. Right before the last turn, have them get out and walk. We don’t want to give her too much of a heads-up. How many guys? Four or five?”
“Five.”
“Fantastic. Thank you!” Daxton didn’t know Allison’s capabilities, but surely she couldn’t take out five guys at once. If they all broke in at the same time, he was confident that at least one of them would survive.
Half an hour. He could keep her inside the house for that long, right?
The pots of water were at a full boil.
Allison’s biggest advantage was that, as far as she knew, Daxton didn’t want to kill her. Otherwise the dead man on her living room floor could’ve just shot her in the back. It was entirely possible that the plan had changed now that she’d killed one of them, but the man sneaking up on her with a wet cloth implied that they wanted to kidnap her, not murder her.
Thank God her cell phone had a passcode. They wouldn’t be able to see or respond to Cody’s texts. He still had half a day of work left. She could certainly use some help right about now, but she didn’t want anybody to get hurt on her behalf, especially Cody.
Every minute or so she’d peek out the window at Daxton. He hadn’t left her yard but he was walking up and down the side, never looking away from her house. She wished she could look at him through a different window—if she could see a moment where he was distracted, she could make a sudden run for it. Unfortunately, he’d have to remain distracted while she left her office and hurried to the back door, and that was far too risky.
For the first time in her life, she wished she owned a rifle. It would be wonderful to be able to squeeze off a few shots; scare him away if nothing else.
She still felt awful about what she’d done to his unborn child. But once he had somebody break
into her home to kidnap her, he became the bad guy, and she’d worry about her conscience after she’d escaped. For now, he was the enemy, and she was determined to survive.
Allison walked back into the living room. She couldn’t believe how large the pool of blood had become. She was tempted to throw a blanket over him, but if Daxton returned with more friends, she wanted them to see what she was capable of.
Perhaps she could smear his blood on her face, like war paint.
Nah.
She swished the butcher knife through the air in front of her, imagining that it sliced deep into Daxton’s belly. She imagined his look of anguish as he desperately tried to keep his intestines from spilling out.
“They’re here,” said Winlaw.
Daxton was ecstatic. It hadn’t even been the full half hour. “Can you have them call me?”
“Sure.”
Allison didn’t like that Daxton was smiling. He gestured wildly as he spoke on the phone, but he still refused to look away from the house for even a moment. He seemed almost deliriously happy, and that couldn’t be good for her.
She scooped up Spiral and shut him in her bedroom to keep him safe, just in case.
“Hey,” said a low voice over the phone that Daxton didn’t immediately recognize.
“All five of you are here, right?” Daxton asked.
“Yep.”
“Perfect, perfect. You’ll need to move fast. She’s keeping an eye on her yard, so you’ll basically just rush the house, break the front window, and all five of you go after her at once. Don’t do it like some martial arts flick where you go at her one at a time. Five at once. Move fast. Got it?”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be watching.”
“Not going in?”
Hell no. “I’ll be waiting outside in case she escapes.”
“You think she can escape all five of us?”
“Maybe. Winlaw told you not to hurt her, right?”
“No. He said not to kill her. He didn’t say we couldn’t hurt her.”
“If she gets banged up that’s okay, but don’t do anything that might cause traumatic brain injury or anything like that. Like, don’t bash her head against a counter.”
“No bashing her head against a counter. Got it.”
“Be careful,” said Daxton. “She’s dangerous.”
“I think we can handle it.”
“Don’t get overconfident.”
“Is there something you’re not telling us?”
It didn’t sound like Winlaw had told them they were going after a woman with supernatural abilities. Daxton agreed with that approach; he didn’t want them thinking the job was all a big joke, and he also didn’t want them to know that at least one of them was probably going to be losing a lot of blood in the next couple of minutes.
“Just knock her out as fast as you can. That’s all I’m saying.”
“All right. We’re on our way.”
Daxton hung up. He wanted to point at Allison’s house and cackle with laughter. It’s over now, bitch!
Of course, he didn’t know that for sure—she might be able to blink and make all of their heads explode into red mist—but right now he was feeling almost giddy. And simultaneously ready to puke.
The five men came into view. Daxton recognized three of them. Except for his dumbass future son-in-law, Winlaw didn’t work with incompetent people, so there was every reason to believe these guys could get the job done. It would’ve been cool if they were all in matching black suits, but they’d all clearly rushed to the scene wearing whatever they had on when they got the call. It didn’t matter. It was a sufficiently intimidating quintet.
“There!” Daxton said, speaking in a loud whisper, gesturing to Allison’s home even though it was the only house within sight. “Go! Get her!”
The guy in front, who Daxton didn’t know, looked unsure. Without Winlaw’s orders, no way would they blindly rush into the house like this. But they did have Winlaw’s orders, and every instant of hesitation worked in Allison’s favor.
“Go!” he repeated.
The five men rushed toward Allison’s home.
13
As the five men raced toward her house, Allison hurried into the kitchen. She started to take a deep breath to center herself for the fight ahead, then remembered that she didn’t want to be calm and centered. She needed raw panic.
She waited.
Her front window shattered.
She picked up the first pot of water.
“Should we split up?” she heard a man ask.
“We were specifically told not to,” another answered.
“She’s there,” said a third. “Behind that closed door.”
Allison was not willing to risk her own life to keep them from killing Spiral, but since the plan was for them to find her anyway, it made sense to save her cat and keep them out of the bedroom. She pretended to accidentally bump against the counter.
Seconds later, a man came through the doorway to the kitchen. He was young and in good shape, wearing a shirt that had obviously been selected for how well it showed off his physique. In a one-on-one fistfight, he’d knock her to the floor with a single punch.
But this was not a fistfight.
She flung the entire pot of boiling water, getting him right in the face.
His shriek was so loud and intense that the other men behind him stopped.
Allison stepped forward, bashing the hot metal against his face. It hissed as it made contact with his flesh. She wrenched it away, taking a large piece of his cheek with it, then struck him again.
He stumbled backwards, clawing at his eyes, and crashed into the men behind him.
Allison grabbed another pot of water.
She threw the water at the group of men. Nobody was unfortunate enough to get hit with the entire pot full this time—it got the closest man more than the others, but the two next to him were also splashed. They all cried out in pain.
Daxton was an idiot. Apparently he’d been so focused on her powers that he didn’t consider how threatening she could be in her own kitchen.
She hurled the pot, bashing the closest man in the nose. Blood gushed from his nostrils, mixing with the scalding water, as the pot dropped to the floor.
She grabbed the two remaining pots, one in each hand, and threw them.
The first one was a bad throw that bounced off the doorway. She shouldn’t have tried both at once. The second bounced off the man with the broken nose’s scalp, spilling its contents all down his face. As he screamed, some uncontrollable instinct made him catch the pot before it fell. It sizzled against his hands and didn’t come loose immediately when he tried to drop it.
No time to relax. Allison went for the knives.
It sounded like things were going badly in there.
Shit.
Five men should’ve been enough!
Daxton tried to relax. The shrieks of agony didn’t mean that all five of the men were going to die. He just needed one of them to do his job. Just one. It would be fine. Perfectly fine.
The closest intruder hadn’t fallen yet, and Allison didn’t want to squander a knife on somebody who was in such terrible shape. Their tactic of all five of them attacking at once would’ve been more effective if she’d been in the living room or another open space. In the kitchen, the doorway kept them from overwhelming her.
Finally, the closest man, whose burns were so bad that they bled, toppled forward and Allison threw the butcher knife at where his head used to be. It struck the guy right behind him, but hit him handle-first. She threw another knife before the first hit the floor. This one also fell to the floor, though not before the tip hit him in the eye.
Allison kept throwing knives.
The third knife got the man with a bloody eye in the shoulder.
The fourth knife also hit him, but he wouldn’t fall.
Unless she wanted to start throwing forks and spoons, she’d have to conserve her utensils. S
he ran at him and plunged a knife into his throat.
As he fell to the side, she slammed the same knife into the man behind him, stabbing it into his chest several times, hoping she was getting him where the hot water had landed.
The other two men moved out of sight.
Allison stabbed the man a few more times, because though she felt she was doing an admirable job of hanging on to her sanity, she didn’t want him to cause future problems simply because she hadn’t stabbed him enough times.
The man fell to the floor.
She returned to the counter and traded out the bloody knife for a new one.
None of the three men lying on her kitchen floor appeared to be dead yet, but none of them would last much longer. Soon she’d be in a house with four corpses, tying her record.
Two intruders left. Allison was disappointed that she didn’t hear them fleeing out the broken window. She could hear at least one of them breathing—a wonderfully panicked series of breaths—and knew he was still right outside the kitchen door.
He stepped into view, holding a gun.
She ducked beneath the counter as he squeezed off a shot.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
That could’ve been Allison shooting, Daxton supposed, but she’d had plenty of time to retrieve a firearm and he would’ve heard shots as soon as the men broke into her house. It was much more likely that this was one of Winlaw’s men deciding that things were going so terribly that he had to resort to gunfire.
After all of this shit, it couldn’t end with Allison dead. Even if he could blame these five idiots, it was still another job that ended in complete disaster. He’d have to run, with or without Maggie.
Daxton took out his gun and climbed through the broken window.
