by KJ Dahlen
Matt smiled cruelly at her. “You’ve gotten yourself quite a group of friends, but they just aren’t as smart as I am. I’m here to make sure you go to hell before I do. Now, get up carefully.”
Ally Bella sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Fear took a hold of her and she could barely take a breath. He was really here!
He handed her a t shirt and pair of shorts.
She didn’t move.
“Put them on. Now!” he whispered.
Like a robot who could only follow orders, she quickly pulled the clothes over her body. Her mind was frozen in place back to the day when he’d used a knife just like the one he held in his hand now. All she could see was her mother’s face as she screamed at Alybella to run.
Matt pushed her toward the window.
“Is that how you got in?” she asked as her mind finally seemed to wake up and she could think again.
“Shut the fuck up,” was his answer.
It was clear that he wasn’t going to kill her here and she wondered why as he forced her through the window.
Dropping to the ground her mind fired. No way is he going to end me now. Not after all that I’ve done to survive. Not after Max and knowing the life, I could finally have. ‘You have to fight back,’ she remembered Max telling her.
She dropped to the ground and instantly took off.
“Fuck!” Matt exclaimed in a whisper voice as he dropped down to the ground and came after her.
Racing through the trees, she didn’t have time for thought now. She knew the tribe had people out here and she hoped someone had caught sight of them.
“You bitch! I’m going to fucking cut you!” Matt called.
Alybella did feel real fear now, but she ignored it as she moved through the trees. Live. She had to live.
“So you’ve gone and found yourself a woman and sense of humor, eh?” James stated.
“Don’t be expecting a standup routine. I’m not that man.” Damon raised a brow at him.
They both chuckled.
Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door.
Both men froze then took out their guns.
James went over to the door and stood next to it by the wall.
“It’s me!” Lonnie’s voice came from outside.
James leveled his weapon and opened the door.
“Tracker spotted Alybella in the woods!” Lonnie yelled.
James looked over at Damon.
“No!” he stated with a growl and headed to the bedroom.
When he got there, he slammed the door open and flicked on the light.
Empty bed and the blankets were on the floor.
Swinging his gaze over, he saw the window up. “Fuuuuccckk!” he shouted as he turned and went back to the front room.
Lonnie and James stood there talking in low tones.
“Lonnie says she is headed northwest,” James told him.
Damon pushed past him and out the door, his gun in hand. It was still dark out but the moon was high, giving him just enough light to see. He’d only been with James for about ten minutes, but that was too much of a head start, even if it was cut down to five minutes.
James and Lonnie were right behind him.
“We will head around to the other side of the woods!” James shouted to him. “And hope to catch them there.”
Damon barely heard them as he headed around to the window and took his phone out to flash light on the ground outside the window. He spotted the marks of footprints and ran his light along them to see where they went. He took off running. Fear like he’d never known in combat or in his work grew inside him. Like a damn wildfire, eating up brush in its wake.
So this is what fear is like. He remembered it now. It wasn’t anything he’d missed but it was back home now. Fear of losing the one person that made him better. The one thing that made him want a new life. She had to be safe and alive or he would cease to be.
God, please let her be alive. He prayed in his mind. He hadn’t prayed in over twenty years and he felt like maybe it was too late for it now.
His running went on for more than ten minutes as he would stop and flash a light on the ground to be sure he found Alybella’s small foot prints. He halted this time and flashed it around, as his breathing was rapid, becoming ragged. He flashed the phone light over the ground yet again, and saw nothing. “Fuck!” He’d lost the trail. “God dammit!”
He tried to restore his breathing and calm himself. At least, he hadn’t found blood or—he shuddered—her body. Get a hold of yourself Maxwell. He raised his head and brought in the cold calm that he always used before making a kill. Because no matter how this ended. He was going to kill someone.
He heard a noise and listened. A scream but it was from far off. His blood went cold as his body hyped and he raced toward the sound.
Chapter Fourteen
Alybella couldn’t even breathe now and she hadn’t paid attention to where she was running. The moonlight gave her light here and there but she wasn’t even on a path. She was lost and wondered if the trees ever ended.
She stopped suddenly as her side hurt and she realized she was barefoot and her feet were bleeding from the rocks and small limbs she’d been traveling over. She tried to be silent but her breathing wouldn’t quiet. She glanced around as she held her aching side and tried to see or hear if she’d lost Matt or not.
God, it couldn’t end like this. Matt couldn’t win this. Please let him be as lost as I am.
Hands came from behind the tree and held her in place.
Struggling with a loud gasps, she wasn’t strong enough to get away from one of the hands as she pitched her bodyweight forward.
“You little bitch!” Matt growled from behind her. “I’m done with this!”
She screamed and tried to get loose.
Matt was stronger as he now had her up against him.
The knife went to her neck and she stilled.
His breathing was as heavy as hers, but he snarled through his gasps, “See? See—what wins here? The cold metal always—wins.”
Her heart felt like it would pound right out of her chest as she tried to catch her breath. Fear clawed through her but she couldn’t struggle as he held the knife right at her jugular.
“You know I wanted to get you back to my place. I’d planned to kill you by opening up that scar you have.” He snickered. “It would be apropos wouldn’t it? To finally finish my artwork.”
“A-artwork?” Alybella was still panting as she spoke. “You— are not any kind of artist—Matt.”
“How do you know?” He sounded smug now. “You never knew me. Well, you did witness quite a few of my stages though. The mess at the church. The way I altered our house before I snuffed out my dad.” He chuckled in her ear. “Then I must say, what I did to your bedroom recently. Now that was art!”
Alybella knew already that he was insane but he really was out there. She wondered if that was the only reason why she was still alive this minute. The fact that he was so into himself and his kills that he was reveling in this too long could play to her advantage. This gave her an idea. A desperate idea, but it was all she had. “So, that was all art?” she asked in a soft voice as she had finally calmed her breathing a little.
Matt laughed. “Yes, you never knew that?”
“No. So destruction is your art?”
“No, no. Little sis. It is a re-arrangement. To the way I see things.”
She cringed inwardly at the little sis remark, but she carried on, “You don’t see them like we do?”
Matt paused. “I never did. That’s what you cannot seem to understand.”
“Those families that you...killed. Why did you do that?” she asked as she remembered Max’s face when he spoke about Petra and his son.
“Why?” Matt paused. “Well, they weren’t right.”
“Right?”
He nodded, as the knife seemed to lower a bit from the side of her neck. “I never got to have my mother the way she sh
ould have been.”
“I-I don’t understand.” Alybella put a note of curiously in her voice, despite the fact that she didn’t care what he thought, knew or felt.
“Ahh... That’s right you don’t. No one does,”
“So, you killed them because they had...” she paused, as she knew this next thing might set him off, but that’s what she wanted to do. Set him off. “What you never had?” she whispered while remembering the day his mother brought him into that church where their parents had planned to be married and how cruel his mother’s words had been, “I don’t want him anymore. He isn’t worth the trouble.”
Matt’s body went rigid behind her.
She noted the knife was at her shoulder now.
“They all had to die,” he replied in a distant sounding voice. “Those poor boys would be alone in the end after their faithless mothers abandoned them. I was doing them a favor. All women are like that or will be eventually. So I fixed it.”
“Fixed it?’ she repeated, though she no longer cared about his answers as she felt his body relaxing behind her.
“Yeah, permanently.” He chuckled. “They will never have to—”
Alybella made her move. With all her might she pulled her elbow back and hit him right under the ribs. Then her head snapped back and smashed his face. Just like she’d learned in her self defense class back in Buffalo City.
The knife glanced across her collarbone cutting her, but she didn’t even feel it as her adrenaline was off the charts.
Matt screamed like a madman and stumbled back.
Alybella took off like a bolt of lightning had hit her.
She sprinted forward and only got a few feet before she ran into something hard. Like a brick wall. She was stunned for a few seconds as she wondered about this. She hadn’t seen a tree in the path when she was planning this.
Large arms wrapped around her. “Alybella!”
She stopped struggling when she realized it was Max. “Move! He’s right behind me,” she shouted at him.
“Yes, I am,” Matt stated with a growl.
She looked back over her shoulder to see a glint from metal as the moonlight glanced off the barrel of the gun Matt held. “No!” she shouted.
Damon held her and whirled around, just as the gun went off.
Alybella could feel it when the bullet hit Max. His body buckled as the air left his lungs and they both went down to the forest floor.
Max’s weight pinned her.
Maniacal laughter echoed through the forest clearing. “Oh, my fucking god!” Matt cheered. “A two for one special!” His voice came closer. “This must be my lucky fucking day!”
Alybella had tears streaming from her eyes. He shot Max! My Max! Her mind went fifty ways as she panicked. She could now feel blood pooling onto her chest from Damon’s wound. Oh, god...Oh god! She was heaving for air and tried to see if he was alive or just unconscious. She couldn’t move though as his weight pressed down on her.
Damon whispered to her, “Fight him...M-my gun, Alybella, my— gun...” His voice sounded weak and fluttery.
Alybella felt around on the ground with her hands. Where is it? Oh, god! Where...
Matt could be heard moving closer. “Now, to get this last one done,” he said as he bent over them.
Alybella saw his shadow casting over them with the moonlight behind him. She gasped and franticly kept feeling around with both hands, she couldn’t remember which hand Damon had his gun in.
Suddenly, the weight was lifted from her chest just as she finally found the cold metal with her fingers. She grasped the weapon with her whole hand.
Matt tossed Damon off of her. “God damn! He’s a fucking heavy one. Where did you find him, Aly—”
Alybella lifted the gun and pointed it at Matt.
He raised his brows at her. “You ever kill anyone, Sis?”
The gun felt heavy and it shook in her small hands.
“No, you haven’t,” Matt answered his own question as his gun remained at his side, as if he wasn’t afraid of her and her weapon at all. He did reach into his pocket and raised up something small.
“No...” she heavily panted the word out as the pounding of her heart sounded in her ears. Her eyes widened as she spotted the gold button Matt held up to her. “But I can learn.” She cocked the gun as she caught his movement when he started to raise his weapon. She pulled the trigger.
Matt looked stunned as the bullet hit him.
Blood splattered from his shoulder and hit Alybella’s cheek.
Matt staggered back and regained himself a bit then pointed his weapon down at Max. “I will shoot this big mother fucker in the head!” he warned. “Put your gun down, Alybella or he is a dead man.”
The gun shook in her hands as tears rolled from her eyes. This was it. Her and Max wouldn’t get their chance. She slowly lowered the gun.
Suddenly, Matt gasped.
Alybella peered up at him to see a hole appearing in his forehead. Blood seeped from it with just a small, hideous crimson trickle. He then pitched forward and hit the forest floor with a heavy thump.
Heaving, panting, and crying, Alybella stared at his prone body. The gun shook in her hands as she pulled the trigger. The loud sound of the many shots she fired hit her like booming waves. Like the pain she felt. Pain that he had given her over and over for her entire life. Each shot sounding reverberated through her slim body as she kept clicking the gun and filling Matt full of holes. Blood spurted out from his body and still, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t even realize it when the gun was just clicking and clicking with a metallic sound as it emptied.
Someone placed their hand on her arm, lowering the gun.
She peered up to see a large man. She couldn’t make out his features. He just seemed to be all shadow, “W-what...” She couldn’t seem to talk. “Who—are you?”
He let out a sigh. “I was too late.” He turned his head to look at Damon. “Too late.”
Alybella knew this wasn’t James and it wasn’t Lonnie, his voice was low and gravely. She couldn’t even blink as she followed his gaze to where Damon laid on the ground. “I-is he...”
The truth hit her hard, plowing into her like a freight train. All the breath suddenly left her lungs.
Her Max was dead and it had all been for nothing.
Alybella didn’t even blink as her mind blanked out. She caught her breath and suddenly, the trees spun around her as she blacked out.
Conclusion
Alybella came to. She kept her eyes closed. Her mind was blank. What happened? She laid there and tried to remember. She was still sleeping in bed, the one where Max had left her to take a nap. That must be it.
Yeah, that’s right. She’d had nightmares before. And she knew she’d just had another one. It had happened all her life. So it wasn’t anything new.
She let a breath out.
Then it all hit her. A kaleidoscope of images. Matt! He had been chasing her in the woods under the moonlight. She had never dreamt that before.
No, this wasn’t right.
More images came as what happened tripped through her mind like a rapid fire movie, the running, the blood, gunshots, and maniacal laughter.
It all came back.
Her life was over. The one Max had promised. It was gone now,
She realized she was moving like in some vehicle but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered.
“Alybella?”
She gasped. It was his voice. Max! Now, she knew she was insane. Would she ever be able to—
“Alybella, open your eyes, sweet girl.”
There it was again. It was just her mind playing tricks on her. Just like the many times she’d heard her mother’s voice. Only to find out, it was all in her head. Tears rolled from her eyes. He’d said to fight and she had. But she still lost in the end. The fact that Matt was dead didn’t even matter any—
“Pleas wake up, sweet girl,” his voice came again.
Alybella could now feel other th
ings. She was on something warm, something firm. Now she could feel something on her cheek. Again, warm. But wet.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to open my eyes to only see nothing. To only see that I am alone again. I can’t. I won’t.
“Please?” Max spoke again.
Her eyes popped open. She stared up.
He smiled own at her and caressed her face.
He isn’t real, Alybella. You know better. This is just another dream.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
Blinking, she swallowed heavily. Now pain came to her senses. Her chest burned some and her body felt bruised. She kept staring up at Max, but she refused to believe this was real. But her body—
He shifted a little beneath her head. “She’s in shock,” Max spoke as he looked forward and not at her.
Alybella sucked in a breath. She sat up.
“Whoa there, little girl,” Max warned. “You’re still in shock. Take it easy.
Batting her eyes, she stared at him. Reaching out, she touched his cheek with one finger. “Y-you’re real?”
He smiled. “I hurt like a mother fucker, so I am sure I’m real.”
Her eyes widened as she placed both hands on his cheeks now. “You were...” Tears filled her eyes again. “...y-you were dead! This isn’t real.”
He stared into her eyes and leaned forward a bit to kiss her sweetly, tenderly while combing his strong fingers through her hair. Then he pulled his mouth from hers “Did that feel real?”
“Oh, my god!” she exclaimed as she stared at him and then felt around on his chest frantically for the wound she knew was there.
When she found his bandage, he winced. “Careful there. Careful.”
“It was a through and through,” James’ voice came from the front.
She looked around to see James in the front seat of a vehicle...He was driving.
“Matt shot him in the back,” James explained. “It seems that it hit nothing vital. So we patched him up and we’re taking you both to get you checked over.”
Now her gaze swung over to a man who sat in the passenger seat. She hadn’t seen him before with James and Max.
