by L. T. Vargus
He raises the Glock, pinches one eye closed to line up the sight with her pretty face, and squeezes the trigger.
Chapter 109
For a moment she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The car slowed, swerved around where she stood next to the double yellow line, and kept going.
She watched the tail lights, like two angry red eyes, disappear around a curve in the road and felt the sting of tears. After the brightness of the lights, the road seemed especially dark now. Her head throbbed, and she felt faint. She bent over her knees to catch her breath, willing herself not to pass out.
She couldn’t give up. She had to think. Through the pain and the wooziness and the fear.
She considered heading into the woods for cover, but she remembered what Sierra had told her, that she thought she’d wandered beneath those dark trees for an hour or more. No, Violet would stay on the road.
There was an explosive crack from behind her and the sense of something whizzing past her shoulder at high speed. She turned back and saw the silhouette of a man standing in the gravel drive leading up to the storage facility. His form was perfectly outlined by the night sky above.
It was instinct that told her to throw herself to the ground then, just as another explosion and burst of light came from where he stood. He was shooting at her. With her own gun. And she was a sitting duck standing there in the middle of the road.
Darger crawled, sand and pebbles clinging to the sticky blood on her knees. She rolled into the drainage ditch and then scrambled along a few yards, thinking she might be able to stay concealed there. The pitch blackness of the woods was not inviting at all. But another gunshot changed her mind. Pushing to her feet, she staggered out of the ditch, and down into the woods.
It was steeper than she’d realized, and she found herself stumbling down the embankment more than running. Branches whipped at her face and caught in her hair. Roots and fallen limbs tripped her continuously, but she got back up and continued on. She had no other choice.
Finally the land leveled out. She could hear the burble of water now. The river. The undergrowth was a little less dense here. That and the flatter ground made progress easier. She could go a little faster and not worry about falling wrong and snapping an ankle.
She paused once for half a second, behind a huge oak tree, and heard him crashing along behind her.
To the left, the land rose steeply away from the river. She didn’t think she had the strength now to climb back out of it. And to her right, the churning of the water. How deep, how wide, how cold, she didn’t know. Too cold for an October night like this, she thought, noticing how her toes were numb from trudging through the marshy area along the river.
She only had one option, she realized. If she stayed on the defensive, stayed in her role as the prey, she would lose. She had to reverse their roles. Become the hunter instead of the hunted. And she had to do it soon.
She had to kill him now or die trying.
Chapter 110
She runs away like a feral cat. Wild. Panicked. Reckless. Tearing through the woods.
He catches glimpses of her. A moving shape in the dark. A silhouette that keeps twisting just out of view.
A smile pulls his lips taut. Makes the wound there sting like he’s dumping bleach on it.
Tree branches bob everywhere she goes. Their movement marking her path as clearly as possible.
It’s a matter of time. He knows. It’s a matter of when not if.
She has no way out. And he loves it.
The tension in his neck and back seem to ease.
He chases for what feels like a long time. But it’s no concern. He feels good. Feels like he could run forever.
The rushing water of the river grows louder as they advance along this path. Rapids or something kicking up. The volume knob inching ever higher.
And then the woods clear out. Going sparse almost at once. Grass fields with a few trees now lining the sides of the river.
There are no more wagging tree branches to tell him which way to go. His indicators are gone. But he’s not worried. Not yet. He knows she wasn’t very far ahead of him.
He slows. Stops. Listens.
Nothing.
What the hell?
He adjusts his grip on the gun. His palm and the handle greased with sweat.
She’s close. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he does. He can feel it like a wave in the air. Like a bloodhound picking out the scent.
He steps forward. Head swiveling. Eyes rolling around in their sockets. He scans for any signs of movement. The gun extended before him.
He holds his breath to quiet it. But his blood still pounds in his temples. Great surges of fluid roaring through his head and pulsing in his ears.
She crashes out of the tall grass. Cutting him down at the knees.
Chapter 111
In her mind, she was a predator. The kind that skulks in tall grass and waits for the perfect moment to strike at her prey with a deadly quickness. A lioness. A leopard.
She leapt from her place in the thicket, colliding with his legs and knocking him off balance. Not quickly or stealthily enough, apparently, as he turned at the last beat, and there was a blinding flash and a deafening clap that sounded as if it came from inside her own head. A burning, searing pain erupted in her left arm. He’d shot her. The motherfucker had shot her.
A new burst of adrenaline was released with this knowledge. The gun reflected the moonlight as it spun in the air, and gave off a wet slap as it hit the water’s edge. He scrambled for it, and she was on him. Clinging, biting, clawing at his flesh.
He reached over his shoulder, grabbing a handful of her hair and yanking. She heard the roots rip free from her scalp more than she felt it. Her whole body was on fire with an animal rage by then. She brought up her knee and drove it into the small of his back, and he grunted.
She got her arms, still taped together at the wrists, around his neck. She bent her elbow, trying to find purchase around his throat. He got his knees underneath him and rose up on all fours, throwing her off to the side.
She changed tactics, hands creeping and crawling up the side of his face, careful to steer clear of his teeth. She found what she was looking for. The soft fold of skin around the eye. She jabbed with her thumbs and fingers, feeling the way the muscles there clenched in an effort to protect. He yelped, sounding like a coyote yipping in the night. She was making sounds too, snarling and hissing with fury.
He rolled to the side then, trapping her underneath him. He lifted her easily where she’d wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Then he dropped backward, landing his full weight on her, slamming her into the ground and driving the oxygen from her lungs.
He was too big. Too strong.
Her grip loosened, and he wriggled from her embrace.
She coughed and sputtered in the dirt at the edge of the water, arms and legs twitching in a fruitless attempt to right herself and crawl away. He caught her by the back of the neck and dragged her closer to the water before rolling her over onto her stomach. The river rushed up to meet her with icy fingers that clung to her chest and shoulders and neck. She arched her back, trying to keep her head free.
Crushing pain thrust into her back as he drove his knee into her ribs, kneeling on her spine. Still she struggled to keep her face out of the water.
A hand clamped down on the back of her neck, pushing closer. She turned her head, felt the river kiss her cheek, and then her head was forced under the black depths.
Chapter 112
Again he presses her down. Feels the power of his hands and weight forcing her under the flowing rapids. Cold water swirling around his wrists and forearms. Numbing him like ice up to the elbows.
She thrashes. Her whole body bucking against his. The muscles in her core lurch and shudder with incredible power. Incredible fury.
The small of her back thrusts into his abdomen. The bony spine encased in frantic, trembling flesh.
Her movements
jolt his arms. Tug his shoulders around in their sockets. Meat and ligament grinding against bone. But his grip holds tight like steel.
He feels it in her. The shift. She is an animal now. A feral creature. All the way. They both are.
Defiance.
That’s what it is. A kind of rage the others could never muster. Some real fight in her.
He wants to kill her right here and now. Hands scrabbling for her throat. Itching to find her windpipe and close it for her. But she starts to worm away from him. He reverts to gripping the places between her neck and shoulders. Securing her. Holding her under.
Good.
Let the water do the work for him. That was better anyway.
The river gurgles around them. Burbling its wet sound to drown out all but her crashing about. Bubbles explode all about her. And a few strands of her hair snake toward the surface. Undulating like seaweed.
And now that heat in his face is at odds with the chill climbing up his arms to such a degree that he feels nauseous from it. A stirring in his middle. A lightness in his head.
Black flutters at the edges of his field of vision. His eyelids flickering. The whole world wavering just a little.
The word “SWOON” screams in his head in all caps.
And in his addled mind, she is laughing at him. Smiling at his weakness. Defying him still.
But no. Fuck that.
He grits his teeth. Clamps down harder on her neck. And he drives her face into the muck at the bottom of the river. Bashing and smearing her. One hand sliding to the back of her head for better leverage. Fingers lacing into her hair. Nails digging into her scalp.
He feels the soggy ground give way to his force. The mud sucking her up. The earth itself trying to swallow her face.
He lets up and jams her down over and over in fast motion. Little suction sounds barely discernible. Spit spraying between his clenched teeth.
And the void is everywhere now. Inside of him and out. The black nothing that stretches out forever. The emptiness. The only thing that’s real.
But his hands are making something now. Aren’t they?
Total destruction. The only connection he can make with any other. The only touch he knows.
She moves still, but it’s all panic. No real effort at escape left in her. Just flailing without meaning. The feral strength has fled her being. And he feels how powerless they both know she is. Feels it like a vibration channeled into his skin. Into the fevered blood beating through his face.
She lets up. All of her going slack little by little. That core not quite so ferocious in its struggling. Spasming now more than thrashing. Those balls of muscle along the sides of her neck growing softer and softer and softer. Two wads of pizza dough attached to her collarbone. She is giving up.
Good. Dumb bitch.
Look at what all that fighting got her. A mouth full of sludge and slime and scummy river water.
She didn’t know how this worked. But he showed her. He showed her good.
This. This is the way the world works. And that’s all there is to it. She is his now. Like the others.
This one won’t leak out everywhere. Not yet, at least.
The water will snuff her out. Fill her throat and belly and lungs until it’s over. Until her body is the vacant shell he needs it to be. The doll he needs it to be.
It won’t be long. He knows that.
The splashing noises have cut out now that her limbs have gone limp and lifeless. The surge of the water and the heave of his breath are the only sounds.
He savors the quiet for a moment. The peaceful sound of the river’s movements. The little eddies whirling around the two of them. Drawing lines on the surface of the water that twist and come apart as quickly as they form.
And then he jams her face down harder. Smears it back and forth in the muck. Feels all the cords and fiber in his arms quiver with raw power. All of his upper body pulling as taut as the strings on a cello.
A prickle writhes over his body. Every follicle of hair standing on end so he can feel everything. His whole body tingling with almost sexual ecstasy.
This is power. A physical sensation in every cell of his body.
He arches his back to rise higher over her. His shadow slicing right through her. The darkest space where the moonlight doesn’t reflect from the water partially blocking her out.
His lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl from the effort. Jaw muscles twitching. Face going darker and darker red as the heat somehow keeps flushing into his skull.
He feels so huge looking down on her like this. All masculine. All muscle. Her body the tiny blur faintly visible in the swirling murk.
Yes, this is power. Power and submission. The opposites that complete each other like yin and yang. That spiral of black and white.
The water seems to change around them. Coiling about his legs. Circling the two of them.
And it almost looks like she is disappearing. Like the sheer force of his touch is erasing her. Flushing her away into some unknowable vortex.
He lets her up. Preparing to drive her down one final time when he hears something strange bubble up from the water.
Chapter 113
She’d meant to take a good breath of air before she went under. Tried to. But the way he was kneeling on her back made it impossible to inhale very far.
She managed a gulp before she was thrust under, and half of that was water. She choked on it, big wracking coughs that came out as air bubbles under the water. Blubbing and gurgling and churning around her face. Her precious oxygen floating up and away.
She thrashed, flailing her legs. Her arms were pinned underneath her, deep in the muck at the bottom of the river. It hurt to squirm under him like that. Her ribs ached and cried out under the sharp points of his knees, but her lungs cried out louder. Craving air. Demanding it.
But still he held her down, hands gripping her neck and shoulders, driving her deeper into the abyss.
It was dark under the water. Her eyes were squeezed shut against the coldness, but she could still tell that it was pitch black under the surface. And she could also tell that the world was beginning to blur and lose focus. Maybe it wasn’t visual, but she felt it that way. A dimming of all her senses.
Her chest burned as if someone had lit a fire inside her ribcage. An immense pressure was building, as if she were a bomb about to be set off. But she knew it was the opposite. When the timer reached zero, she would not explode. She would implode, water sucking into her and invading her innermost places.
She was losing.
She was dying.
From somewhere deep, an animal terror took hold, gave one final effort to wriggle free, but it was no use. He was stronger than she was, and he wasn’t letting go.
The muck had enveloped her arms completely now. That was OK. It felt a little warmer than the water somehow. Her knuckles scraped against the sharp edges of a rock. The rock moved. Could she use the rock? Her fingers flexed, she’d lost it in the mud. She stretched them out further, inching them forward. There. She had it. And it wasn’t a rock.
It was better than a rock.
She’d stopped fighting him now, but still he held her down. If anything, his force had increased. She grappled with the pistol. Her wrists were still bound, though the water had loosened the adhesive on the tape some. Her fingers though… they were numb and slow from the icy water. And she was going to pass out soon, she could feel it. As it was she was having trouble thinking clearly. Her thoughts came in slow, broken snippets.
She held the gun backward, with the business end pointing at her own face. She hooked a thumb through the trigger guard. She tried her best to aim over her shoulder, but she had few options. She might blow her own head off, but she thought she’d get him too, maybe. It was better than nothing.
With her last shred of strength and consciousness, she squeezed her thumb. An enormous burst of hot air and water blasted her head. A deafening whoompf baffled her already ringing ears. Three ti
mes she pulled the trigger, in rapid succession.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
His grip slackened, and like a jack-in-the-box she sprang back, knocking him off of her. Almost before her head had cleared the surface, she was hacking and barking and gulping for air. She thought the force of the coughing might do her in then, she might just tear her esophagus and choke on the blood, and she’d end up drowning anyway.
She crawled up onto the shore. Every muscle in her body trembling. Cold and dead. She couldn’t even sit up. She just lay on the shore, shaking and freezing and bleeding.
In between the bouts of racking and heaving and nearly vomiting a few times, she checked to make sure he wasn’t moving. He was sprawled a yard or so away, half in the water. She knew she should check to see if he had a pulse, but she couldn’t bring herself to get that close. Didn’t want to touch him. Besides, it was the top half that was in the water, and his face was under it.
She watched him for a long time before the cold and darkness took her. The back of his head bobbed to the surface every so often from the current.
Chapter 114
Blinding light surrounded Loshak. White and harsh. Too bright to look into. He fought to peel his eyelids apart, but they wouldn’t obey, merely stinging and flooding with tears at his efforts.
Where the hell was he? Was this real? Was she still here with him?
He tried to move. To send out mental feelers for hands and arms and legs that may or may not exist or function. The results proved inconclusive. He thought he felt his wrist flop, but he wasn’t certain.
And then it occurred to him that he was burning up, the heat coming upon him all at once, though he suspected it was always there and he was just now becoming aware of it. He had a vague sense of being damp, but whatever sweat his body might be producing was no help against this fever.
He tried to steady his thoughts and remember where he had been, what had been going on. He was working a case. A serial murder case. In Ohio. He could see his motel room in his mind, mostly his view of the ceiling from the bed. But that was all he could muster. The rest of the pieces wouldn’t come into focus and partake in his puzzling.
