best friend.
“You…you killed my dad?!?"
“You were very much the target, love. Then, when I tried to kill you at Reese’s house, he just had to know you had an EPI pen.”
This wasn’t making any sense. She’d tried to kill me not once, but twice, in the same day. If my best friend was capable of this, I really hated to know what the guy in the front of the truck was willing to do.
She rapped the cab of the truck before she began to approach me again. “My Lord, I think we can go home now.”
Home? She’d mentioned home before. She’d been talking to this maniac since we first got here. She had planned this all along.
Wherever ‘home’ was for her, it was a pretty good bet I wasn’t going to like it. The truck accelerated again, the force pushing me against the truck bed wall once more. Jamie lost her balance momentarily from the sudden jolt. The only option was to somehow get out of the vehicle before she was back on top of me. I pulled myself over the side of the bed with the last of my energy. I prayed Jamie wouldn’t react quickly enough.
I felt her claw at my ankles once, but this time surprise was on my side. The truck continued to barrel down the road. My face connected with the mud. My nose cracked. Hearing her shriek of outrage, Ankou screeched to a halt once more. I looked up soon enough to see Jamie hurtling herself out of the bed of the truck, flying towards me. Ankou spun the truck around, coming to a stop to face me. He looked out of the windshield with hungry eyes, waiting on Jamie to finish her job.
So dead. I was so dead.
In my brief moment before death, there was no flash before my eyes. All that was there was Jamie’s triumphant smile. No one would ever believe I was flayed alive by a mossy-toothed, sophomore cheerleader. That was a tabloid cover if I’d ever heard of one: “Fairborn High School Cheerleader Turns Into Swamp Thing.” Cue the movie deals.
Appearing out of nowhere, Jesse and Liam came between Jamie and I. Jamie hurtled into Liam, limbs thrashing in all directions. Jesse leapt on top of the writhing mess, but there was no way to tell who was winning. Everyone was yelling. I curled up in a ball, just waiting on Jamie to come finish me off. God, I was an easy target. I’d better be Rambo woman or something in the next life.
Tess was close behind the two men who were keeping Jamie at bay. She scooped me up in her arms and turned to sprint the opposite direction. Desmond and Issac came charging forward, each gripping daggers in their hands.
Daggers not unlike the ones the chained men had wielded in my dream on Christmas.
Desmond yelled at Tess. He threw his dagger at an unseen target from this vantage point. Whoever it was meant for, I hoped it hit its mark. “Get her out of here, Tess!”
As Tess turned back toward the house, I was facing the brawl.
Jamie had Liam pinned to the ground. He was bleeding from his head. Jesse was running toward the front of the truck to head off Andy, Ankou, or whoever the heck was in there. What he thought the old man was capable of, I wasn’t sure. Anything was possible, though.
Tess held me tighter against her body to stop me from whipping around like a rag doll. “It’s all right Ash, we’ve got you. It’s all right.”
All right? She had to be kidding. How was any of this all right? There couldn’t possibly be anything any further from the definition of the word. Everything was spinning.
I was dizzy from the loss of blood. Groaning, I retched, throwing up all over the both of us. She didn’t even miss a beat in her stride as I slipped quickly into hysterics. Too busy escaping from the emerging war zone, Tess had no words of consolation. She simply held me closer. She pressed my bleeding head against her chest to stem the blood flow and my screams. I passed out.
* *
“You…you killed my dad?!?"
“You were very much the target, love. Then, when I tried to kill you at Reese’s house, he just had to know you had an EPI pen.”
This wasn’t making any sense. She’d tried to kill me not once, but twice, in the same day. If my best friend was capable of this, I really hated to know what the guy in the front of the truck was willing to do.
She rapped the cab of the truck before she began to approach me again. “My Lord, I think we can go home now.”
Home? She’d mentioned home before. She’d been talking to this maniac since we first got here. She had planned this all along.
Wherever ‘home’ was for her, it was a pretty good bet I wasn’t going to like it. The truck accelerated again, the force pushing me against the truck bed wall once more. Jamie lost her balance momentarily from the sudden jolt. The only option was to somehow get out of the vehicle before she was back on top of me. I pulled myself over the side of the bed with the last of my energy. I prayed Jamie wouldn’t react quickly enough.
I felt her claw at my ankles once, but this time surprise was on my side. The truck continued to barrel down the road. My face connected with the mud. My nose cracked. Hearing her shriek of outrage, Ankou screeched to a halt once more. I looked up soon enough to see Jamie hurtling herself out of the bed of the truck, flying towards me. Ankou spun the truck around, coming to a stop to face me. He looked out of the windshield with hungry eyes, waiting on Jamie to finish her job.
So dead. I was so dead.
In my brief moment before death, there was no flash before my eyes. All that was there was Jamie’s triumphant smile. No one would ever believe I was flayed alive by a mossy-toothed, sophomore cheerleader. That was a tabloid cover if I’d ever heard of one: “Fairborn High School Cheerleader Turns Into Swamp Thing.” Cue the movie deals.
Appearing out of nowhere, Jesse and Liam came between Jamie and I. Jamie hurtled into Liam, limbs thrashing in all directions. Jesse leapt on top of the writhing mess, but there was no way to tell who was winning. Everyone was yelling. I curled up in a ball, just waiting on Jamie to come finish me off. God, I was an easy target. I’d better be Rambo woman or something in the next life.
Tess was close behind the two men who were keeping Jamie at bay. She scooped me up in her arms and turned to sprint the opposite direction. Desmond and Issac came charging forward, each gripping daggers in their hands.
Daggers not unlike the ones the chained men had wielded in my dream on Christmas.
Desmond yelled at Tess. He threw his dagger at an unseen target from this vantage point. Whoever it was meant for, I hoped it hit its mark. “Get her out of here, Tess!”
As Tess turned back toward the house, I was facing the brawl.
Jamie had Liam pinned to the ground. He was bleeding from his head. Jesse was running toward the front of the truck to head off Andy, Ankou, or whoever the heck was in there. What he thought the old man was capable of, I wasn’t sure. Anything was possible, though.
Tess held me tighter against her body to stop me from whipping around like a rag doll. “It’s all right Ash, we’ve got you. It’s all right.”
All right? She had to be kidding. How was any of this all right? There couldn’t possibly be anything any further from the definition of the word. Everything was spinning.
I was dizzy from the loss of blood. Groaning, I retched, throwing up all over the both of us. She didn’t even miss a beat in her stride as I slipped quickly into hysterics. Too busy escaping from the emerging war zone, Tess had no words of consolation. She simply held me closer. She pressed my bleeding head against her chest to stem the blood flow and my screams. I passed out.
* *
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