“Ahhhhh!” I screeched as the vox organ introduced Cyndi’s iconic anthem.
I carved my way through the shipping yard like a woman possessed. Or maybe, just released.
One after another they fell as I spun, cut, stabbed, and lusted.
By the time I reached the far end, I was soaked. Hands sticky, Def Leppard crop top torn, hair clinging to my face in sweaty clumps with eyeliner smudgingdeep circles beneath my eyes…
A goddamn omen.
Muffled whines pulled my attention off to the side. I made eye contact with a boy who could have been no older than twenty-five before he dropped his gun and bolted like a sewer rat.
“You better run. Run, run, run, run…”
He did.
Smart boy.
Too bad smart didn’t mean shit anymore.
I launched after him, boots skidding on concrete sticky with blood and brain matter. The bass in my earphones pounded, blending with the thunder of his boots slapping panicked rhythms against the cracked concrete. He zigged between stacks of containers like a scared rabbit.
I zagged like the wolf I was.
“C’mon,” I panted, laughing, the sound high and a little unhinged. “You were man enough to hold the gun, be man enough to—”
He shot blindly over his shoulder.
The bullet grazed my ribs, a hot kiss that tore fabric and skin. The sting sizzled through me, lighting up my veins like I'd mainlined lightning. I hissed, more offended than hurt.
“—meet my fucking knife,” I finished, breathless with glee.
He tried to duck behind a pallet of shrink-wrapped boxes, but hiding was futile. Fear rolled off of him in acrid waves, and the line of piss that dripped out of his pants still wetted the concrete.
I tackled him from behind and we went down hard. His scream choked off when I bounced his face off the concrete once, twice, three times for good measure.
“Please, please, please—”
“You had a gun pointed at a bunch of naked, trafficked women,” I reminded him, pinning his wrist with my knee until the small bones in his hand cracked. “We’re past ‘please.’”
“I didn’t know—”
“Bullshit.” My palm slapped over his mouth, smearing someoneelse’s blood across his lips. “But hey, silver lining? You get to be part of something bigger than yourself.”
His eyes went wet and wide. “Wh–what?”
“Motivation,” I purred, and slammed his head down again. “For me.”
I didn’t even bother with the knife. Fingers hooked under his jaw, I twisted. There was a pop, a wet crunch, and then dead weight.
The shipping yard stretched around me. It was silent other than my adrenaline fueled, heavy exhales.
“Dany.”
The icy voice came from the shadows behind me and my body heated to an impossible temperature.
Of course he was here.
I turned slowly, the world narrowing to the shape peeling itself out of the dark between two stacked containers. Frost breathed along the metal as he passed, curling in delicate patterns that had no business being beautiful in this slaughterhouse.
