I don’t care.
I hammer him with a series of punches, then reach for his face with my right hand. My fingers find cartilage — his ear. I tighten my grip and pull.
Midnight’s eyes widen.
Something rips wetly. He screams, pain and horror ripping out of his bloody mouth — and his hand goes to the dripping wet socket in the side of his head that used to house his ear.
I throw the offending thing back at his face. It hits him in the nose.
For one insane second, victory tastes metallic and hot.
“You…” he chokes, his eyes wild with shock as blood pours between his fingers. His expression twists into something feral. “You fucking piece of —”
His words cut short as he launches himself at me like an animal, dripping blood, howling like mad. He hits me with a right, then a left, and then a knee that takes me right in the gut.
All the air in my body evacuates in a torrid rush that staggers me.
Another punch cracks the side of my head. The world narrows again, and my knees give way. The blood loss catches up to me all at once, and my sight goes black, while my shoulder pulses in agony; my arms feel as heavy as if they were made of concrete. I try to keep my feet under me and my body saysno.
Midnight surges up first, faster, and he finds his gun. He raises it, breathing hard, eyes wild with hatred and burning with bloodlust.
“You should’ve stayed obedient,” he says, stepping closer. “You cost me men. You cost me time. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see you dead.”
I push up on one elbow, my body straining with the effort, and I meet his eyes. I won’t beg.
He cocks the hammer of the gun.
A voice cuts through the chaos like a whip. “STOP.”
Molly.
I turn my head and there she is, charging out of The Noble Fir with the shotgun in her hands, her red hair flying, face smeared with soot and blood and fury. She looks like a damn avenging angel in work boots and a flannel shirt.
She plants her feet and aims.
Midnight freezes for half a beat, amused. “Really?”
Molly pumps her shotgun.
“Don’t make me kill you,” she says, voice ice-cold. “I’d love nothing more than to blow your fucking head off, you miserable baby-dick asshole.”
Midnight scoffs and shifts his attention and his gun back toward me. “You don’t have it in you. You miss, you pull the trigger too slow, your boyfriend still dies.”
Molly’s eyes go black. “Son of a bitch,” she snarls, sprinting forward. “You were supposed to surrender.”
She closes the distance fast, too fast for Midnight to adjust. And then she swings the shotgun like a baseball bat.
The stock connects with Midnight’s head with a sickeningthunk.
He grunts, staggering sideways, blood arcing from the impact, and the gun sprawling from his grasp. Molly swings again, catching him across the shoulder and the side of the head, and Midnight stumbles, his knees buckling but not fully giving way.
Molly swings again. He ducks. She stumbles off balance.
Midnight throws a punch that catches her in the gut and doubles her over, then looks to the distance, to the Twisted Devils that are just moments from arriving, and bolts to his bike, leaping on it and gunning the engine, sending gravel flying as he speeds into the distance.
I sag back onto the ground, suddenly boneless.
Molly drops beside me, knees sinking to the gravel, shotgun tossed aside as she presses her hands to my shoulder wound with fierce, shaking care.
