62
KNOX
Searing pain stabbed through my skull as my eyes opened to blurred chaos.
Voices. A man’s voice. Harper’s voice, weak and pleading.
I groaned, feeling damp grass pressed against my cheek as my vision slowly sharpened. My thoughts were scattered. Fragmented. Shards of glass I couldn’t piece together fast enough.
Where am I? What happened?
I rolled onto my side. The world lurched violently, spinning like I’d had twelve shots of whiskey. My equilibrium was completely shot.
Pressing up onto all fours, I immediately collapsed back down.
Push through it.
Because when I glanced toward the sound of those voices, my heart stopped dead in my chest as everything came rushing back with brutal clarity.
Silas had his hands wrapped around Harper’s throat. Her face was turning purple. Her arms had gone limp at her sides.
She wasn’t fighting anymore.
Adrenaline. It’s the only thing I can credit for what happened next.
Because suddenly, that bone-deep dizziness decreased by eighty percent. Rage roared through my body like a wildfire, and I launched myself first to my knees, then to my feet.
I wobbled. Almost went down. But I tackled Silas from behind.
The impact tore his hands from her throat and sent both of us crashing onto the lawn. I rolled, came up swinging, and slammed my fist into his temple.
His return punch caught me square in the jaw, snapping my head to the side. Stars exploded across my vision. He used my momentary disorientation to tackle me, driving me onto my back and straddling my chest.
His fist connected with my cheekbone. My nose. My eye socket.
Each blow made the world spin faster. Made the darkness creep closer.
The smoke inhalation. The fumes. The blow to the head. My body was operating on nothing but spite and love. Every punch Silas landed drove me closer to the edge of unconsciousness.
And if I lost this fight, he would finish Harper off.
No. I would not let her die.
One last surge of adrenaline gave me one final push. I bucked my hips hard, throwing him off-balance. Used the momentum to roll us over, reversing our positions. Now I was on top. I slammed my fist into his temple. The sound of bone meeting bone cracked through the night, and Silas’s eyes rolled back.
His body went limp.
I could have stopped there. But Silas wasn’t the type of man who would ever stop. He got off on power over people who couldn’t fight back. He was the abusive, controlling, obsessive type who would keep coming and coming and coming untilHarper was dead. I could feel it in my bones. In my blood. In every cell of my body.
If I let him live, he would find her again.
He would finish what he started.
My hands found his throat. And squeezed.
His pulse fluttered beneath my palms. Weak. Getting weaker.
I squeezed harder.
