“You lost some friends of mine a great deal of money. I’m here to collect.”
“I don’t owe you or your friend shit,” I spit. “I’m going to give you three more seconds to fuck off.”
“You seem to think you’re the one in power—”
They always seem to doubt my seriousness. Older guys like him always think they’re smarter and better, but the fact that he’s twice my size only makes me more trigger-happy.
“One.”
“If I were you, I’d shut up and listen before your girl—”
The trick is never to get to ‘two.’
A loudbangechoes through the forest, shaking the trees and making my ears ring from the sound—kind of like screaming. I’ve fired before, and it’s never sounded like this.
“Mickey!” I whip toward the sound of Bella’s shrill cry, and I seered.
Another guy—one Ididn’tfucking see—has his hands around Bella’s neck and a gun aimed at her head. Tears stream down her ghastly pale cheeks, and her bottom lip quivers violently.
“You stupid motherfucker!” he snarls, throwing Bella to the side and aiming straight at me.
I drop to my haunches and lunge. A shot fires, missing me completely. Half a second later, my shoulder collides with his gut. He brings his knee up at the same time, kneeing me in the stomach, but his lack of balance has us both on the ground, grappling for the upper hand. A-fucking-gain.
First, the fucker who followed my Bella, nowhim?
The guy’s bigger than me, so he has me under him before I can do shit. My head swings to the side as pain splits through my jaw from the force of his punch. But he made a big mistake. He brought a fist to a knife fight.
I grab the switchblade from my pocket and bury it into his side just as he lands another punch. The bigger ones are always slower to react.
He rears back, grunting in pain, but he doesn’t stop trying to hit me. Removing my knife, I jam it into his side again.
Crimson warmth pools on my stomach, but I don’t get the chance to stab him a third time before he’s whipped to the side. Standing beneath the fading light of the sun is my very own saving grace, holding a spare wooden plank in her hands.
He reaches back to grab her, but she swings again, this time making us both grunt as a splinter lodges itself into my arm. She screams when he attempts to grab her in his disorientated state. Then I’m on him, ignoring the pain in my arm as I sink my blade into him over and over again.
I lost count at six stabs. I can still picture the gun pressed to Bella’s head—myBella—and the fear in her eyes that she might be the next one to have a bullet in her.
The asshole falls onto me, limp, but I’m not done.
“He’s dead,” Bella cries.
I shove him over and keep stabbing and slicing. Chunks of flesh peel away from this pathetic man’s body. All there is—all I see—is red. Blood. Rage. It isn’t enough.
He put his hands on her. He was going to kill her. He was going to takemyBella away from me.
“Mickey, stop,” Bella sobs, dragging my attention away from the carnage.
Her big brown eyes dart around, from the blood all over me, to the knife, to the two men and the fallen gun. Over and over and over. Each time she does the rotation, the air grows thicker with her terror. She steps back when I step forward.
No. Not this shit again.
She keeps stepping back, though I don’t let her get far. There’s no way I’d let her out of sight after what we did today. She accepted me. Shechoseme. I’m not going to let her forget that.
I can’t lose her. I won’t.
The knife clatters to the ground as I grab her hand and root her to the spot before she can go any further.
“Bella.” I grip her chin and force her to turn away. “Look at me, okay? Not at him. You did such a good job hitting him.”
