I can do this. I can get away. I can?—
Fingers weave into my hair, yanking at my scalp and pulling me to my feet.
“You’ll pay for that one, girl. I can’t wait to take my feckin’ time with you. Cut up all this pretty skin.” He leans closer, face twisted in vile anger. “I brought it, you know. The blade you used to end him. That’ll be the one I fuck you with. You’ll be beggin’ for death when I’m through with you, bitch. But I won’t give it until you’re a bloody, sobbing mess.”
“Your brother begged too,” I grit as I jerk my knee up.
As it makes contact with his groin, he grunts and throws me hard into the side of the van, the move knocking the air from my lungs. I make to run, but he slaps the back of his hand across my face. Stars speckle my vision, copper-laced saliva flooding my mouth.
I spit at him and suck in a harsh breath. “Fuck you, Raider scum.”
With a punch to the stomach, he throws me to the ground. When he advances again, fists clenched, my chest tightens with panic. This is it. This is the end.
Suddenly, he stops and jolts back, his eyes widening. His hands quickly move to his throat, clawing at his skin, his face reddening like he can’t breathe.
I push up, and as he falls to his knees, another figure comes into view. A tall man in a black hoodie and black jeans, fisted hands holding what looks to be a thin rope across the neck of my attacker. He angles his face up, and when his identity hits me, my lungs seize up.
Lincoln Decker.
The sleeves of his sweatshirt are rolled up, his corded forearms flexing as he pulls the rope tighter around the neck of the man at his feet, teeth gritted, chest heaving.
Pulse pounding hard in my ears, I pick my knife up and grip it tight. It’s heavier than it was when it was strapped to my thigh, clean and safely tucked away. Now it’s like a weight in my hand, laden with the understanding of what I could do with it, the life I could take, like the blood already staining it has somehow made it harder to hold.
Keegan grunts, chokes, arms swinging and slapping at Decker’s face as he tries to free himself.
It’s a strange thing, watching someone die. When it’s like this—chaotic and violent—it doesn’t matter how big and bad you are, how many lives you’ve taken, how much pain you’ve caused. It’s always the same. Frantic, messy, the instinctual need to fight and flail, to claw and scratch your way out.
It was like that for his brother. The shock, the sudden panic as he looked down at the blade I’d plunged into his chest. He didn’t actually beg. He wasn’t capable of stringing words together. But his face said it all. Panic. Dread. Fear. One of the most heinous men I’d ever known, reduced to something almost human. Experiencing a basic primal emotion, maybe for the first time in his life.
This is the same. A life being ripped away, a big, scary, strong man full of panic as he fights to live. Decker doesn’t look like he has any intention of stopping, so maybe it’s me who makes the choice tonight.
Do I let this man live, or is another body about to drop at my feet?
“You’re killing him,” I say quietly.
Decker doesn’t hear me. He’s focused on me, but it’s like he doesn’t really see me. His body is tense as he pulls and pulls, forcing that rope to dig deeper into Keegan’s throat, breaking through the thin skin, ripping it, drawing blood.
“Linc,” I say, louder this time. “You have to stop.”
The man at his feet starts to slump. Decker only pulls tighter. Keegan’s eyes close, his hands drop. He stops resisting.
“Linc!” I shout.
Decker blinks. Then, robotically, he releases his hold.
Keegan coughs and sputters as he falls to the pavement and rolls to his back. Breath after raspy, wheezing breath, he pulls oxygen back into his lungs, blood back into his brain.
Once he’s mostly regained his composure, he pushes to his knees.
Decker moves forward a pace, pulling a gun from the back of his jeans. He presses it to Keegan’s face, his expression stony.
“You pull that trigger, boy,” Keegan says, voice a low croak, “and you’re feckin’ dead. You get me? You got no idea who you’re threatenin’.”
Decker uses the gun to push Keegan’s head to the side and examines the ink etched into his neck. The skull and crossbones that marks him as a Raider, as the enemy.
“Got a pretty good idea.” He presses the gun into his cheek.
Keegan freezes, eyes darting to the barrel.
