Page 130 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

Even with just my eyes showing through my mask, I must do a bad job of controlling my reaction because Overton gives me a cruel smile.

“Your boyfriend, huh? Dr. Hugo Francis Mohr?”

Shock and fury tangle in my gut. I didn’t know Hugo’s middle name. How dare this man drop it so casually? And dear god, has he been researching Hugo? What else has he found?

Overton uses my distraction to pick up a vase on his nightstand.

I should’ve been prepared for him to throw it.

I wasn’t.

The heavy marble hits my collarbone, and I barely swallow my gasp. While I’m absorbing the pain—goddamn, does that thing weigh nine thousand pounds?—Overton tackles me.

Goddamn, does Overton weigh nine thousand pounds? Unlike when Hugo used his careful strength to pin me down, Overton’s bulk flattens every part of me, forcing the air from my lungs. Worse, I landed on my right shoulder, and the skin grafts start to complain—too tight, too thin. I’m not sure I’ll be able to push him off me from this angle.

But I still have my knife. My shoulder burning, I swing my hand up. Like always, the grafted tissue hampers my range of motion, and the blade doesn’t land as deep as I wanted. The fire that took inches off my reach eighteen years ago may finally finish the job tonight.

I make another desperate swipe with my blade, and it catches him in his biceps. He roars in pain, wraps his hands around my throat, and starts to squeeze.

“After I kill you, I’m coming for your boyfriend,” he pants against my mask.

“If you kill me,” I gasp out, “he won’t j-just slit your throat. He’ll make it hurt.”

I know without a doubt that this is true, just like a moment later, I know that, true or not, I should never have said it.

“Oh. He’s like you.” The fingers on either side of my windpipe loosen as his piggy eyes fill with speculation. “Then maybe I’ll call my friends on the force. Let him rot in prison knowing I killed two women he couldn’t protect.”

I grit my teeth, tighten my fingers around the handle, and swing my knife at him again because fuck this man for thinking he could hurt Hugo through me.

My blade slides along his ribs, and he jerks away, crawling up my body and pinning my right upper arm with his knee. Then he leans over me until we’re nose to nose.

“I know what to do with cunts like you,” he hisses, so close that I feel his hot breath through my mask as his thick fingers tighten around my neck again.

“You guys.” I choke, cough. “Always so q-quick with that insult.”

He bears down on my throat with his full weight. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes as I drive my knife into his flank, his side, his arm, the skin on my right shoulder screaming with each twist and jab. His breathing grows ragged, and my glove turns slippery from his blood, but he doesn’t. stop. squeezing.

When the pressure lets up out of nowhere, I collapse, pulling oxygen into my burning lungs. Then Overton delivers a different kind of blow, looking over his shoulder and shouting, “Hey, Farrah, call 911. A crazy woman’s trying to kill me.”

The electronic voice responds with a cheerful, “Okay!” as the outside floodlights fire to life, sending fresh waves of dread spiraling through me. Overton turns back to me with a snarl, lifting his lower body off my hips and placing all his weight on his hands where they dig into the sides of my neck.

Wrong angle for my hyoid, motherfucker. But my burst of smugness crumbles fast. Even a panicked novice with enough strength can crush a larynx, and that’ll kill me just as dead. So I take advantage of his ass-in-the-air position, bucking and twisting until I have enough room to maneuver. With my airway constricting and my strength fading, I summon all the strength I have left and drive my knee into his balls, and I swear my kneecap goes through his scrotum to make contact with his pubic bone.

I’m not my mother’s daughter for nothing.

Overton squeals and slides off me while I roll in the opposite direction, gasping and sucking in air. Once I can mostly breathe again, I throw myself across his body and carve a long slice across his neck. But the handle slips midcut in my slick glove, so it’s not the killing blow I intended. I grip it harder and try again, sawing away to deepen the existing cut until blood starts flowing freely over both of us.

His struggles are finally slowing, but he still manages to grin up at me with shiny red teeth before he flops onto his stomach and attempts to crawl toward the bed.

This is my chance. I could be out the door to safety in under two minutes.

But he’s still breathing, isn’t he? This man killed his wife and hurt Hugo—he laughed about hurting Hugo. He researched him and knows things about Hugo I don’t.

No. I won’t be leaving this room until he does.

It’s not to confirm that the threat to Hugo is over. His lifeblood has already saturated the carpet underneath him. I’m staying because I want to watch as Overton’s heart stops pumping. He had the audacity to make threats against Hugo Mohr, to bruise his skin and leave a scar on his forehead. To call him by his full name.

Watching him die from wounds I made will be a privilege.