Page 63 of Love You To Pieces

It’s not a question, and judging by the pained pants and curses coming from the small bathroom, Fox doesn’t have it in him to put up much of a fight. I wish I had his gun, a chainsaw, or really anything⁠—

I lurch forward across the carpet, closing my fingers around a sharp piece of wood from when the man splintered the door. Everything in me aches and protests, but I force myself to my feet again.

“This is your fault,” the man is saying as he rounds on Fox and brandishes the knife. “God, you and your stupid brother are always getting into shit that don’t concern you, aren’t ya? This isn’t the seventies, Sheriff Shaw,” he sneers. “Your family ain’t what it once was.”

“Maybe not,” Fox pants, having dragged himself to the far wall under the window and sitting up. “But God, at least neither of us looks or smells like you.” He grins, his eyes dark and wicked with a taunting acceptance. He knows he’s going to die here, and fuck if it’s not hot as hell that he wants to go out swinging.

My hero, really, in more ways than one.

The man doesn’t get a chance to raise the knife before I leap onto his back, one arm going for his throat and slipping from both sweat and blood. I drive the piece of wood downward, aiming for the junction of his neck and shoulder. I don’t miss, exactly, though the sharp end of the wood slides askew once before I do it again.

The second time, amidst his cursing and yelling, I manage to drive it home. The piece of door sinks into his flesh, not all the way, but deep enough to pull a bellow from the man’s chest. He whirls, hands up and reaching for me, and I barely notice the knife clattering to the floor before he backs up to slam me into the wall.

Once.

Then again, until my head spins and I have to fight to stay conscious while clinging to him like a monkey.

“Fuck you!” he snarls. “Fuck you, you fucking⁠—”

“God, can you—” In a moment I’m not proud of, I lift the splintered wood like a chisel and drive it down, over and over, another blow hitting with every subsequent word out of my mouth. “Get—a—better—damn—vocabulary!”

The last word becomes a shriek when he slams me into the wall again, hard enough to stun me, and I slither down it like an unfortunate pile of ooze with the world’s worst headache. With a sick sense of satisfaction, however, I look up through dazed, hazy eyes to see the splintered wood is still embedded in the man’s neck. The wounds are pouring blood, and as I watch, he makes the bold choice to yank it out.

The result is immediate.

Blood sprays in a few arcs before he claps his hand over it, and his eyes shine at me with all the hate in the world. He steps over me until his shoes are on either side of my weak, shaky knees.

“Should’ve started with you first,” he pants. “I thought about it. I should’ve fucking⁠—”

I barely see Fox move. One moment he’s against the window, the next he’s up with the man’s knife in his hand. He grabs him by his hair, yanking him back and away from me. As I watch, his mouth curls into a sharp, bloody grin. “Didn’t you hear her?” he purrs, his chest heaving from exertion as every breath that leaves him is a wheezing effort. “Get a better vocabulary.”

With that, he reaches up and easily, smoothly, drags the blade across the man’s throat, causing the flesh to gape and the muscle underneath to spew blood like a fountain.

Blood sprays my face and clothes. All I can do is watch and throw one hand over my mouth to keep it from going between my lips while I breathe heavily, my head spinning. Fox lets go of the man, kicking him so he falls to the side instead of straight down, before going to his knees in front of me as the last of his strength slides from his body with the motion. The knife clatters to his side, and he leans in to look at me, eyes bright with concern.

“You’re hurt,” he pants, bloody hands coming up to cup my face. “Sadie⁠—”

“Me?!” I yelp with indignant disbelief. “Fox, y-you’re—” With shaking fingers I reach out to mirror his action, smearing blood across his skin as his lip bleeds freely and a cut above his eye drips a rivulet of blood. I can see the way his shirt sticks to his skin where his department-issued body armor didn’t quite cover, and a pang of guilt goes through me. “Fuck, Fox, you’re bleeding. H-he stabbed you and⁠—”

Fox’s dark laugh cuts me off, and his eyes dance with morbid amusement. “Oh, Sadie-Rae,” he sighs. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been stabbed. Doubt it’ll be the last, either.” He runs a thumb over my lower lip, and I shudder. “You came back.” The words are soft. Reverent. Disbelieving in a way that makes guilt stab through me. “I told you to run. You did run,” he points out in disapproval, making me roll my eyes instinctively.

The words I’m sorry perch on the edge of my tongue, so close to existence that I can taste them. So close that my lips are parted just as I hear footsteps thundering up the stairs, seconds before Deacon appears, panting, in the doorway.

“Fuck,” he snarls, looking between the two of us, then at the dead man on the floor. “For God’s sake, Fox. Couldn’t you have tried not to get fucked up?”

The brunet looks up at him, his brown eyes bright with amusement and pain before he chuckles, blood bubbling to his lips. “And make your life easy?” he teases. “Absolutely not.” And with that, he falls against me in a faint, his hands sliding from my face as consciousness leaves him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Pearl’s breath could peel paint from the walls, I’m sure. Every exhale sends another gust of fetid, hot air into my face, and the rational part of me says I could just get up. I don’t have to lie here, on the wooden floor of the small bedroom only a few inches away from my dog.

Instead of getting up, however, my hand reaches forward and I stroke a hand over the side of her muzzle. If I look hard enough, I’m sure I’ll find the remains of the very early breakfast Deacon gave her.

I choose not to look hard enough.

There are bandages wrapped around one front leg, and a pang of guilt goes through me when she shifts and lets out an unhappy whine.

“Nothing is broken.” Deacon’s hands had been so steady when he examined her in my room, after he’d laid her down. “But she can’t keep getting kicked like this, Sadie.” He’d turned his ocean blue eyes on me, sending a rush of guilt through me that’s going to linger and sting for days.