33. Toren
Toren
One second, the only sound in the house was my own voice, droning on about how we set up our early warning system after we recognized we’d walked into something bigger than we thought.
The next, the unmistakable, blood-curdling war cry of one particular red hen rose from just outside the front door.
Eloise.
Immediately after her outburst, the shrieks of several other hens joined the cacophony.
I turned to look at the door and saw a flurry of feathers rising into the air through the window.
Deke looked too.
Whatever set them off, I didn’t care. It provided the opening I needed.
Knowing I wouldn’t get another chance, I pushed off my good foot, flying out of my chair to close the few feet of space between us before he could bring his gaze back around.
I couldn’t run or do any of the other things I would do in a fight.
But I could fall on him like a dropped tree, and I weighed enough to make it feel like that too.
I hit him mid-turn and we went over, the chair breaking between us as we hit the ground. Deke’s gun went off, the crack of it deafening in the small room. The round went into the ceiling, raining dust and bits of wood down on us.
I pinned his shoulders to the floor with my left forearm, reaching across to grasp his right wrist, which held the gun.
I was off balance and had little leverage like this, but I still managed to get a good grip and slam his hand into the floor.
The gun discharged again, sending a round into the wall.
I slammed his hand down once more, and his fingers sprang open.
The pistol skittered away under the couch.
Dammit. I’d wanted that, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it too much.
Deke had figured out that, even though I had six or seven inches and at least fifty pounds on him, my injuries put me at a disadvantage. He was faster than I expected and drove the heel of his hand into my casted left, right where the pins held my fingers together
I cried out in pain, feeling like I’d touched a live wire.
My vision went white and my grip on his hand loosened.
He twisted out from under me before I could regain my composure and reversed the hold, climbing onto my back like a monkey to put me in a headlock.
The pressure from his arm squeezed my throat, cutting off my air.
I turned my head into the crook of his arm, easing it a bit, then pushed up on my forearms, bringing my legs up.
Balancing on my right hand, I brought my left elbow back, trying to connect with any part of him, but I missed.
Deke leaned back, putting more pressure on my windpipe. Stars danced in front of my eyes. I clawed at his arm, panic starting to set in.
“There it is,” Deke breathed in my ear. The cold, unemotional tone to his voice penetrated my panic and sent a shiver down my spine. He was enjoying this.
Blackness edged my vision, my muscles growing heavy.
“I had really hoped you’d put up a bigger fight. It’s not every day I get to fight a man so much bigger than myself and win.”
His words came to me like he spoke them from the end of a long tunnel. My brain understood I was losing. That my body, all six-feet-eight inches and two-hundred fifty pounds of it, was failing me when it mattered most.
He was going to win this. And when he did, he was going to walk out my front door.
Into a yard full of squawking chickens.
And Lana.
Sweet, beautiful, tenacious Lana.
The woman who’d found the hole in my armor and wiggled inside to plant herself in my heart.
I’d told her I didn’t want a relationship because I couldn’t handle losing someone I loved again. I’d built my life around that for the last six years.
And it had been a lie. The whole time, I’d lied to myself. Because right now, with Deke squeezing the life out of my lungs, the only thought going through my mind wasn’t that I didn’t want to die. It was that I didn’t want to leave her alone to die.
Lana.
She was out there, alone except for Eloise, and if I lost, Deke would find her and do to her what he was doing to me.
No matter what, I lost her.
That was unacceptable.
Gathering every last ounce of strength I had, I used my height to my advantage.
I leaned back into Deke’s hold until I was kneeling on the ground.
Our size difference forced him to put his feet on the ground and balance if he wanted to maintain his hold on my neck.
Grasping his forearm, I planted the toes of my right foot, turned my hips and tucked my shoulder to the right and drove sideways, flipping Deke over my shoulder.
He hit the ground with a thud.
I didn’t give myself time to suck in much needed gulps of air. Now running on pure adrenaline, I landed on top of him, pressing my left forearm to his throat while my right hand grasped his left to keep him from clawing at me. I pinned his other arm between my leg and his side.
For the first time since he showed up, I saw a flicker of something other than cold calculation in his eyes.
Now there was fear.
Good.
“You should have run,” I muttered through my teeth, my voice nothing more than a growl.
The back door banged open.
“Toren!”
God help me, I couldn’t stop the impulse to look up at the sound of Lana’s voice. My head snapped toward the door. She stood there flushed and wild-eyed in the entrance.
The half second I was distracted was all the time Deke needed.
He bucked under me, hard, gaining enough space to scramble backward. He hit the end table, sending the contents flying. The lamp crashed to the floor, shattering, and my hunting knife clattered onto the hardwood.
We both saw it at the same time, but he was closer. His hand closed around it, and he swung it forward, slashing at my ribs.
My right hand closed around his wrist inches from the blade slicing into my side, his strength against mine. The blade trembled in the air as we both strained to move it.
He gathered his legs under himself, leaning into the knife. I pushed out with every ounce of strength I possessed. It carried his arm wide, bringing him within my long reach. I swung my left arm, cast and all, toward his face.
Pain exploded in my hand as I connected, but it sent him backward. I held onto his right wrist, refusing to give up control of the knife.
We rolled over the floor, a tangle of arms and legs. Lana yelled in the background, and I vaguely noticed her moving from the back of the cabin to the front.
Deke kneed me in the stomach, and my grip on his hand loosened. I felt him try to pull away.
No! my mind screamed.
I planted my right foot and lunged, pulling on his arm as I put my weight into his left side and rolled him over.
Deke went rigid beneath me, and a quick, surprised gasp left his lungs.
Something hot and wet trickled over my hand.
I pushed back and looked down.
The knife was buried in Deke’s chest, going in at angle from right to left under his sternum.
I looked at his face. Realization had dawned in his eyes, making them wide and full of disbelief.
His feet kicked and blood poured out of the wound. I let go of the knife and sat back.
“You should have run,” I repeated, this time my voice carrying a note of sadness at the stupidity of it all.
The recognition of what was happening left his expression as his gaze unfocused. His breaths came faster for a few seconds, then grew shallow until they finally stopped altogether moments later.
Fuck!
I rolled back, my butt hitting the floor as it hit me he was dead. My hands shook, both from the adrenaline leaving my body and from the knowledge I’d killed him. Even unintentionally, he’d died because we’d been fighting.
“Toren.” Lana slammed into my side, wrapping her arms around me.
That was all it took. I wrapped a hand over her arm and held on as the first sobs wracked my body.