Chapter 48 Hunt, Rabbit
Hunt, Rabbit
RIPLEY
I’m barefoot, bloodied, and full of rage as my feet pound against the pavement.
But Preacher was right, Adonis didn’t get far.
In fact, I was lucky enough to see him disappear into an old, boarded up building a block or so away, a couple seconds after I got outside.
Sure, maybe I could have asked for one of Preacher’s guns, and just shot him before he even made it inside, but it’s time I really got my hands dirty again.
And just like the first time, I’m doing it alone.
As I get closer, the building starts to take shape in the low light of the street lamps.
It looks like an old abandoned school house, and it even has a few tiny desks still sitting abandoned outside, most of them bent or broken, or faded from the rain.
I make my way through the same door Adonis did, as quietly as I can manage, immediately appreciating the little bit of moonlight that’s coming through the couple of windows that didn’t get boarded up.
My chest heaves as my eyes adjust to the dark, and I continue to ignore the same message my brain has been screaming at me from the moment Preacher swooped in: just wait and hide, give up and let him take care of it. He’d do it in a heartbeat, if you asked him.
But he knows as well as I do that this hunt needs to be mine.
And so instead, I think like prey.
I ask myself, what would my prey do if I just threw caution into the wind.
“Hey Adonis!” I bellow, Preacher’s knife clutched tightly in my white-knuckled grip. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Of course, my taunt is met with a silence so crushing it hurts to breathe.
I stay still, straining to listen, my muscles coiled and my body primed and ready for my next kill. A reaction’s not the point, after all, at least not a vocal one. He’s in here, and now he knows I am too, and I’ve met very few men less patient than Adonis Murphy.
It’s only a minute or two of waiting before I hear a floorboard creak above me, and it takes all of my willpower to keep from dashing straight for the stairs as my heart soars.
I glance around the room to find a single door slightly ajar, the floor in front of it showing the now-obvious signs of recent footprints. I make my way to it quickly, but silently, slipping my way up a flight of rickety stairs until I reach the top and am forced to pause.
A blackened hallway, lit only by a few cracks of moonlight pressing through the boarded up windows, and completely lined with doors on either side.
Shit.
Again, I ignore the instinct to run, and the far far too reasonable thought: who cares if he gets away?
Because I do.
I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let him slip through my fingers.
Not when I’m this close.
So what would Preacher do in this situation?
How would he take advantage of his prey’s natural response to being hunted?
He’d taunt him.
Emasculate him.
Then put him in a position where he thinks he has the upper hand.
I slink down the hall, whistling the melody to Kokomo, and taking a moment here and there to make my presence as obnoxiously obvious as possible.
“You know, Adonis, playtime works a lot better if you actually participate! Don’t you want to play with me anymore?”
I hear something creak behind me, and give the slightest glance over my shoulder.
I’m not afraid, I’m a fucking animal, and once I manage to sink my teeth into him, I’m going to tear him to pieces.
I turn around casually, heading toward the only door the sound could have possibly come from, grasping the handle to the long-abandoned classroom.
I hear it click, grinding like old bones as I twist.
This is where he is.
Deep breath.
Knife ready.
I whip the door open, lunging inside to find—
Fucking nothing.
And then I’m extremely self conscious all over again.
Everything I was sure of, all my plans and maneuvers suddenly second-guessed.
I do a quick sweep of the room, taking care to keep my steps light as I explore every shadow.
There’s not much to see here though, just an old chalkboard with some faded handwriting, a couple chairs piled up in the middle of the room, and…
Is that blood?
I crouch down, gliding my finger through a little splash of crimson.
It’s fresh, but I’m more taken by how easy it was to find. Obvious enough that it would be impossible to miss for someone actually looking. Hell, it’s right in the middle of the room, and… right in the middle of one of the only beams of moonlight glowing through the cracks.
“Clever boy.”
I hear the ringing in my ears before I even finish my roll to the side, making it to my feet just as an explosion of wood erupts behind me, moonlight pouring into the room from the newly-boardless window. Adonis and his menacing grin stand in front of me, his gun aimed right at my head.
Jesus, I literally brought a knife to a fucking gun fight.
“Not so tough now, are you bitch?” He takes a step forward, matching my movements as I pivot to the left. “No friends, no guard dog to help protect you… not even your half-dead sister. You’re mine now, so do as you're told, and maybe you get to make it out of this alive.”
“I’m not going back,” I snarl.
I try to subtly put a bit of space between us, but every time I take even the slightest step, he follows suit.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to kill you. Hell, maybe I’ll fuck your corpse in front of your boyfriend, too.”
What he doesn’t know is that by now, Preacher’s somewhere nearby, if not in the building already, but I’m not sure how much that’ll matter if I can’t figure my way out of this.
He cocks his gun, his eyes blazing with pure hatred, following me as I back myself toward a wall. I glance around, looking for anything I can use, but find absolutely nothing in the rickety old room save for broken chairs and creaky floorboards.
Wait…
I take a step to the left, and then another, and one further back.
He laughs.
“Just look at you, nowhere to run and you’re still—”
Adonis’s eyes go wide as his final step forward ends a little differently than he expected, the obviously rotten floorboard giving-way just a little under his weight, and I take the moment of panic to rush him.
There’s a look of pure confusion on his face as he stares down at me, dropping the gun and struggling to regain his footing, only to realize far too late that my blade’s already halfway through his gut.
“See, that’s something we agree on.” I twist the knife, yanking it out and jamming it back in again, as deep as it’ll go.
“There’s nowhere for you to fucking run, and nobody is going to come looking for a scum-fucking trafficker like you.
By the end of all of this, your skull is going to be resting on my mantle, so why don’t you just—”
My head erupts in a fiery halo of pain as Adonis smashes me in the skull, harder than I’d ever expect from a man with such a gaping stab-wound, knocking me to the floor before he stumbles out the doorway.
“Fuck!”
I scramble to my feet, ignoring the throbbing pain as best I can, but the violent spinning of the room makes it near-impossible to stay upright, let alone walk. By the time I manage to stumble to the door, Adonis is gone.
But luckily, he’s left a little trail of bloodcrumbs for me.
I take off after him, my bare feet slapping against the floor as I push myself to my absolute limit, through burning muscles and searing pain.
The little trickles of blood lead me down the hall, and through a side-door at the very end, down a fire escape to a small back exit, and out into a parking lot.
And there he is, lying flat on his face.
I approach him on wobbly, exhausted legs, barely registering the jagged gravel and little shards of broken glass along the way. All I care about is putting this dog out of his misery.
When I reach him, the extent of the damage I managed to inflict is crystal-clear.
He’s trembling like a leaf, shivering in the cool air, a pool of blood pumping out from beneath him onto the gravel and dirt.
He’s weakened.
Terrified.
Just like all the women he hurt.
I get on my hands and knees, slinking toward him slowly, like an animal. My jaw tingles, the scent of his blood hanging so thick in the air I can practically taste it.
“I think you’re bleeding out, pretty boy.” I grin, leaning in to make sure I’m the last thing he sees before he leaves this world. “You know, I get off killing men like you. There’s just something about taking all that power away that makes me feel alive.”
I flip him over, straddling him as I take his face in my hands, leaning in just like you would for a passionate kiss before sliding my thumbs over his eyes and pressing down.
He starts to struggle, but I only push harder, until he lets out a scream that pierces the night.
I can feel soft tissue give way under my thumbs as I scream right back in his face, giddy with the thought that his final few moments are being spent in pure agony.
Adonis keeps struggling despite it all, thrashing violently, beating back against me with his arms, his fists, his legs, but I hold steady. There’s nothing he can do to take this moment from me.
Until I feel it pierce me in the side.
Something small, and sharp.
Burning.
And then I can’t breathe.
I fall off of him onto the gravel, glancing down to see the shard of glass sticking out from between my ribs. Oozing blood.
“Oh…”
A low rumbling laugh echoes through the night, and I look over into two bloodied caverns where eyes used to be, his words a sputtering, wet mess of blood and spit.
“Looks like my skull might have some company on that mantle of yours.”
I rip the shard out of me, screaming in his face as he laughs, and laughs, and laughs, going silent only when I bring it down on him with all that’s left of my strength. And then I collapse, my body seizing up from the pain and the exhaustion, and everything else.
And that’s when I hear Preacher shouting my name from across the lot.
I roll onto my side, barely able to breathe as I stare at Adonis’s battered corpse, my vision already starting to blur.
But I can smell him, sin and spice, as his rough hand cups my cheek.
“You—” I choke. “Made it after all.”
“I said I’d be right behind you, didn’t I? You were just too quick for me, little rabbit.”
“Preacher, I think—” I cough, more and more blood oozing from my lips. “I think this might be it.”
He presses his forehead to mine, pulling me close as he puts pressure on my wound.
“You and I both know that ain’t true. I need you beside me, because I ain’t facing the rest of this life alone. I can’t, not anymore.”
His voice, usually so firm and controlled, is fraying at the edges, coming apart just like me.
And I find myself filled with guilt, for the man I have to leave behind.
And overwhelmed with grief, for the second life I never got to live.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
“I won’t let you go, rabbit.”
He takes my hand, and I feel something cool against my finger.
“I’ll tear you out of Hell myself if I have to.”