Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Sage
Victor laughs.
The booming, bent over at the waist, kind of laugh.
Nicholas gapes, lying flat on his back with his hands resting unnaturally by his sides and his bloodshot eyes on the roof. Not even an ounce of energy spared to pressure his own wounds.
My horror-filled eyes cloud with tears. I sit on my butt, hands supporting me as I stare. I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't speak. I can't look away from the sight of Nicholas's eyes clouding over and the steady drip of blood that seeps out of him, soaking his shirt like a sponge.
Alexei just shot Nicholas.
"Nic," I whimper, finding myself. I rush forward, kneeling at his side to pat at his face. "You're going to be okay. It's okay, it's okay."
"Jesus, that was brutal." Victor still laughs, but I can't take my eyes off Nicholas. I'm convinced if I move for even a second then he's going to leave me. Nic's eyes drift slowly from the roof to look at me, interrupted when he's kicked away from me, clutching at his ribs.
Victor steps into the space he just kicked Nic from and takes my gun, throwing it away. Next, his hands are in my hair, lifting me by the ponytail to hold me upright as I cry out. Even as I lash out and scream and scramble to get back to Nic, he tugs harder.
I pull until it hurts. I just need to get to something. The gun. Anything. Anything that will save us from this. Anything to get Nic to move again. When he's curled over on his side I can't see his face. I can't see the reassuring rise and fall of his chest.
"Nice one, brother," Victor says, amusement coloring him.
I cut a glance to Alexei, who still hasn't moved. His mouth hangs open and his gun still points as he stares in open shock at the spot I just vacated. He hasn't even looked down. He drops his gun like it's on fire, and sinks back into the shadows, turning his back on me once and for all.
I have to do something. I grasp Victor's hand and bite down hard.
"Bitch!!"
He drops my hair to shake out his hand and I fall to the floor with a thud. I start to crawl to Nicholas on my hands and knees but Victor's boot is fast in my back, sending me flat to my face.
"Nic..." I whisper.
I reach out my hand like I'm going to be able to make it to him.
"Chet should be here any minute now," Victor says. "Brother, go let him in."
Alexei stands frozen, frowning and looking at me.
"Did you hear what I fucking said?" Victor shouts. "Go and let Chet in."
Alexei closes his eyes in pain, not sparing anyone a look as he takes Victor's remaining men and leaves.
All that's left is me, Nicholas's dying body, and Victor Fucking Rushkoff.
My body goes cold, flooding me with something that draws all the breath from my lungs. Adrenaline, fire-like rage bubbles slowly over me.
"Shouldn't be too long until you're back with Chet, little girl," Victor says. "Such an oversight you know, him not taking care of you properly the first time."
I push myself up from the ground, snarling at Victor the whole time I do.
I still have a fucking knife.
"Ridiculous really," Victor keeps monologuing. "You were so small, should've been easy to kill."
I rip the knife out of my belt and scream. "You're fucking dead!!"
Victor only has the chance to raise his eyebrows before I'm flying across the couch, screaming in rage, knife clutched in my hand. And even though I'm rushing ahead at full speed, I'm not even sure if I have the upper body strength to pierce his skin.
Our bodies collide once I'm over the couch, and I'm thrashing and screaming doing everything I can to get to bury my knife into this asshole.
"Fucking Christ," Victor says. He snaps out and grabs both my wrists in his big hands, pushing me away from him as I struggle. He sends me flying across the room where I hit the bookcase and bring several classics tumbling down with me.
"Nightmare woman," he says, shaking his head. I lay on the floor in pain but I'm absolutely not done. Groaning, I pull myself up on shaking legs. My discarded gun lies nearby. I snatch it up and raise it to shoot.
"Shit," Victor says, lunging at me and pushing my hand skyward as a shot goes off, leaving behind a smoking hole in the ceiling. Victor takes the gun, unloads and disassembles it this time.
I rush him again, still screaming and he backhands me away.
Rationally, I realize this is a bad plan. That I'm probably going to lose.
Yet nothing about how I feel right now is rational.
I grab his leg and bite his ankle. My teeth sink into the flesh and secure a lock-tight hold as he shakes his leg in an effort to dislodge me. When he kicks me away like a dog, I come away with a mouth full of blood that I feel dripping to my chin.
While I'm down, he kicks me in the ribs. I'm sure he doesn't need a weapon to kill me but sure enough, he goes to the fireplace and pulls a hidden gun from underneath the mantel.
"You are so fucking frustrating you know that," he says, he paces the floor while running one hand over his jaw and waving the gun with the other.
He's not taking this fight one bit seriously.
Why would he? No one ever has seen me as anything but in the way.
A nuisance. Nothing but a pretty face to push to the sidelines. "I hadn't planned to kill yo-"
He doesn't get to finish the sentence because I jump onto his back. My legs wrap around his waist and I secure my arms around his head in a lock, pulling tight in a wild effort to strangle him to death.
He stumbles, losing his footing and sending us both crashing down.
I let go just long enough for him to take the brunt of the fall and then I'm on top again. I knee him in the crotch, satisfied by the way he howls. I scrape my nails down the side of his face in a vicious arc, feeling the skin peel beneath my fingernails. But I don't stop there.
Animalistic, feral urges consume me as I straddle him, grabbing his chin in one hand and forcing my index finger into his left eye as hard as I can with the other.
Slimy texture melts against the pad of my finger, giving way to goo as I breach the surface.
Like sticking my finger into a peach, the juicy blood drains from his eye.
It. Is. Fucking. Gross.
But it's so satisfying too, and the wild grunt I let out confirms it.
I'm running on pure rage. Fueled by every misdeed that has come my way.
I'm fueled by the image of the tubes running out of my father's nose and mouth.
I'm fueled by the blood that came away on my hands when I thought he died in front of me.
I'm fueled by the look on Nicholas's face when he went down with a bullet to the chest. The way he gaped. The way Victor laughed.
I'm fueled by the rage of a nine-year-old who was held down in a cellar for thirty-seven hours while Chet drew knife scars across her back and abdomen. Eventually leaving her to bleed out, thinking she was dead.
I'm also fueled by love.
Alone they're powerful. But combined?
My finger goes way too far into Victor's eye but I wiggle it around while it's in there, giving as much as I can before he eventually bucks me off and discards me. My back hits the corner of the coffee table this time, sending sharp spikes of pain up my spine.
For the first time, I consider not getting back up again.
I consider laying here to die. I look down at my body, finding my own knife sticking out of my thigh.
Victor must have stabbed me in the struggle to get me off him.
But I didn't feel it at all. I might have a stab wound, but I also have most of Victor's eye on my pointer.
"You bitch!" Victor growls as he struggles to stand. His eye is a mess, dripping blood everywhere as he hobbles towards me. "You'll fucking pay for that you little cunt!"
"Just... try... and-"
I don't get to finish as Victor hoists me off the ground with one hand at my throat. He pulls the knife from my leg and plunges it right into my abdomen. In the exact same spot that my pancreas should be. The exact same spot that Chet left the worst of the scars.
I gasp as he slams me down into the couch. Then he's mounting it and straddling me. His fingers grip my throat and rob my breath. I grip his wrists as if I can pull him off by sheer force. But I can't. He's too strong. Too practiced. His fingers dig in fast and deep.
"Your father was a pleasure to kill!" He growls as he continues tightening his hands and I gape for air like a fish.
"And the rest of them? Uncle Anton? Fucking Freddie?" he laughs. "I'm going to enjoy gutting them too."
I'm fading now. I'm almost gone. I can feel death gripping me. I pull at his arms, tearing scratches down them as I try to bring him down. My nails only find purchase gouging into his skin, but it doesn't stop him.
"You're not supposed to... kill me," I rasp out.
"No, but you'll pass out and then it’s over to Chet for you bitch," Victor says.
He squeezes harder. If there's one thing I know, it's that I'm not going back to Chet.
Not now. Not ever. And if I have to work my way around the entire city's underworld to get at him myself, then so be it. Because I'm gonna kill Chet too.
"Always too fucking late. Always too fucking slow," Victor says.
I'm fast, though, not slow, when I rip the knife from my gut and stab it right into Victor's side. He only falters momentarily, eyes widening almost imperceptibly, but I stab again.
And again. And again.
And again and again and again.
He finally releases his hold, and I realize now I'm screaming. Covered in blood that might be my own. But I'm sure is his.
He slips up, hesitates for a moment. That's all I need. I only need half a second. It's then that I stab the knife into his heart.
Nicholas can teach me all about killing with honor all he wants. The fatal mistake in this fight was that Victor wasn't aiming to kill. But I certainly am.
I grip the hilt again, twisting the knife further into Victor's chest. He gurgles, blood seeping at the edges of his mouth with no other path for it to escape.
I wish I could enjoy it, but I can't. Because I'm fading too.
And it's with the last of my strength that I pull the knife out of his heart and stab it into his neck.
He coughs blood all over me as it's removed.
Victor Rushkoff dies, dead even before his body finishes collapsing on top of mine.
I don't have any fucks left to give for him. I push him off of me and run for Nicholas.