Epilogue #2
I can feel the blood flowing from my nose and there’s a sharp sting of pain under my right eye.
I’m gasping for air because when he hit me, all the air was knocked out of my lungs.
My fingers desperately claw at the dirt trying to push against him to be able to scream for Snuggs.
Right now his knee is pressed into my back and his hand is on the back of my head forcing my face into the dirt.
“Who are you? Who do you fucking work for?” he screams in my face as he grips me by the hair and raises my head from the ground.
“Eat shit, fucker,” I growl, spitting blood in his face before he slams my head back against the ground.
Sparks flash behind my eyes when my head hits a rock half-buried in the dirt. I can’t scream. My head is ringing from hitting the rock, and my lungs are burning, desperate for air. Shit! What did Noah teach me? Damnit, Willow, think!
When Vallero shifts above me, I feel a slight pain in the front of my leg where my thigh rig is holding my knife. The one Noah bought for me for Christmas.
I need to get enough space to move my leg and grab my knife without it slicing open my leg when I pull it out. I need to distract him somehow.
“Wait…I’ll tell you,” I manage to get out between gasps of air as I choke on dirt.
Just as I thought he would, he lifts my head. Tearing the strands of hair on the back of my head. He shifts on top of me to turn my upper body slightly. My arm is pinned down against my side, giving me the angle I need to slowly slide my knife free.
“Who do you work for?” he demands again.
I cough, pretending to gasp, to bide more time. Between the ringing in my ears, the pulsing pain in my head, and the sting from my hair getting ripped out, my senses are on overload.
My fingers pull on the strap of the thigh rig trying to spin it slightly to be able to grab the handle of my knife. His hand twists wrapping the strands tighter around his fist, causing me to scream.
“Who. Do. You. Fucking. Work. For?”
His breath is rancid as he leans forward putting his face right against the side of mine. Everything about this man is disgusting.
“Anderson,” I choke out as I feel the edge of the handle and manage to wrap my fingers around it.
“Anderson? Nathaniel? I fucking paid him triple what we originally agreed on. What the fuck does he want?”
“No,” I grit out as I pull the blade from the sheath and turn it in my hand to where the blade is pointing up, parallel to my forearm.
“Which fucking Anderson?” he demands.
“Noah!” I scream.
I slam my arm back and up, driving the blade into the back of his thigh. He screams as he rolls off of me clutching onto his thigh. My fingers stay wrapped around the blade as I carefully roll and try to get up. The world around me is still spinning.
“You stupid fucking…”
Snuggs’s vicious growl is all I hear before Vallero’s body goes flying to the side with a giant white blur with teeth wrapped around his arm. I can hear the sound of teeth ripping into flesh as Vallero rolls and tries to dislodge his arm from Snuggs’s jaws.
His screams echo off the trees around us as I watch him rip his arm free from Snuggs and turn to run. He doesn’t get more than two feet away before his leg is gripped and he’s dragged to the floor. Snuggs won’t release his leg unless I tell him to.
The world tilts, nearly sending me to my knees before I close my eyes and center myself to try to get the dizziness to stop. Vallero is still screaming and the sound is making my head feel like it’s being crushed. I just want him to shut the fuck up.
When I look over at him, he’s on his back trying desperately to defend against the snapping jaws of my protector. His snow-white fur is now stained red with blood. My bloodthirsty, fluffy hero.
He backs off for a second before lunging again, grabbing him by the shoulder and thrashing his head back and forth. Blood sprays with each jerk of his head, and Vallero’s screams grow weaker.
“Good boy,” I say calmly as I get closer to them.
He stops thrashing his head, releasing Vallero’s shoulder.
“Off,” I command and he obeys, stepping off to the side of Vallero then glancing at me.
Vallero tries to roll to his stomach, but I quickly straddle his chest and then drop down hard, knocking the wind out of him. He chokes, gasping for air as blood bubbles fill his throat. Snuggs is right next to his face growling menacingly and keeping him in place.
I can feel the blood leaking down my face from my nose and below my eye.
The vision in my right eye seems blurred, but a dark object in the dirt catches my attention.
I reach for it, gripping the large stone and prying it from the ground.
It’s hefty, definitely enough to do damage.
I glance back at my knife, which I dropped when I nearly fell from standing.
It’s too far out of reach, so the rock will have to do.
“You asked me before who I was,” I snap, getting his attention off of Snuggs.
When he looks at me, his eyes drift to the large rock I’m holding with both hands above him. His eyes go wide as he stares at it. He lifts his hands in defense, but he’s too weak. Snuggs has caused a lot of damage judging from the amount of blood pooling beneath us.
“I’m the one who’s going to end your miserable life,” I growl, lifting the rock high.
“Pl…Please,” he whimpers as he chokes on his own blood.
“Please? Did you stop when Maddison said please?” I ask, and that gets his attention.
His mouth drops open as he starts to stutter. He realizes now why I have him here, and it’s the most beautiful sight. The flicker of hope fades from his eyes when he fully realizes he isn’t making it out this forest alive.
“I saw the photos. I saw everything you did to her. Couldn’t you just accept the divorce and move on? No, because if you couldn’t have her, then no one could. Right?”
“I didn’t…mean to,” he gasps before turning his head and spitting up more blood.
“You did. You knew exactly what you were doing when you stabbed her repeatedly, over and over.”
“No…I,” he cries, but I cut him off.
“You did. I saw the carnage. I saw the previous medical reports of all her accidents. You knew what you were going to do that day. You went there to kill her, didn’t you?” I demand.
He closes his eyes as his body trembles beneath me. He’s lost a lot of blood, and this might not last much longer.
“Say it!” I scream.
“Yes,” he admits. “I wanted to kill her.”
He cries, tears flowing down the side of his face into the blood-stained ground. Snuggs has stopped growling and is now just sitting here next to me, patiently waiting.
“Well, that’s one thing we have in common. When I found you at the bar four nights ago, I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to kill you, Antonio Vallero. I wanted you to feel everything you did to her, but I think this might be more fitting.”
“Wh…”
With a primal scream, I bring the rock down full force against his skull.
*Crack*
Noah
*Ding*
My phone goes off as I wash the last plate and place it in the drying rack.
I told my little rabbit to go have a little fun with our target while I cleaned up from dinner.
He should still be a bit weak from the sedative I gave him earlier.
It wasn’t enough to knock him out, but enough to make him groggy.
I dry my hands off and pick my phone up off the counter. It’s a notification from Willow’s wristband. It’s got a built-in heart monitor and tracker on it so that if anything goes wrong I’ll be able to find her. There’s also another tracker in her shoes…Just in case.
The notification shows Willows' heart rate spiked high just a minute ago. Strange. It’s not her normal heart rate for jogging. She must have caught up to Vallero and is excited.
I can’t help the swell of pride in my chest as I think about the last few months.
My woman is darker than I originally thought.
It’s from all those years of bottling up her pain that no amount of therapy could ever relieve her of.
I unleashed her darkness the first night we were here and got her to fully accept it.
She started training more and became interested in the cases that my father managed to get dropped when the fuckers should have gone to jail. She compiled her own list, and tonight we get to take down one that has plagued me since she first came back into my life.
Antonio Vallero. The sick sonofabitch who murdered his wife in cold blood.
Stabbed her repeatedly shredding her apart.
I tried to keep Willow away from the case as much as possible.
She didn’t interact with him, never even saw the man face-to-face.
That’s why it was her idea to use herself as bait, which I fucking hated from the start.
But it all worked out in the end and now here we are.
*Ding*
Another spike, this one higher. And her oxygen level seems to be fluctuating weirdly. I quickly open the tracker app to find out where she is in the woods. A gnawing feeling is in the pit of my stomach. Something feels off.
She’s not far, but she’s up near one of the ridges I try to keep her away from. The edge is hidden by bramble bushes and dense trees. There isn’t even a second of clearance before it suddenly drops twenty feet. I get worried when she’s this close because one wrong move and I could lose her.
I quickly throw on my boots just as another ping comes through for her heart rate.
That gnawing feeling is now a sharp stab deep in my gut.
I rush out the back door, not even bothering to close it.
There's a thick iron fence around this entire property and an electronic security gate up front.
No one gets in or out without us knowing.
“Snuggs?” I shout as I start to rush into the woods.
He'd better be with her. He’s always with her.