Chapter 12 #2
Krick still blocks the counter’s exit, but steps aside to allow us passage with a flash of his coffee-stained grin. We’re about to pass, but Krick rests his hand on Joey’s shoulder, whose grip tightens on mine as he’s halted.
“As soon as you’re gone, I’m going to take your little bitch as my pet,” Krick says through gritted teeth. “You won’t even want to touch her again when I’m finished.”
Joey’s clutch loosens, and no matter how fast I reach, his hand escapes me.
With a burly shove, he takes the bait, and Krick retaliates quickly, landing a swift punch to his jaw.
When Joey pulls back for a counter blow, the rangers are on top of him, repeatedly dropping their batons onto his back.
His whole body winces as they beat him to the floor, and he falls from my reach.
My heart sinks with every strike. They are attacking him—the good guy!—while Krick stands grimacing above him.
“Get off him! Get off him!” I scream, swooping to the floor and shielding him with my body. I catch a few strikes to the arm. They slice like a scolding slap, but the rangers stop while Joey splutters and groans beneath. “He’s the good guy! He’s the good guy!”
One ranger says, “Ma’am, back down, or we will be forced to detain you.”
“Don’t hurt him! Please!” I beg, only now realising tears are falling from my widened, unblinking eyes.
I rise to my knees, keeping the rangers behind me, to find that the cut on Joey’s brow has reopened, bigger than before, as blood pulses down his face.
His hair is wet with it, sticking across his cheeks, and as I pull it away, it reveals the blood trickling from his nose and lips.
He’s hurt, and I swear it vibrates through our bond, like the quiver of a violin string, stinging the core of my heart.
His lids are heavy as he coughs, causing himself to wince.
I whisper in his ear, “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to save us.”
The rangers clasp my shoulders, but I refuse to let them move me.
I drop my body to the floor like a dead weight, lying on my front, keeping my face beside his.
He’s barely coherent when I call his name, and I tuck his bloody hair behind his ear, struggling to open one of his eyes, but he grabs my wrist as he spots me.
The rangers grab me by my ankles in a bid to separate us, lifting me with their pull.
I struggle to reach for his hand, fingers fumbling in desperation, when our hands finally clutch tight.
One ranger loses his patience and slams his boot on Joey’s wrist. A scream rattles through my throat as I feel the blunt force through his arm.
Joey growls as he tries to hold on while I’m raised from the floor, but his grasp loosens with a twist of the boot.
They drag me away, my fingertips burning across the cold steel floor.
With me removed, the ranger releases me with a thud, returning to help detain Joey, still on the floor, resisting their grip as they pull out the batons again.
I leap to my feet to shield him, but someone yanks my hair, throwing my body backwards, and I lose my balance, falling at the feet of Donnie.
“Sit down, you dirty whore! You are pathetic!”
Like the flip of a switch, a strategy—a distraction—presents itself.
Like a game of chess, it’s my turn to make a move against Krick.
To take down his knight. There’s no way I can beat Donnie in a fistfight, but I know how to crumble him.
I laugh lightly at him while climbing to my feet, with his face contorting in confusion.
My laughter accelerates, shaking my chest as it comes from deep inside.
His confusion flips into anger, and in my peripheral, they’re cuffing Joey, bringing him to his feet.
So, I pull the metaphorical pin from the grenade with a smirk.
I say, each word punctuated with purpose, “You … are … pathetic!”
In a flash, Donnie grips my neck, and my laughter dries up with his choking grasp.
Shooting pains thrash up and down my throat.
The throbbing, mounting pressure of blood gathers in my head.
His mechanical hold raises me, the rubber soles of my boots skimming along the floor’s surface.
All I needed was for him to make the first move.
Now I seize my moment, reaching my grasping fingers into my back pocket to secure my grip on a corkscrew.
I swing my hand around, planting it into his upper arm with a satisfying twist.
He roars with a shout, releasing me to my feet. “You BITCH!”
The gasping, rasping inhale I take is all I manage before he launches his knuckles into my cheek. The pressure follows through my head like a seismic wave, leaving a stinging print behind.
Slowly… Everything moves so slowly. My ears ring.
There’s shouting in the distance, but it sounds as if I’m underwater, floating beneath the surface of a lake while they are by the shore.
I recover from the recoil and collect another blow to the face.
My eye… I can’t open my eye. The pressure doesn’t lift this time, while an icy burn drills through my skull as I hold my hands up, protecting myself, with my heartbeat echoing in my ears.
The rangers intervene, trying to pull Donnie back, with each of them hanging on his arms. When one loosens his grasp to grab his baton, Donnie slips loose. He swings and misses, but as I flinch, my head turns light, and my legs bow beneath me.
I fall onto my back, chasing breath as it puffs from my lungs.
There’s noise, but the ear-piercing ring is too loud for me to hear words.
A metallic taste grows in my mouth as blood dominates my taste and smell.
Donnie’s crumpled face has seared into my sight, but I’m unable to focus on anything.
The pressure in my head amplifies with every beat of my heart.
I cough with my tight throat, as if it’s still clamped in Donnie’s grip.
It’s hard to focus, my vision blurry, refusing to sharpen while seeing only the light from the porch doorway.
My hand tries to reach my face, dithering through the air as I attempt to control it.
Someone grabs it. Joey. He’s still with me. I want to see him. I want to hear him. But as I feel his touch, my body subdues, and consciousness escapes me. I try to say it. The words leave my heart, but fail to pass my lips.
“I love you…”