CHAPTER 50 #3
How did he manage to gain on me with his injuries? He must be moving on pure adrenaline. Determined, I also kept running. Despite everything in me wanting to collapse right here, right now.
An arm circled around my waist. I was lifted into the air.
I turned feral, screaming, kicking, clawing at his hold as he dragged me back.
His heavy pants hit the top of my head and a knife pressed against my throat.
“You never listen, do you?” he grunted while I struggled. “We’re meant to be together. The sooner you accept it, the fucking better.”
He threw me to the ground. I landed right next to the grave. Every nerve ending in my body cried out. I was beyond exhausted and yet I still managed to crawl backwards and away from him. “Go to hell, Tom!”
“I am.” He was gruesome, every bit the depiction of a monster, with sweat-matted hair and blood running down his eye and sunken cheek. “But I’m taking you with me, Gabriela.”
Sobs spilled out of me as I retreated on weak limbs. I’d lost my own knife in the scuffle and had no weapons to use against him. Tom was purposely taking his time trekking forward, the sadistic side of him basking in my fear.
“I’ll slice your throat first,” he announced. “I’ll do the same to myself and join you. Don’t worry, baby. It’ll all end as it was meant to be. You and me. Together. Forever.”
His words filled me with revulsion.
I didn’t want to die.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to grow old and grey with my friends, with my family, with my Hunter.
Just as I had that last thought, Tom’s body was tackled to the ground by another taller, bigger, and much stronger one.
Hunter.
As if my mind summoned the man I was in love with, he appeared like a mirage.
There was a brief second where our eyes connected, despair and torment radiating off of Hunter as he studied me. Soaked, in my bruised and bloodied state. There was relief in his gaze that I was breathing, but the volatile glint in his blue eyes overshadowed it.
The picture I created filled him with a violent rage.
He was going to make Tom pay.
My body sagged under the knowledge that I was safe. I wouldn’t have to fight my battle on my own anymore.
Not a sound was exchanged between Hunter and me.
But I knew what was coming next regardless.
Lightning sparked and thunder clapped in the sky right as Hunter flipped over a caught-off-guard Tom.
He got on top of him, robbed the knife from his clasp, and threw it far away from his reach.
The grey skies above came down in a torrential downpour as Hunter’s hand closed around Tom’s throat and another cocked a gun at his head. He deadpanned, “Any last words before I introduce you to your maker, you piece of shit?”
“F-fuck you.” Tom attempted to spit at him, but his saliva drooped down the sides of his mouth. He turned blue under the chokehold and tried to buck Hunter off, to no avail. “L-let go of me. She’s mine.”
Hunter’s anger skyrocketed.
“She was never yours.” He glared down into Tom’s last eye. “And now I’m going to kill you for what you did to her.”
I’d never seen Hunter like this.
Gone was the gentleman with the princelike demeanour. This was my protector, who mercilessly drove his fist against Tom’s face with an unruly expression that should have worried me. Yet only satiated the bloodlust churning within. The one that wanted to see Tom get a dose of his own medicine.
Hunter could have easily ended Tom with a bullet to the head.
But as the rain poured down in harder sheets, plastering his clothes to him like a second skin, and lightning lit the sky, illuminating his skyrocketing anger…
I understood that he was not only possessed with the need to avenge me, but grief for what I’d endured.
He wanted Tom to suffer in his final moments.
Hunter pounded on Tom until the latter stopped squirming, succumbing to the wounds I’d dealt and the current strikes Hunter laid on him without missing a beat. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The chorus of Hunter’s punches mixed with Tom’s feeble wails.
I shifted on all fours, wincing at the throbbing pain in my muscles, and crawled towards Hunter.
Tom was reduced to a bloody pulp, barely moving except for when Hunter’s fist collided against his face, his head jerking in whiplash.
“H-Hunt,” I said hoarsely, placing a shaky hand over his forearm, squeezing. “S-stop. Look at me.”
The trance gripping him slowly misted away at my touch and the sound of my voice. Sucking in a large inhale, he turned to me, bubbling with emotions. Rage was the most prominent one. It simmered underneath the pain he experienced at my disappearance and at my current visible wounds.
“Let him be,” I whispered.
“Gabriela.” He closed his eyes, a shiver threading through his body when my hands grabbed his jaw and drew him closer to me. He moved away from a limp Tom and wrapped his arms around me.
“I know.” I rested my cheek against the cold of his soaked dress shirt, hugging him back. “I know.”
Warm drops fell against my forehead.
His tears.
My throat tightened.
“I almost lost you,” he croaked, heartbreak laced in his tone. “Gabriela…”
Words were insignificant for what had transpired.
“Hunter?” I mumbled. “I want you to close your eyes for me. Just for a moment.” I licked my bloodied lip and tasted a metallic tang. “Please?”
Confused, he did as I asked.
With his gaze shuttered, I glanced over at Tom.
He was alive, even with a bloodied face, weak body, and broken spirit.
Hunter wasn’t like me, born into a world of violence, death, and bloodshed.
Regardless of the fact that he wholeheartedly meant it when he said he’d kill Tom, I couldn’t let him live with this burden.
I didn’t even want to gauge what it would do to his mental health down the line, knowing he took a life, even if it was in my defense.
And I also meant it when I said I’d kill Tom Prescott myself.
So taking the gun Hunter had abandoned, I brought the barrel to Tom’s temple with a shaking hand and made sure to look him in the eye.
There was no silencer.
The bullet pierced loudly in the atmosphere.
Hunter’s body straightened at the sound and his eyes flew open.
Surprise, disbelief, and finally understanding dawned on him.
He cursed and tugged me deeper into his chest.
I melted into his embrace, listening to his heart rapidly pumping beneath my ear.
It was over.
It was finally over.
A second later, my world turned pitch black.