Chapter 63 #2
He rushed across the space between us, and I gasped. He was quicker than he looked, too. Somehow, I managed to scramble away from him, but I knew it was only a matter of time. He was going to get me, and he was going to kill me. He was going to use Jane, if not sell her first. I was doomed.
“Ivan taught you how to fight? One of your new friends gift you this pretty weapon?”
My breath came out in quick gasps, and terror set into my bones.
“Maybe I should return the favor,” he whispered. “Send him something of yours next time. A finger? A tongue? Something small but meaningful.”
I stopped breathing.
Something in my eyes must have changed because he laughed low and slow, and instead of continuing to crouch and go after me, he straightened and rolled his shoulders back. “There she is… the girl that knows she won’t win.”
Desperation was a funny thing, though. I knew I wasn’t going to win, but I was desperate enough to try anything, especially now that he thought he’d won.
I rushed across the space between us and slammed the knife into his chest. It wasn’t the right area for him to die quickly, but it was something.
It was anything, and I needed as much on my side as I could get.
The shock on Donovan’s face was almost beautiful. A picture-perfect moment.
“You—”
“I know I won’t win,” I whispered, voice shaking, “but you sure as hell aren’t walking out of this room untouched.”
His shock twisted into murderous rage.
“You little—”
He lunged. But pain dragged him sideways, his balance off. He slammed into the dresser with a grunt, one hand clawing at the knife, the other reaching toward me like he could wring my neck from across the room. I needed to get out of here, but not before he was dead. I had to make sure he died.
I forced myself to allow my shoulders to droop. “I—I, that’s a lot of blood.”
He grinned as if he was realizing something I knew nothing about. “Never seen this much blood before?” It was running down his chest in thin rivers.
I shook my head and forced a sob. “No. I haven’t. I didn’t want to do this…”
“We can fix this,” Donovan sagged against the furniture against the wall. “We can come back from this. I just need to know who convinced you to do this, okay?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head as I backed into the opposite wall.
“You’re not a killer, Poppy,” he rasped. He dragged himself upright, bracing a bloody hand on the dresser. “You can’t even look at what you’ve done.”
My shoulders trembled. My breath hitched. I let tears pool in my eyes as I blinked at him. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
His hand wrapped around the knife hilt as if he was about to pull it free and throw it across the room.
“There she is,” he crooned, the sound sickening. “The weak little doll your father promised. The one who folds. The one who breaks.”
He took a stumbling step toward me. I stayed frozen. Let him think I was prey. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, low and smug. “I’ll make it quick. Then I’ll go take care of the Cristofs and start with your sister—”
My sob cut off. The world went silent as rage filled my blood.
I narrowed my eyes at him and ran the short distance between us.
I wrapped my hands around the knife and yanked it free before I somehow managed to drive it into his neck.
But I didn’t get away with it Scott free.
His hand shot out, and wrapped around my neck.
For a man that was bleeding out, he had a lot more strength than I thought possible.
I went to swing the knife again, but he he lifted me off of the ground, and spots began to dance in my vision.
How poetic. We would both die together.
He should’ve been dead already.
He should’ve collapsed.
But Donovan Madden was a monster who refused to die quickly.
“You—” he gurgled, eyes bulging, fury twisting what was left of his face. “—should have stayed… obedient…”
My lungs burned. Fire clawed down my throat.
The knife trembled in my weakening grip.
I swung again—wild and desperate—but he jerked me sideways mid-air.
The blade only grazed his shoulder, barely leaving a scratch in its wake.
I let the knife slip from my fingers—on purpose—let it clatter against the floor.
His eyes flicked down for the smallest fraction of a second.
I used what little strength I had left and slammed both thumbs into the pulsing wound in his neck.
An animalistic roar ripped free from his throat.
His grip faltered as he instinctively reached for the gash, and I dropped like a ragdoll onto the floor, coughing hard as precious air tore painfully back into my lungs.
Blood soaked the rug. Donovan staggered, clutching his neck, trying to hold himself together as more poured through his fingers.\
“You—” he rasped. “You little—”
He didn’t finish. His knees buckled. He crashed face-first onto the bedroom floor, and he didn’t move again.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, staring at his body, waiting for him to move, but it felt like an eternity later when I heard footsteps down the hall.
I clutched my bloody knees to my chest and moved my stare to the door.
This was it, I was going to jail. There was no getting out of this one.
“Poppy?” Except the voice didn’t belong to a man or a police officer. It belonged to Nana as the door burst open. “When you didn’t call us, we figured the worst.”
She stopped when she noticed the blood covering the room and me. But the pause wasn’t long at all. She flew across the space, much faster than any granny I’d ever known, and crouched down in front of me. “Are you hurt?”
How did I say no but also yes? My throat hurt, but I was alive. He hadn’t stabbed me. He was dead, and I was alive.
He was dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
My head snapped up, and I looked at her as tears filled my eyes and panic released from my chest. I was alive.
“I won.”