CHAPTER 25 #2
My mind flashes back to the deck. He’s dragging himself.
I know it with an absolute, undeniable certainty.
He is hauling his massive, ruined body across that grated deck, his one good arm hooked into the metal.
Every inch he moves is a tectonic shift of pure agony.
He’s an apex predator with a broken spine, trying to crawl back to me.
I can practically hear the screech of his fingernails tearing on the rusted iron, his voice a wet, rattling grunt as he tells himself, "Gotta... move..."
The intrusive visualization forces my medical training to take the wheel.
I map Damon’s internal anatomy with ruthless, mathematical precision.
I track the likely trajectory of Cole's bullet through his thigh, calculating the proximity to the femoral artery.
I factor in the existing trauma to his liver from the first shootout.
Without a sterile field, packed gauze, and my direct intervention, the math is brutally simple.
He has less than two hours before hypovolemic shock shuts down his organs permanently.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my bloody hands to my forehead, haunted by the exact, undeniable knowledge of how he is bleeding out, and my total inability to put my hands inside him and stop it. I know the fucking clock.
"He's dead, Margarita. Accept it," the passenger says, using my name like a weapon.
That does it. The image of Damon dying completely alone on a rusted heap of trash in the freezing rain takes all my fear and compresses it into a cold, hyper-dense mass of rage.
The switch flips. My survival isn't a goal anymore; it’s a biological requirement.
I am not running from Damon anymore. I am going to survive entirely for him.
I will play Cole’s sick little game. I will be the perfect, compliant captive until I can figure out how to gut every single man in this syndicate and get back to the only person who matters.
I purposefully relax my body, going completely limp against the vibrating floorboards.
I slump my shoulders, mimicking the defeated, submissive posture of a broken woman, but my eyes stay razor sharp in the dark.
Let them think I’m done. It will be the last mistake they ever make.
"Look at her. She's finally given up," the driver laughs.
The van starts descending, the change in air pressure popping my ears.
I grip the metal floorboard so hard my fingernails bend backward.
In my head, Damon has finally reached the railing of the freighter.
He’s hauling his massive upper body up, chest heaving, his vision probably tunneling into a single point of red.
He’s looking out over the desolate shipyard toward the flickering city lights, tasting copper and smoke on the wind, staring into the exact empty space where this van used to be.
"Where is she?!" he roars in my mind, the territorial loss completely unhinging him.
The van abruptly exits the highway, the smooth, fast ride replaced by the infuriating stop-and-go rhythm of city traffic.
Streetlights pass in rhythmic intervals, casting fleeting, aggressive amber bars of light across the interior of my cage.
I start cataloging the shadows of the guards up front.
I note their habits—how often the driver checks his side mirrors, how loosely the passenger holds his automatic rifle across his chest. Every tiny detail is a vulnerability I can exploit later.
I tilt my head back, trying to catch a glimpse of a street sign through the heavily tinted side glass.
The smell of city smog and rotting garbage leaks in through the AC vents, illuminated by the orange glow of sodium lamps.
We're heading east. Deep into the industrial docks.
"Five minutes out. Have the dock ready," the passenger barks into his radio.
Through the blur of the rain, my mind insists Damon is still watching.
He sees the twin red taillights of this unmarked van disappear around a corner.
A tiny, mocking spark of light vanishing into the massive labyrinth of the city.
He’s pinned to the deck by his own catastrophic failure, watching his property get swallowed by the dark.
"No... No..." he gasps, his body completely failing him.
The vibration of the van shifting gears shakes me, but my brain supplies the final blow.
Damon draws in one massive, lung-shredding breath—a breath that tastes like death and absolute desperation—and lets out a scream that tears a hole straight through the storm.
A sound of pure, unadulterated territorial violence.
A king howling for his queen. "MARGARITA! "
I hear it.
Or maybe I’m just totally out of my fucking mind and projecting it.
But it sounds real. A faint, distorted, guttural cry carried on the wind that sounds exactly like my name.
I stop struggling. I stop breathing. I go perfectly, terrifyingly still, my head cocked toward the back doors.
A single, violent shiver racks my entire body, starting at the base of my skull and ending in my bound toes.
The sudden silence inside the van feels heavy.
The metal against my skin is freezing. He’s alive.
He is still fighting. I have to be a lethal weapon when he finally comes for me.
"Did you hear something?" the passenger asks, glancing at the side mirror.
"Just the wind, kid," the driver dismisses.
In the dim, flashing light of a passing red and blue neon sign, I look down at my hands.
They are completely caked in thick, drying blood.
Some of it is mine. Most of it belongs to the man I slaughtered on the deck.
I rub my fingers together, feeling the dried blood flake off my skin like dirty rust. The naive, bleeding-heart doctor who ran that underground clinic is dead.
She died the second Damon Locke bled out on her table and dragged her into hell.
I am completely baptized in his violence now.
The salt air getting sucked through the vents grows pungent and heavy as we approach the water.
"Almost there. Welcome to your new home, Doc," the passenger smirks.
I close my eyes as the van slows down, the tires crunching over loose gravel as we enter whatever warehouse Cole is using as a holding pen.
I don't feel a single ounce of fear anymore.
I just feel a cold, clinical, psychopathic resolve.
The van comes to a complete, shuddering stop, and the engine dies, cutting the heat and leaving me in the pitch-black silence one last time.
I pull my shoulders back, straightening my spine against the metal wall, and lift my chin. Bring it on, you treacherous bastard.
"Get her out of the van," a voice echoes from outside.
I just stare at the metal doors, waiting for the light.
TO BE CONTINUED…