Chapter 31 Kiera
KIERA
Despite all her desperate efforts to stay quiet and hidden, Higgs found her anyway–of course he did.
The freezer was too big and too full of echoes and swinging dead things, and Kiera was too cold and too shaky and too terrified to move as silently as she wanted. By the time she saw the bulky green shape of him coming around the row of hanging canthor carcasses, it was already too late.
“Well, well—so you found my little secret.” He nodded at the swinging bodies of the dead women. “I'm afraid not all of my girlfriends have been very well behaved.” He leered at Kiera. “So I had to punish them, you see? The same way I'm going to have to punish you, girly.”
Kiera’s heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to break its way out of her ribcage and escape.
Her whole body was shaking now—not just from fear and not just from the bitter cold, but from the sick, horrified realization that Higgs had done this before.
Again and again. He had lured women here, trapped them here, hurt them here.
Killed them here.
And now he meant to do the same to her.
No–no, she couldn’t let that happen. But how could she stop him?
Higgs reached up casually and pulled a rusty butcher knife from the wall rack beside him. The blade was long and ugly, its edge darkened in places where old blood had stained it. He tested it with one thick thumb and smiled when he saw her flinch.
“Oh yeah, girly–it’s rusty but it’s sharp,” he drawled. “You’ll find out how sharp in just a minute.”
Kiera backed up until the backs of her legs hit the steel butchering table behind her. Do something–she had to do something.
Don’t just stand here and die like some stupid—ass character in a horror movie, she screamed silently at herself. Do something!
But what?
Her hands were still tied in front of her, which made her clumsy, but not helpless. She cast one frantic glance over the tabletop and saw a stray meat hook lying near the far edge—a heavy steel one, detached from its chain but still wickedly curved and sharp at the point.
Kiera grabbed it at once.
Cold metal burned her palms but she didn’t let go. Instead, she gripped it in both hands, awkward because of the rope around her wrists, and held it out in front of her like a weapon.
“Stay back,” she said in a trembling voice. “Stay away from me, you sick fuck or I swear I’ll use this on you!”
Higgs just laughed.
“Oh, that’s cute, girly–real cute.”
“I mean it!” Kiera said, though her voice shook. “Stay the hell away from me!”
He took another step forward waving the rusty knife.
“Now why would I do that? You and me are gonna have some fun together–lots of fun before I hang you on a meat hook with the others.”
Kiera swallowed hard. Threats weren’t working–she had to try something else.
“Higgs,” she said, forcing herself to keep talking because if she stopped, she thought she might scream. “You don’t want to do this.”
He snorted–white vapor coming from his wide nostrils.
“Oh, don’t I?”
“No,” Kiera said quickly. “No, you really don’t. Because people know I’m missing.”
That was probably a lie, but she said it anyway.
“Iyanna–my friend–is coming to get me. She’ll be at the sanctuary any minute and when she finds out I’m gone—”
Higgs rolled his eyes.
“Oh, please. Nobody’s coming for you, girly.”
“They are too,” Kiera said, tightening her grip on the hook. “And if you hurt me, Commander Rarev and the whole Monstrum Mother Ship will come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
That made him hesitate for the tiniest fraction of a second. It wasn’t much, but it was enough–Kiera saw it and lunged.
It wasn’t a graceful fight move like you saw in the movies–she had a PhD in Zoology–not in martial arts and she wasn’t trained in self—defense, although now she wished she’d taken a few classes back on Earth.
She was half—frozen, tied up, terrified, and working on adrenaline and the pure refusal to die in a slaughter freezer.
It wasn’t elegant, but the hook in her hands had a sharp point, and she drove it at Higgs with everything she had.
He jerked sideways with a curse, and it scraped across the front of his overalls, tearing fabric and scoring a line in the bumpy green skin beneath.
Higgs roared.
“You bitch!”
He came at her then for real, the rusty knife flashing in the flickering overhead lights.
Kiera tried to swing the hook again, but he caught her wrists in one huge hand and slammed them down against the steel table. Pain shot up her arms and the hook slipped and clanged to the concrete floor.
“No!” she cried, and threw a knee at him.
Her knee connected with his thigh…which might as well have been a wall.
“Oh yes, girly,” Higgs snarled and shoved her hard.
Kiera lost her footing on the slick, freezing floor and went down, striking her hip and shoulder against the concrete with a cry.
The butcher knife flashed above her and Higgs loomed over her, breathing hard, his face dark green with fury and his silver eyes glittering.
“I tried to be nice,” he spat. “I gave you chances. But you had to go and act all stuck—up, all better than me. Well, nobody’s better than me in my own place.”
Kiera twisted and kicked at him as he came down on top of her.
“Get off me!” she gasped, breathlessly.
“Don’t think so.” He caught her bound wrists and pushed them above her head, driving them into the floor so hard her fingers went numb. The knife in his other hand came up, its rusty blade glinting under the harsh freezer lights.
Kiera stared up at it, every instinct in her screaming. Thoughts skittered through her head, almost too fast to catch.
This is it. This is how he killed the others. This is what happened to all of them and I’m next–I’ll be hanging on a meat hook in less than an hour!
Her breath came too fast…her vision narrowed.
No, she thought wildly. No, no, no—
Then a roar shook the freezer, and it wasn’t a sound any human throat could make. It was a deep, savage, furious roar that seemed to vibrate through the hanging carcasses and the steel rails and the frozen concrete under her back.
Higgs froze above her and so did Kiera.
And then Brux hit him.