Page 25 of Oathbreaker

His body spasms, his arms and legs flailing.

I slam the nail in his cheek. In his ear.

I ram it into his forehead one final time. Eight round stab marks pockmark his face.

Eight! Eight, seven, eight!

He stills, and his one good eye stares at nothing. Lifeless.

I roll over. Filth and ice-caked mud and blood cover me. Lying next to his dead body, I stare up at the sky.

I blink to bring moisture back to my dry eyes.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Calm.

System by system, my tense muscles unclench. I feel myself beginning to drift away, so I latch on to a single thought: No one was going to save me.

So I saved myself.

I roll my head to look at Adam’s still body. Assessing each stab wound—one for each recent violation.

Yes, I saved myself. From Adam, at least.

SIX

WINTER

I’ve spent much of the last twenty minutes staring at the sky, divorcing my body from my mind. It doesn’t work.

I just killed someone.

Not someone. I just killed Adam.

My hands start to tremble as the finality of his death settles in, and the fresh kiss of reality I’m desperate to avoid starts to score into my flesh.

I just killed Adam Collins.

The tang of blood in my mouth alerts me to the severity of my injuries.

Ankle: likely sprained.

Ribs: fucked and probably cracked.

The rest of me:

The rest of me….

My jaw tenses and the shock of pain causes me to bite my tongue, drawing more blood. Hot tears rush to fall.

You will not cry. You will not break. Pull yourself together and get to safety.

I roll to my side, facing him as I do because even though I know he is dead, I can’t allow myself to risk turning my back on him.

But he can’t hurt me, not anymore. The sharp stab to his brainstem took care of that.

Forceful waves of nausea wash over me as I attempt to stand by getting on my hands and knees. There’s a puddle of blood where my palms meet the ground. It streams from the holes in his head, thick and dark red.

I heave, nothing but saliva coming up as I retch.

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