Page 114 of Devious Lies

He is scratching at my shoulders, trying to get away. But he can’t.

I’m straddling his chest.

I lift his head and I slam it down again.

And again.

And again.

A sick crunch echoes in the room. I hear someone yell. But I don’t fucking care.

I feel liquid warmth seep between my fingers.

But I’m not finished.

I don’t stop. I just keep cracking his head against the floor until it opens like a ripe melon.

When his brains are spilling from the mess, covering the fucking ground, that is when I stop.

It can’t take more than a minute or two to end him.

I watch his eyes glaze over as death comes to take him to hell, and it’s more time than he deserves.

Too much fucking time away from Baby Girl.

“Maria!” I yell and crawl to where she’s collapsed.

“Luc,” Angel runs to my side. Nico is with him.

Both are a little worse for wear, and I know they rained terror down on these maggots. But I can’t do anything but call her name over and over again.

It’s like I think I can fix her if I just keep saying it.

“Maria. Maria. Maria. MAARRIIAAAAAAAA!”

I roar this time, but I can’t just breakdown. She needs me.

I search for the injury. My mind insists maybe it missed her.

It didn’t.

I find the entry wound to the bullet she took for me in her left shoulder.

“Come on. Let them work. She needs a hospital,” Nico says, shaking me, but I won’t let her go.

I don’t see or hear the EMTs arrive. Suddenly, they are just there.

“Sir, please. Let us help her,” a woman’s voice says, and I look her in the eye before I place Maria on the backboard.

“Help her. Now,” I say.

Pain like I’ve never felt lances me as I watch them work.

She’s unresponsive.

Fuck.

No.

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