Arina ran away into another part of the house, and I followed, only to be clotheslined by Thomas as I ran around the corner. I couldn’t breathe, scream, or get away when his thumb found my pressure point and made me pass out.
I woke up in the shed, cursing myself. I would rather have been here to help Bee than safe in the house anyway.
“Stop, wait!” Arina tries to grab my feet, and I wiggle further out, gasping. My ass is going to get stuck in this damn window, I think. Damnit!
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Screaming, I turn my face to see who is speaking, half hanging out of this God forsaken window. A man with short brown hair walks into my vision, looking both amused and horrified. My hands keep slipping because of the blood on them, and I’m trying desperately to ignore it. I don’t care about killing a man, I care that the bastard’s fluids are on me.
Green eyes catch mine, and I realize I can’t hear him anymore. Fuck, this is what panic looks like.
“I can’t, just wait,” I mumble, twisting to get out of the window. “I’m stuck!”
“Dahlia, it’s fine,” the man says, and I shake my head. He shouldn’t know that name. “It’s Greg, honey. Come on, give me your hands.”
Recognizing his name, I relax, nodding. While I know the name, I’ve never spoken to him or seen him.
Reaching out, he grabs my bloody hands with his gloved ones. Being stuck means my bruised stomach muscles are painfully pressing against the window, and I gasp.
“Is any of this yours?” he asks, and I shake my head, feeling myself starting to slide forward.
“Fuck,” I gasp, my body falling through the window. Greg easily catches me, refusing to put me down.
“Frostbite doesn’t help you,” he grunts. “Get on my back, I’ll even let you stab people.”
“Promise? Gareth has Bee,” I tell him, settling on his back like a damn monkey.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna fly,” he mutters, stalking forward. I try to make sure not to get in his way, feeling every bump and bruise, but refusing to acknowledge it.
As I gaze around, I see people getting closer to us. They’re silent, so I do the same. A hand touches my shoulder when I turn my head, making me jump.
“Easy, Dahlia,” Greg murmurs. “They’re right up ahead.”
“It’s just me, baby,” Jack says softly, his gloved hand moving to my bloody hand.
“Not mine,” I rasp softly, and he nods. Together, we move forward, and Greg grabs a wicked knife, handing it up to me.
I can vaguely see two people grappling together, and then I hear Bronwyn scream in frustration. This snow is so heavy, it looks as if I’m going to be flirting with frostbite after all. The wind pulls at my braid, tendrils whipping across my face.
“Go help her,” Greg says softly. “No matter what, Gareth isn’t leaving here alive.”
Jack growls under his breath, but I hop down from Greg’s back and run through the snow to where Gareth and Bee are. I won't be able to feel my toes soon, but as long as I’m with Bee, it won’t matter.
Gareth is on top of her, so I shove my knife into the base of his skull, hoping to sever his vertebrae. I learned a lot about the body while studying for my GED, but I doubt this is the way they thought I’d use the information.
Kicking him off Bee, I help her up, breathing hard.
“He’s never going to stop,” I wheeze. The bastard is bleeding onto the snow, his legs trying to shove himself away. He looks like a beached whale. While not paralyzed, Gareth is having a bad time of things.
“Nope,” she mutters, her eyes on him as she threads her fingers in mine as she’s done a million times before. “Together?”
“Always and forever,” I whisper, my toes beginning to go numb as I walk with her. “Gareth, you’ve been a very bad boy.”
I pitch my voice to sound as creepy as possible as we continue to get closer. I’m aware this isn’t self defense, it’s murder, but this man has terrorized my body, my thoughts, and my dreams for so long that I can’t bring myself to care about morality.
Right and wrong have no place here. I’m not disassociating, but don’t think that what we’re doing is all that terrible. We’re ridding the world of an evil human.
“Fucking psycho,” Gareth growls as I walk up his body, only to drop onto his chest on my knees, enjoying the answering grunt. His coat is keeping my feet out of the snow, especially when Bee drops next to me to help unbutton it.