Page 68 of The Girl and the Cobra

“He lost his son. He has every right to feel angry and broken.” Softer, Mabel adds, “I don’t want you to kill him.”

All of the fury in me, all of the rage and indignation; all signs should point to me pulling the trigger and killing this asshole. If I was the old me, the man would already be dead.

But I guess that’s the thing, isn’t it? I’m not the old me. I may still have the skills that made the Cobra so deadly, but I’m not just the Cobra anymore. I’m so much more. No longer am I a dead man walking—I am alive.

And I owe it to the girl behind me, telling me not to end this miserable fool’s life.

I let out a harsh breath as my shoulders relax. The man lays on his back on the ground, too terrified to get up. That said, just because I’m not putting a bullet into him right now doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods completely.

With an expert twirl of the hunting rifle, I smash the butt of it against his nose hard enough to crack the cartilage and knock him out. One swift hit is all it takes for his head to fly back against the ground as unconsciousness takes hold of him and blood oozes from his nostrils.

The rifle has a strap, so I swing it up and over my head and fling the rifle around to my back before I turn to face Mabel. My plan is to take her in my arms and bury my face in her hair and tell her she’s never leaving my sight again, but she beats me to the punch, so to speak.

Mabel rushes into me, throwing her arms around me and saying, “I thought I was going to die.”

My arms wrap around her, and I hold her tightly as I lean my head down and breathe her in. “Not while I’m still breathing. No one in the world could stop me from getting to you, Mabel.”

She angles her head back and gazes up at me, the expression on her face way too soft and gentle, considering what nearly happened. “It was so close to happening… but it made merealize, I don’t want to die anymore. I want to live—and I want to be with you. I…” She swallows, as if what she’s about to say isn’t the easiest thing. “I love you.”

The words hit me like a brick, but in the best way. If I wasn’t holding onto Mabel herself, I might think I walked into a dream. The world around us fades away, nothing but fuzzy shadows, and the only thing that matters is the girl in my arms.

My Mabel.

My hands raise to her face, and I cup her cheeks as I lean down. I never thought a man like me could feel the kind of love they make movies about, the kind of soul-altering love that changes you, but here I am. Just a man, about to bear his soul to the one person in all the world that completes him.

“I was born incomplete,” I whisper. “A shell of a person, never whole. I thought that was all I could ever be, but you proved me wrong. You turned my world right-side up, and for the first time in my life, I am whole. With you, I am whole—and I will spend the rest of my life being the man you deserve. I love you more than life itself.”

And then, because there’s absolutely nothing left to say, I kiss her.

Mabel melts into me, her mouth pliant and supple as she receives the urgent kiss. I practically see stars in my mind’s eye. The world spins around us. Nothing at all matters to me other than the soft, sweet girl in my hands.

I could kiss her all night—well, kiss her and do other things to her. Or with her, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I can’t truly show her just how much I love her standing here, in the middle of the forest, with an unconscious asshole nearby.

Plus, I have a little something I want to give to Wolf.

So in the end, though it’s laborious to do so, I tug my mouth off hers and say, “Wolf is waiting for us at the trailhead.” I let go of Mabel’s face and turn to the man on the ground. The bloodfrom his broken nose almost looks black in the moonlight, and with his unconscious position, it trailed down both sides of his face.

I know we can’t leave him here, so I pick him up and bring him with us. Of course, I’d much rather have Mabel in my arms, but sometimes sacrifices must be made. Besides, when we reach the house, I plan on taking Mabel to her room and diving deep into her by showing her how much I love her with things other than words.

With the man scrunched up in my arms, it’s a bit of a chore to reach the trailhead. Sometime during the trek, Mabel asks, “How did you find me so fast?”

I bet Wolf wouldn’t want me telling her, but what’s the harm? She could have died tonight. She should know just how deep Wolf’s machinations lie. “Wolf put trackers into all of your shoes.” My jaw grinds after I say it aloud; I bet he put trackers into mine, too, now that I’m thinking about it. Son of a bitch.

“What? Trackers in my… how?” She actually sounds shocked, like she hadn’t ever thought that was a possibility. The wonders of being naive to Wolf’s true nature. “And why?”

“That’s something you’ll have to ask him.”

“Hmm. I guess so.”

As we hike it to the trailhead, I can’t help but feel a certain kind of relief. In fact, I’ve never felt more relieved in my entire life. If Mabel would have died tonight… there would have been three other souls following. The asshole in my arms, Wolf… and me.

There is no life worth living if Mabel isn’t in it.

After a while, we make it to the trailhead and the small parking lot there, where Wolf is waiting, leaning on the front of his car. His vehicle is still running, so the headlights are on and facing us as we approach him. Fortunately, a thick line of treesfill the space between the parking lot and the road, so if someone happened to drive by, they wouldn’t see exactly what’s going on.

And what’s going on would be pretty damn difficult to explain to the authorities.

I’m not careful as I drop the man onto the gravel and dirt parking lot floor as I glare at Wolf. Wolf, for his part, sees Mabel is still alive, but he only manages to speak one word, “Mabel,” before I step closer and level a hard punch right at his face. I hit him so hard his body has to take a step back, and his glasses fall to the ground as a result of the punch.

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