Page 109 of Gunner

“Oh, this is priceless. That fucking biker has been sitting outside your house all hours of the day and night, watching you. Why do you think it took so fucking long for me to get to you?”

That meant he wasn’t out there now.

Ok, Haizley, you’re on your own. You know what to do. Corbin taught you how to get out of this.

I didn’t think and slammed my head into Greg’s nose, hearing a loud crack. I wasn’t sure if it was his nose or my head because that fucking hurt. He dropped my arms, and his hands went to his face. I wanted to run, but the stars distracted my sense of self preservation. Shaking my head, I moved away slowly before I tried to run. That was my mistake. I waited too long, because Greg got his bearings faster than I did.

When I turned to run, he grabbed me by my braid, pulled me back against his chest, then bent me over, slamming my face onto the counter.

“I was gonna be nice and make it good for you since, you know, this will be your last time. But fuck, this position works fine for me.”

He leaned his body over mine, trapping me between him and the counter. One arm pressed firm across my shoulders, while he used his other to try to get my pants off.

Thank God I wore jeans today and not sweats.

I stomped on his foot, and he cried out, then slammed my head against the counter again. Now we had matching broken bones.

Pushing his arm down across my shoulders, harder than before, made it difficult for me to breathe. Because he was in such a rush, he failed to constrict my arms, an oversight that would come back to haunt him. With my arms extended before me, I was in the exact same place as when I had just finished eating dinner a short time ago. I put the leftovers away in the refrigerator, but the used silverware and plate sat on the counter, still dirty. Grabbing the knife with my right hand, silently thanking Gunner for getting me something that needed to be cut, I pulled it close to my neck.

I couldn’t let him see that I had it.

With my other hand, I grabbed the plate and swung it over my head, trying to hit him with it. I heard the plate break when it hit the floor, but it must have hit him enough to piss him off because he pulled me up from the counter and spun me around. His arm went up, backhanding me across the face, adding a cut on my cheek to the broken nose.

“You fucking bitch!” Spittle flew from his mouth, hitting my face, but I couldn’t think about that right now. I had seconds to make a decision that might haunt me for the rest of my life.

Time seemed to slow down once my mind understood it was him or me and fuck what anyone thought. He didn’t deserve to live. He didn’t deserve to continue terrorizing women, raping them, maybe now killing them. There was no question what I was about to do would save countless women. Greg tried to pull my shirt up and off my body. When he lifted my arms, he saw the knife and his eyes widened.

He hesitated.

I didn’t.

I brought my arm down and stabbed the knife into his neck. It sliced through his skin with no hesitation. I had taken an anatomy class in college. I knew where the carotid artery was, but when you’re fighting for your life, it was easy to miss. But Ialso knew I was close. I didn’t lift the knife; I couldn’t take the chance he would snatch it away from me and stab me with it. No, I left it lodged in his throat while I twisted that son of a bitch deeper, making sure it spun around. Only then did I yank it out as blood spurted all over us both.

The whole scene took seconds. But watching him stumble backwards, grabbing at his neck, the blood seeping through his fingers as he tried to stem the flow, felt like watching a horror movie in slow motion. My hands and knees slammed against the floor when he released me, his body no longer there to hold me up.

I sat there numb as blood seeped from his mouth and he gurgled, trying to breathe. He was drowning in his own blood, and I watched, my eyes never leaving his.

“Fuck you, asshole!” I screamed.

I didn’t move while his life drained from his body. I needed to be sure he was dead. He blinked three more times; his body frozen, hand outstretched as though he thought I would do something to help him.

Talk about a fucking narcissist.

As his lifeless eyes stared back at me, I wrestled with my next decision.

Should I call the sheriff or Corbin? This was clearly self-defense. The man was a wanted fugitive, his crimes—drugging and raping numerous women throughout western Nebraska—causing widespread terror and a desperate manhunt.

Or should I call Gunner and let the club help me?

This was a textbook example of a catch-22. Six of one, half a dozen of another. I didn’t believe for a second the sheriff would rule this anything other than self-defense, and Corbin would do what he could to protect me. But they were both bound by the law.

Even if I called him directly instead of calling 9-1-1.

It would take time to prove self-defense. My patients would be affected. I could lose my license just for being held in a police station.

Decision made; I stood from where I sat, my eyes never leaving the dead body on the floor. I might have been in shock, but in every horror movie I had ever seen, the bad guy came back and had to be shot in the head or have his head cut off.

Shuddering, I considered it for a minute. I didn’t have a gun, but there was an axe in the shed. My father used it to chop wood. Now I had my wood delivered.

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