Page 21 of Stream & Scream
I let her.
I give her enough time for her brain to screamrun, for the blood to drain from her face and dump adrenaline into her veins like gasoline. She bolts between the trees, panic racing through her, limbs flailing, braid whipping behind her.
I don’t move right away.
I savor it.
That raw, flailing desperation. The sound of her sneakers slapping against the forest floor. The way she gasps for air like it’s burning her lungs. She thinks she’s fast. Thinks she’s clever. Thinks the darkness might swallow her up and keep her safe.
Poor little disciple.
Running through the trees like God might pluck her out of the fucking dirt and drop her in heaven if she prays hard enough. Like some hymn’s gonna stop a hollow-point from blowing her kneecap open.
She’s not a contestant.
She’s a martyr-in-training, bleeding for a religion that won’t bleed back.
But no one told her the shadows belong to me.
Then I move.
Like aweapon. Like death. Boots silent. Breath slow. Rifle cradled against my chest, angled down but ready, like a third arm I could shoot blind with. The forest bends around me. Branches make way. The ground softens under my step. I’ve done this before, in places colder and crueler than this. Bulgaria. Fog thick as gauze, blood freezing on my knife. I’ve stalkedthrough snowstorms and slit throats while their lips still tried to form the wordmercy.
This?
This isfun.
She stumbles through a wall of brambles, curses tearing from her throat in ragged sobs. I hear her voice crack, just a whimper now, raw and thin. There’s no control left. No strategy. Just survival and poor instincts, but fear makes a shitty compass.
I lift the rifle, exhale, and pull the trigger.
Thup.
The silenced round hisses through the trees, striking her in the thigh. She screams—not the shrill, girlish kind that slices the night into pretty shards. No, this one’s lower. Guttural. Torn straight from the gut like it’s trying to crawl up her spine and escape her mouth before death does.
She crumples. Knee to damp earth, palms skidding through wet mulch. I see the panic twitch across her shoulders, the realization that she’s not alone, and not fast enough.
But she scrambles back up.
Good.
Bleeding now. That thigh’s fucked. She’s favoring it, limping like a wounded fawn still trying to outrun the wolf. The pain keeps her sharp. The dread keeps her honest. Her pace falters but doesn’t break, and I’ll give her that, she wants to live so badly it almost turns me on.
Almost.
I fire again.
Lower. Just beneath the calf. A warning shot that doesn’t miss. It punches through meat and tendon with a wetcrack, spraying the bark beside her. It doesn’t drop her, but it should’ve.
She chokes on a sob and keeps going. Her braid flaps behind her like a white flag. Her arms pump with desperate rhythm, butI can see the trembling in her fingers. Blood slicks her boot print. She stumbles again, because of me, and it’s so satisfying I almost laugh.
I track her through the scope, not bothering to shoot again just yet. Let her run. Let her hope.
Then I click the modulator mic on. Just one tap.
“Come on, choir girl.” My voice drips static through the helmet. Cold, cruel. Designed for broadcast. “Is this where you pray harder? Or scream louder?”
She gasps.
