Page 52 of Redemption
In a move I wasn’t expecting at all, she lifts her arm—the same one that was inching around to my ass only moments ago—and stabs the deadhead lingering just behind me, right through the temple.
Withmyknife.
The same one that was tucked intomyback pocket.
She then turns and lifts her baseball bat, spinning it around in a move that impresses the hell out of me before she smashes it into the next deadhead only a few feet away, the head flying off its body on impact. Her dog joins in the melee a second later, leaping and landing on another, holding it there on the ground until Alessandra is able to dispatch that one as well. It’s less than a minute before she’s taken out almost half of the group and successfully shocked me stupid.
With a determined shake of my head, I resituate my gaping jaw and get to work, pulling my knife from the deadhead at my feet before launching myself at the one on my left. When the last deadhead falls to the ground at my feet, I turn to her, questions flooding in my brain, but they all disappear the moment I see her.
She stands there like a warrior goddess. Her blonde hair—blood-stained, disheveled, and spotted with mud, grass, and twigs—cascades down her shoulders as they lift and lower with her heaving breaths. Her face is the perfect reflection of ethereal savagery as she lifts the bloody bat and wipes the gory remnants on her pant leg. Death surrounds her, but she’s glowing with life and vitality. Beautifully deadly. Stunningly lethal. Absolutely magnificent in her feminine glory.
A goddess of death.
In the simplest of terms that I’m now forced to use due to lack of any other sort of vocabulary,holy fucking shit. This woman has bewitched me with the carnage she’s laid out in a heap at our feet. So much so, it takes her snapping her fingers in front of my face to draw my attention away from her magnificent massacre.
“Earth to Darius! What the fuck, dude? Let’s go!” I shake my head, still unable to form any words. “Still bleeding here!” She presses the tips of her fingers together, creating an arrow shape that then points directly at the space between her thighs. “Darius!”
I blink a few times to try and get my shit together and not act like a fucking imbecile, but that all goes out the window when I let out a very undignified, “Huh?”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that? I. AM. BLEEDING... from my lady bits, and I can’t do anything about it in themiddle of bum-fuck-nowhere because those fucking asshats took everything, including my tampons! So, unless you have something else to shove up there to stem the flow—”
I smirk, half my brain no longer working while the other half is completely turned on. “I mean...”
“Absolutely not, Chewy. You can continue to go all Han Solo for all I care, cause my Wookiee is the last place you’re sticking your lightsaber.”
I scrunch my eyebrows together. “Did you just make a Star Wars reference? When did that start?”
“Yeah. That’s right. The guys taught me a thing or two about a thing or two. Including Star Wars! Not that you helped in that area.”
Well, fuck me... I wish it was me that did. What else have I missed?
Regardless, I shake my head, not ready to get into this with her. Not here. Not now that my brain is completely back online and in savior mode once again.
As she indicated, we need to find a place to shelter for the night and get her the supplies she needs before more deadheads come upon on us in the dark. No matter what she’s learned in the years since we parted, neither of us will survive the night exposed out here. Which means we no longer have the luxury of hiking until we get to the safehouse I originally intended to take her to. I rack my brain for an alternative. The next town should have one, but I know from experience it hasn’t been used in a while, and I’m not sure how well-stocked it is or the last time it was cleared. Despite all of that, however, it’s the only shot we’ve got.
“Come on. I know of another place we can stay.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jax
A sharp, stabbing pain races up and down the length of my back, radiating through my shoulders and up through my neck. My eyes scrunch as I try and fail to block out the pain coursing through me. The back of my head is throbbing and my mouth is drier than a desert, but all that gets pushed to the side as I try to make sense of my predicament.
I go to lift my hand, aching to rub my fingers across my eyes and forehead to relieve the strain, but for some reason I can’t. When I finally pry my aching eyes open, I realize one of my hands is restrained to the side of the bed with a padded cuff, while my free arm is nestled in a sling, a wide cloth wrapping it snugly against my torso.
Shit. How the hell did I get here?And what the hell happened that I needed to be tied to the bed?
My gaze drags across the small, bland, nondescript room. There’s a window on the wall opposite me, but not one that’s able to be opened. Just a solid pane of glass separating me from the world outside. I get a glimpse of the sun high in the sky as it peeks out from behind a cloud, giving me a vague idea as to what time it may be, but that’s it. The window offers no other clues. No sounds. No distinguishable landmarks. Only the occasional person silently scuffing their feet as they pass by.
Where am I?
Questions barrel through my mind as I try to remember how I got here, but all progress ceases as a previous thought hits me: I can’t hear the people just on the other side of that window. And if I can’t hear them... they can’t hear me.
My heart starts to race, sweat building on my brow as my anxiety builds. At my side, my fingertips tap out a steady rhythm on my thigh.
One, two... pause.... One, two.
It’s not helping the panic surging through my mind, but I continue the tiny gesture for somereason.
