Page 55 of The Girl He Claimed

Paige managed to sidestep a jab ather body, only for Caroline to drive the scalpel into her shoulder as shepassed by.

Paige cried out in pain as theblade sliced into her shoulder, the vibrations shooting down her arm. Shedropped the knife she held as the arm went numb.

Caroline lunged in again then, thetwo of them slamming into one another. Paige grabbed Caroline's wrist,determined to keep the blade away from her flesh. The two of them hit out atone another with fists and elbows, heads and knees, each trying to get theother to relinquish her grip on the weapon.

Paige wrenched at Caroline's arm,putting her full weight against it and twisting, ignoring Caroline's attemptsto hit her while she did it. The scalpel dropped from Caroline's hand,clattering to the floor, where Paige kicked it away.

The two of them grappled then, eachtrying to get a hand on the other's throat. They struck out at one another inclose. Paige won that battle, bringing her knee up just as Caroline tried toknee her. Paige hit her in the abdomen, then the solar plexus. Caroline doubledover, and Paige let her fall to the ground.

Paige followed her, working to getCaroline into a position where she could pin her down. Caroline fought withwild strength and absolute brutality, reaching up to try to gouge Paige's eyes,trying to bite her. Paige managed to block the movement, but it allowedCaroline to push her off.

Caroline lunged towardsChristopher, and for a moment, Paige thought that it was to try to finish him,but then she saw that Christopher's gun was back in his belt. Caroline had leftit there, apparently deciding that with Christopher tied and sedated, it wasn'ta threat. Maybe she'd even wanted to make a point of it, giving Christopherback a weapon he could use against her while keeping him completely helpless.

Now, she obviously intended to usethat weapon against Paige. Paige couldn't let her get to it.

Paige launched herself at Caroline,tackling her to the ground. She felt the impact reverberate through her entirebody, but she ignored the pain, focused only on keeping Caroline away fromChristopher's gun.

Caroline fought back ferociously,her eyes wide with fury and madness. Paige could feel her strength waning, thephysical toll of the fight catching up to her. She knew that she couldn't holdout much longer.

Paige shook her head. She had to dothis, or she and Christopher would both die. With a surge of energy, Paige hitCaroline, then hit her again. Paige kept hitting her, the need to protectherself and Christopher mixed in with fury at everything this woman had done,everything she'd taken from Paige. At that moment, Paige saw her father, sawProf. Thornton, and saw Haley and Jennifer. Paige struck out again and againuntil Caroline went limp beneath her.

The temptation then was to keeppunching, to keep hitting Caroline until there was nothing left of her. To killher the way she'd killed so many others. Paige had promised herself revenge forher father's death—well, this was the moment to take it.

It took everything Paige had tohold back to wrench Caroline's arms behind her back instead and cuff her.

She threw herself forward, then,towards Christopher. She snatched up her fallen knife and used it to slashthrough the ropes holding him.

"Hold on, Christopher. I'mgoing to call for help. Hold on."

Paige used the knife to slashChristopher's jacket into strips to make rough tourniquets, hoping that theywould be enough to stop the bleeding. She knew that she couldn't keep pressureon Christopher's wounds all at once.

"Stay with me," Paigesaid, looking into his eyes as she put in a call to Agent Sauer. He would beable to get them help faster than anyone else.

"I... I love you Paige,"Christopher said. It sounded too much like he was saying goodbye.

"I love you too," Paigeassured him. "Just stay with me. Fight, Christopher."

"Oh, how touching."

Paige turned towards the sound ofthe new voice. Adam stood there at the entrance to the room. He'd found Paige'sgun somewhere and was pointing it at her now.

"It seems that you don't haveit in you to be a killer after all," he said. "You don't even havewhat it takes to kill your father's murderer. I guess I was wrong aboutyou."

"If you'd been right, I wouldhave killed you a long time ago, Adam," Paige said, standing.

"And now I get to kill youinstead. That's pretty good for me, isn't it?"

Adam took a step forward.

"Of course, it's not so goodfor the two of you."

Paige circled away fromChristopher, hoping for a chance to get close, to take Adam down. She still hadthe knife, after all. Adam was keeping his distance, though, and he pointed hisgun right at her.

"So, this is what's going tohappen, Paige," he said. "I'm going to shoot you, because you're fartoo much trouble not to shoot. Then, I'm going to watch while your boyfriendthere bleeds out. Finally, since you've wrapped up Caroline so nicely for me,maybe I'll get to kill someone my way at the end of all of this. I win, Paige,you lose."

"Adam-"

"Talking won't help now. Youthink you're going to use some psychological trick? You think you're going topersuade me? I'm not in the mood for last words. Goodbye, Paige."

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