Page 99 of Their Cruel Love

Phoebe

Aimee hasn’t passed beneath me and the fastest has almost caught up to her. The rocks I’ve gathered are all sorts of sizes, and I’m sitting on a few. The rest are to either side on this small ledge. I adjust my butt and skew myself sideways to get a safer position to throw from, when he takes a huge stride and catches her shoulder.

He wrenches. She goes down on the rock-and-branch-strewn sand, screaming as her back hits.

I draw back my arm, adjust the angle, guessing at how much to heave on it to make it travel far enough. The rock must be a couple of kilos. When have I ever had someone’s life in my hands, depending on what I do?Milli, of course.The surge of sudden grief threatens to unravel me.

Not now! Shut up. Shut up!

The fucker smacks her across the face as she tries to rise. I hear the slap ever so clearly, hear her sob.

If I don’t sprain my wrist, Imighthit where I aim. Or I might kill Aimee.

He’s spotted where I’m hiding and grins up at me. “You’re fucking next!” Then he turns to Aimee, stamps on her back, pulls at her bra and rips it partially off her while removing his foot. The force spins her from where she was crawling.

They’re not below me, but Icanthrow that far. Imust.I lunge my arm forward and upward in a shotput motion. The rock spins through the air, plummeting rapidly in an arc. It thuds onto and glances off his shoulder, hard enough to stagger him and drop him to his knee beside Aimee.

He growls as he grabs her hair then hauls her higher, level with his face. Her expression is…not scared…no, she looks fearsomely angry. He snarls up at me, and already blood is seeping from where the rock tore off skin. Aimee gathers her knees under her, no doubt to relieve the tension on her neck. She scrabbles at the sand with her hands then raises one.

“Bitch!” He shakes her head but is talking to me. “Watch me kill her, then. All because you made me fucking piss?—”

Aimee swings her hand and she’s stabbed him in the eye with a stick, sinking it deep. Blood squirts in a small spout, dribbles then ceases. The sand puddles with blood.

He gargles and slumps, facedown on the beach, arms splaying uselessly.

It’s gone into his brain? “Ninja skills for the fucking win!” I whisper that, in awe.

I rock backward and almost unbalance. “Ohmigod, Aimee!”Don’t waste this, not this time.“Run!” I yell. “They’re still coming.”

She nods, grimacing as she levers herself upright, andtakes off again, methodical, measured, plodding.Admiration, girl.I hope she makes it, gets away, hides.

She has a chance if that security force gets here, and if I can get the others to forget her.

Which is why I spend the next fifteen minutes throwing stones down at a gathered mob of the assholes, taunting them, smashing rocks near them. I’ve not hit anyone else, except for one dude who tried coming up to get me. He’s sadly okay apart from a bruised arm.

They are wary due to the flaked-out corpse, now on its back with blood leaking from the eye socket. The stick protruding from said socket is gruesomely splendid.

When I run out of rocks, they begin to climb toward me, threatening to push me off with sticks. I’ve readied myself, am trying to stay unemotional, dead inside…well, not as dead as Mister Corpse, yet.

Okay, it’s impossible to not feel anything, to be fearless, to ignore how my hand can feel my heart thundering against my ribs when I place it there. Even so, I’ve amazed myself. I’ve done something here to be proud of. No one has departed to chase after Aimee.

This is when I get to choose. Jump now and die or injure myself, falling, or I can surrender.

I choose surrender. I knew I would. That’s preordained, by me.

Every second of life gives me more hope and more time to live. Few people ever choose to die early. I might regret this if I end up on that stone table, but I will face that moment if and when it comes to me.

“I’m coming down.” The stick from the man to the right, on a lower section, thrusts upward, catching my foot. “Stop poking me, you fuckwits! I’m coming.”

The second I hit the sand after a small jump, they knock me down with a punch to my gut and smash me into the sand. I get a faceful of it as they zip-tie me at hand and ankle then pull me to my feet.

“Smart.” I look at my feet, coughing, wincing at the pain. “Now you have to carry me, fools.”

That’s when someone punches me in the stomach again.

I drop to the sand, retching.

39

---