Straightening, I strode towards the front of the car, my steps sure and steady even though my weariness made it feel as though I was slogging my way through wet sand.
“…to kill you! I’m going to enjoy feasting on your entrails. And when I’m done I’m going to fuck your corpse!” Samson was ranting, his hands clawing at the hood, rending deep gouges in the metal, but doing nothing to move the car. He was securely pinned, and that was just fine and dandy.
Standing just out of Samson’s reach I raised the gun, aiming at his head. At such a short distance, I couldn’t miss. Blowing a stray curl out of my eyes, I said, “Fuck you, Samson” and squeezed the trigger.
I’m not sure how long it took before I realized that the magazine was empty. Blinking away the red haze in my eyes, I grimaced at the knowledge that some of it wasn’t just from my seething rage. I looked down at his hateful, sneering face with triumph. It had been reduced to a bloody, lumpy mess of shattered bone and lifeless meat that bubbled and sizzled as the silver bullets ate away at what was left of his brain.
Try and heal that, you son of a bitch.
The sound of a choking sob crept into my awareness, and it wasn’t until the first heavy tear landed on my naked breast that I realized I was the one who was crying. Tossing the gun aside, I wiped the back of my hand over my eyes and turned away from the monster who had irreversibly altered my life in so many ways.
Holbrook had slid halfway out of the car by the time I got back to him, the blood from his nose having slowed to a trickle. He jerked back to consciousness when I laid a hand on his shoulder, his glazed eyes roaming over my face.
“Did we get him?” he asked, his words slurred and rasping.
“Yeah, we got him,” I replied, sparing a glance at Samson’s bloody and broken body pinned between the car and the tree. “We got him.”
As dawn lightened the sky beyond the trees, I hauled Holbrook out of the car, pulling him up to his feet where he leaned against me, his mostly good arm draped across my shoulders for support. We stood there in silence for a long while, watching the sky fade from black to blue streaked with gold, until the birds took up the first songs of the day. I didn’t even care that I was naked as a jaybird. My feeling of vindication was enough to keep me warm.
“Looks like it’s gonna be a beautiful day,” Holbrook commented offhandedly.
“Sure does,” I replied with a smile.
About the Author
Born and raised in England until the age of thirteen, A.J. Colby moved across the Atlantic and settled in Colorado in the mid-nineties, where she has resided ever since. Enchanted by science fiction and fantasy from an early age, she has made it her life’s mission to one day pen her own story filled with vampires, werewolves, and ghouls (oh my!) A.J. lives in the shadow of the majestic Rocky Mountains with her fiancé/manager/pimp, Mr. Awesome Sauce and their horde of feline minions. When not writing she divides her time between reading, playing World of Warcraft, and collecting sewing machines and neurosis.
Find out more about the author at http://www.ajcolbyauthor.com.
Riley’s adventures continue in Bitten, now available on Amazon!