She’s not alone in that. I have no idea what Natalie would even want with Cody, and the ice queen has passed by most of the places I thought she would’ve taken him.
Finally, she makes a turn off the main road, driving to an abandoned little spot near the side of the river. We’re practically outside of the city by now, in an area I’ve never been to before.
“What the fuck is she doing?” River asks, glancing around as Gage slows our car to a crawl.
There’s nothing here. Just some trees, set back from the road, and the rush of the river that sweeps along. It’s not even a nice part of the river, too close to the highway to be peaceful, and full of deep, murky water.
We pull to a stop far enough away that Natalie can’t see us, our car blocked from her sight by a few trees. All of us tensed and ready, and I crane my neck to peer through the small gap in the trees to where Natalie stopped.
After a second, Julian’s sister gets out of the car. But instead of getting Cody out too, she just slams the door closed once she’s out.
There’s a beep as she locks the doors, and I have a second to wonder what the fuck she’s doing before the car starts to roll forward. She never cut the engine, and she must’ve left the hand brake off too, because the car begins rolling down the embankment toward the river.
“Shit!” River curses, and she’s got that right. Because what the actual fuck is this bitch doing?
Dumb question, I think to myself. She’s trying to kill him.
We all jump into action at once, leaping out of our car and racing toward the bank of the river. So much for fucking subtlety. If we’d known she was going to try to murder Cody, we wouldn’t have followed at a distance at all. We would’ve gunned her down in the road and found a way to get the kid safely out of the car.
Natalie looks up and sees us coming, and her face twists into an ugly scowl.
“You!” she screams, focusing her gaze on River. “You bitch! You took him from me!”
She draws a small handgun from her purse and starts firing at us, but her aim is shit.
A bullet whizzes by River, far enough away that it doesn’t even graze her, but still way too close for my liking. I body check River out of the way, putting myself in the line of fire as the car picks up speed behind Natalie, crashing into the river with a splash.
“No!” River gasps, horror in her voice.
The Bentley begins to sink under the surface, and I fire off a shot at Natalie, forcing her to duck for cover behind a few rotted out logs that sit along the riverbank. My bullet hits one of the logs as she dives behind it, sending pieces of dead wood flying.
“Get the kid out of the car!” I yell to the others.
Then I make a beeline for Natalie.
I’m not letting this bitch hurt River, and I know that’s exactly who she’s gonna go after if I don’t keep her occupied.
Natalie pops up from behind the fallen logs as my brothers and River head for the water and the car currently sinking into it. Her gun is aimed for my head, but before she can shoot me, I duck out of the way, lunging for her to try to knock her off balance.
The logs are in my way, so although I manage to sink my shoulder into her solar plexus, it’s not as hard of a blow as I was going for. She wheezes when I hit her, but she doesn’t go down. Instead, she claws at me with her long-ass nails, raking them down my arm like fucking claws.
“You helped her!” she snarls, her cold mask of a face contorting into something ugly and feral. “Didn’t you? You killed my fucking brother!”
“Fucking brother,” I grunt, grappling with her as I try to twist my gun around to line up a shot. I’ll shoot her at point blank range if I have to. “Accurate description, coming from you.”
Natalie shrieks like a banshee, clearly not appreciating my joke. She dropped her gun when I tackled her, so we’re fighting over control of mine now, and she scratches me again, leaving bloody red marks on my skin.
“I’ll kill you,” she pants, her teeth bared. “I’ll kill all of you.”
Her voice is hoarse, and her pupils are so blown out that she looks like a goddamn shark. She’s lost just as much as Julian did before he died—more, even, since he’s gone too—and it’s clear she’s feeling it.
She’s vicious, fighting dirty as hell as she lashes out.
She goes for my crotch with her knee, and I shift to the side, trying to evade her strike.
I manage to block it for the most part, and her knee grazes the edge of my goods instead of hitting them square on. There’s still pain, but it’s definitely not as bad as it could have been if she’d gotten me right in the nuts.
“He gave her a baby,” she pants, pain making her voice raspy, “but he wouldn’t give me one.”
Fucking gross.
She wanted to kill Cody because he was a reminder that her brother had a kid with someone else. I don’t have anything to say to that, so I just nail her in the face with my elbow, splitting open her nose and sending blood cascading down over her mouth and chin. She grunts, baring her red-tinged teeth at me.
Natalie is fighting like someone who doesn’t have shit to lose, and it makes her wild and intense.
But it also makes her sloppy.
When she tries to grab the gun from me again, I pull back suddenly, opening up a little space between us as I fire.
“Ahh!” She screams as the bullet tags her in the side, her clawed fingers latching on to me as she goes down.
She pulls me off balance, and we hit the ground hard, slipping and sliding and skidding all the way down to the edge of the river, still trying to get the upper hand on each other.
Sharp stones and dirt grind into my skin, and then we hit the water, which is like a shock of cold all at once. The gun is knocked from my hand, and I curse, then have to close my mouth before I suck in a lungful of river water.
Natalie gasps, treading water wildly as she tries to find her footing in the deep, sludgy river, and I use that to my advantage. I grab ahold of her hair in a tight fist and shove her head under the surface.
She thrashes like crazy, splashing and sending up little waves of murky grayish water as she flails.
Bubbles rise to the surface, and I can feel her kicking at me, trying to get me to let her go. She twists around, trying to bite at my hand, her nails dragging over my skin again and again.
But I just hold on, keeping my grip on her hair and forcing her deeper under the water.
I told River once that she’s the strongest person I know, but I hate that she has to be strong. I hate that the world has forced her to go through so much bullshit just to survive.
So I’ll keep her from going through this too. I won’t make her carry this death with her, even though there’s no doubt in my mind that Natalie deserves it.
And I’ll be the one to give it to her.
More bubbles break the surface, and I can feel Natalie’s movements growing weaker beneath the water. Her limbs twitch a little, her entire body jerking as she fights for air. Then, finally, she goes still.
I keep her submerged for several more long moments, then release my hold on her, letting out a slow breath. I’m drenched, covered in dirt and blood, and the cuts on my arms sting like a bitch.