You Only Die Twice

Chapter FORTY-TWO





For a moment, stunned, they just lay there, she on her back with her eyelids fluttering, and he on top of her, his bloody smear of a mouth pressed against her cheek.

He wasn’t moving, but he was breathing. She could feel his hot breath huffing against her cheek and she felt cheated that she hadn’t killed him. She was pinned in such a way that she couldn’t see what she did to his head. How much damage did she cause?

“OOOOOOOG...” he said.

Not enough.

She tried to push him off her, but he was heavy, all muscle, and she quickly realized that she didn’t have the strength to lift him or shove him off her. And so she squirmed, but as she squirmed, it just roused him more. His eyes slitted open and, though at first he didn’t know where to look, his eyes eventually met hers and locked on them. She squirmed harder, but it was no use. There was no moving him.

And then he did something she never expected. He smiled down at her, his mouth a bloody hollow of hatred that possessed fewer teeth than she originally thought. She watched his thick tongue flick out and curl over his cracked bottom lip. He wasn’t fully conscious yet―it was as if he was coming out of sedation―but he was getting close to fully being awake, and that terrified her.

She spread out her arms and started to pat the ground, hoping to find the gun or a rock―something that would finish him off for good. But she found nothing.

And then it came to her.

Except for my hands.

She looked at his throat, noted how thick his neck was, and wondered if she could do it. Could she squeeze the life out of someone this rugged, even if he was in such a damaged state?

She wanted to. She wanted him to die for what he did to her and for what he and his dead partner did to Patty and to the other women. She wanted to watch his eyes bulge in terror when he realized that it was he who was dying, not somebody else.

Could she do it?

Probably not.

But Cheryl Dunning seized his throat, anyway.