The chunky blond guy in shorts who had been fondling himself came up in front of me, brandishing a switchblade. I snarled at him, egging him on with incomprehensible taunts. He took a step forward, holding his knife in front of him, waiting to jab it into my gut. I pushed back against Buzz-cut’s chest, ignoring the pull on my shoulder sockets, and Chunky took another step forward. Stupid fuck.
I wrenched forward and then angled myself back, using the guy holding on to me as leverage. I brought my legs up high and wrapped my ankles around Chunky’s neck. The muscles in my legs constricted, pulling him up between my thighs, and I twisted the lower half of my body to the side. I heard the distinctive crack as the strength of my femurs broke his neck, and he fell to the ground with his mouth opening and closing rapidly, trying to make a sound.
As my legs dropped back to the sand, I bent at the waist and brought Buzz-cut up and over my back to land on his companion. As I dove towards him, my left hand went to his throat, but the angle was awkward due to the position of the dying fucker with the knife lying next to his outstretched hand. As Buzz-cut tried to reach for the knife, I pounded my right fist into his face over and over again. I smashed my fist into both of his eye sockets, and blood poured from his eyes, mouth, and nose. My fist continued to do irreparable damage to the bastard’s face as I registered Raine’s screams to my right and glanced over to her.
Ponytail was dragging her backwards through the shallow water towards a small speedboat anchored just a few feet from the beach. I hadn’t even seen the boat before since my attention had been otherwise focused. They were almost to the boat itself, and he grabbed Raine by the waist, throwing her up and over the short bow before I could react. I pulled myself up onto my feet and jabbed my heel out to Buzz-cut’s knee as I rose. The sharp cracking sound of his knee bending back at the wrong angle, breaking his leg in the process, was drowned out by his screaming. Buzz-cut with his now broken knee and fucked up face was immediately forgotten as I shoved away from him and started towards the boat.
Pressure in a tight, distinct line registered on the back of my right thigh, just above the back of my knee, followed by the pain. I ignored it and ran on. Ponytail was on the ladder running over the side of the boat, and then he was on board and the motor started up. My feet pounded on the wet sand as he floored the gas. The boat tore out across the water. I was too far away. I couldn’t reach it in time.
One hundred feet away. I watched impotently as my reason for existence was roughly grabbed and thrown to the floor of the boat. My gut wrenched, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.
Two hundred feet away. I watched the motherfucker raise his middle finger to me and heard his laughter before he turned back to his cargo.
Three hundred feet away. Raine was screaming again, and I saw Ponytail’s foot rise up and kick towards the bottom of the boat.
Four hundred feet away. I felt blood dripping down the back of my leg and hoped whatever the injury was, that it would be enough to kill me, but I doubted it.
Five hundred feet away. I saw the anchor for the boat still partially buried in the sand near the edge of the water – and the long rope attached to it.
My feet splashed in the shallow water, and the drag from the waves pulled at my legs. I dove through the air in one huge leap and wrapped my wrist around the rope to the anchor. I raised my other hand to grasp the rope a little higher up and started to pull. Sharp, intense pain traveled up the back of my leg as it hit the water. I tightened my shoulders and biceps to keep my arms from being pulled out of their sockets as I rocketed forward.
The boat began to drag me behind it, and keeping my head above the water was nearly impossible. Salty fluid filled my nose, and I coughed to get it out, which only caused me to inhale more water. Tilting my chin to my chest, I could no longer see in front of me, but at least I could keep from drowning before I got to the boat. I kept pulling with my arms, ignoring the pain in my biceps, my lungs, my leg. Counting each pull with my arms, I measured the distance in my head until I was nearing the back of the boat and the propellers. By some miracle, the fucker hadn’t turned around to see me hanging on to the rope. I held on tight to a large knot tied in the line – as close as I could get without hitting the propeller – and reached around to the side to pull my body up to the edge. My fingers scraped over the rough surface, but I corrected my grip and pulled myself onto the ledge at the back of the boat.
Raine was on the floor with blood coming out of a cut on her lip, and that motherfucking bastard was standing over her. As my feet hit the deck, he turned, and his eyes widened as he realized I was really there. His shock didn’t last long, and he reached down and pulled Raine onto her feet, held her in front of him, and wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“You might as well let go,” I said. My voice was calm, and the back of my mind registered it as Landon’s voice of death. In my mind I wondered if I had ever sounded like this before. “No matter what else happens here, you are going to die. That’s a given.”