“Leave her alone.” Joshua’s pitiful voice cracked and he started crying.
Jackson snarled, “You little shit.”
Chick fighting is never attractive, especially when you’ve taken self-defense and know how to throw a decent punch or a jaw-dropping roundhouse. But as my instructor Mike is always so keen to remind his devoted followers—a smart fighter acclimates to their surroundings, takes what they’re offered, and gives thanks to Lady Luck. It was such a mindset that had me springing from the floor and launching onto Jackson’s back the moment she started for the boy.
I twined my legs around her slim waist and latched them together at the ankles. She spun in a circle, clawing at my arms as she tried to dislodge me. The sharp edge of the kitchen counter met the fleshy part of my lower back, sending a sharp spike of pain up my spine, and I cried out. I sent probing fingers across her face, searching for and finding the sponginess of eye tissue. I plunged the tips into the slippery orbs, making sure my fingernails pierced first.
Her hoarse bellow of agony was highly gratifying, as was the pop and disgusting fluid slurp when my index fingers sank through the rounded orbs and into the sockets. I didn’t stop applying pressure, burying my fingers into her face until I touched the unyielding solidity of bone. She darted from side to side, clawing at my hands, trying to protect the wounds I’d created.
“Don’t like that, do you?” I yelled, knowing the bitch had the lesson coming for a long-ass time. “It’s no fun when you’re on the receiving end of what you like to dish out, is it, Foo-Foo?”
Rubbing in my current victory was the wrong thing to do.
Jackson pounded my back against the counter, using all her strength—which was damn impressive. My thighs trembled and weakened, as did the muscles in my arms. The pain in my spine was dull and agonizing. Each blow I received felt stronger than the one before. My fingers slid from Jackson’s hollow eye sockets. When I was forced to place my hands somewhere on her body or risk busting my ass, I gripped the tips of her ears. She thrust me back and I flexed my muscles and yanked my hands down. Thin cartilage and skin detached from her skull, her ears ripping away from her face.
She screamed in a mixture of misery and outrage. The sound gave me a newfound strength. I tugged on her lobes, forcing them down, and ripped the skin and cartilage down to the bone. As she flailed and yelled, I flexed my thigh muscles again, holding on to her for dear life.
Unexpectedly, she stopped bashing me against the counter. She reached over her head and swiped her claws at my face. A couple of sweeps of her nails broke the surface of my skin, but the feeling was pleasurable compared to the misery of the ceramic counter I’d kissed multiple times with my kidneys.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” she roared, slashing at my shoulders and face.
I was beyond furious and exhausted, which made my snarky retort weaker than I’d have preferred. “Not if I kill you first.”
The cold hard truth was I was fed with up being clawed, mangled and constantly thrown for a loop. Being in this reality blew balls. I was tired, confused and just wanted to go home. I didn’t have my crucifix, my Ruger, or my beloved butterfly knife. There was only one saving grace, something that kept me going—a shitload of pent-up heartbreak and anguish that needed an outlet. I might regret my decision later. There was a chance I might infect myself with a disease. I figured if I didn’t kill the bitch, I was doomed to die either way.
I used the thighs manacled to Jackson’s waist as leverage when I leaned forward and buried my teeth into the nape of her neck. The skin gave way without the assistance of sharp incisors or canines, and her blood flowed into my mouth. The amulet went molten hot against my chest, burning like an open flame through the thin cotton, but I was numb to it.
Jackson’s roar of pain was the only thing I wanted to consider.