His hands tightened around my neck, and I quickly grabbed hold of my Stone magic again, hardening my skin so that he couldn’t cut off my air any more than he already was.
“You bitch!” Porter growled. “You think you can run away from me? You think you can reject me? I love you! I’ve always loved you! Why can’t you love me back? Why?”
He wasn’t even talking to me anymore. He wasn’t even trying to kill me anymore. Not really. For Porter, this was still all about Maria, and I was just unfortunate enough to be her latest substitute.
Since I didn’t have my knives, I reached for my Ice magic, created a sharp dagger, and stabbed him in the bicep with it, just trying to get him to loosen his grip on my throat. He grunted with pain, but he didn’t let go, so I blasted the wound with my power, driving hundreds of tiny Ice needles deep down into his muscles.
That was finally enough to get him to lose his grip, at least with that one hand. I rammed my elbow up into his face, breaking his nose. He grunted again and rolled off me. I scrambled away from him and got back up onto my own feet.
And so did Porter.
Despite the bloody cuts on his face, the bruises covering his body, and the needles of Ice sticking up out of his arm like he was part porcupine, the dwarf got right back up. Even worse, he seemed just as strong as ever before. He didn’t teeter, didn’t stagger, didn’t even wobble, not the slightest, tiniest bit. It was like he didn’t even feel any of his injuries. Maybe he didn’t, given the snarling curses spewing past his lips and the determined rage glinting in his eyes. Or maybe he just didn’t care about anything other than killing me right now.
I’d never much cared for zombie movies, but I was starting to feel like I was trapped in one, because Porter just wouldn’t die. I’d collapsed an entire house on top of him, and he looked like it had just been a warm-up bout for the main event. If I’d had my knives, I could have eventually inflicted so many wounds on him that he would collapse and die from the blood loss alone. But I didn’t have my knives, and I didn’t have an easy way of killing him without getting dead myself, especially given how much damage he could inflict on me with his bare hands, something that he seemed very eager to do.
Porter growled and charged at me again, determined not to let me—or the ghost of Maria that I represented—get away.
So I did the only thing I could.
I sidestepped him, whirled around, and ran away.
? ? ?
I left the clearing in front of the cottage behind and darted into the woods like a deer being chased by a hunter. That’s exactly what I was at this moment.
“Come back here, you bitch!” he roared, charging through the trees behind me.
I forced myself to run faster, my boots kicking up sprays of snow and slipping on the slick, frozen leaves underneath. And of course, I hooked my foot on a gnarled root and stumbled right into a tree. I managed to turn my body so that only my left shoulder hit the thick, solid trunk, instead of my face, but the hard blow still sent a wave of pain shooting through that entire side of my body. I ignored the pain, yanked my foot free, and kept going.
The whole time that I ran, slipping and sliding through the patches of snow, I tried to think of some way that I could kill Porter before he killed me. But without my knives, my options were severely limited. I’d exhausted my Ice magic with that last blast of needles in his arm. Even the cold reserves stored in my spider rune pendant and ring were gone. All I had left now was my Stone power, and precious little of it, but that magic wouldn’t actually let me cut Porter down.
Another tree root clutched at my boot, tripping me again, and I forced myself to slow down before I fell and broke my ankle. If that happened, I was truly done for.
A stitch throbbed in my left side, and I stopped and ducked behind a tree. I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead and sucked down breath after breath, trying to slow my racing heart. After a minute of that, I made myself breathe in and out through my nose, so that I could listen and try to figure out where Porter was. But I didn’t hear him crashing through the trees after me, and only the steady rush of the river broke the snowy quiet.
I focused on the sound of the rushing water. It was much louder here than it had been outside the cottage, and I pushed away from the tree, trying to figure out how close I might be to the Aneirin River. A minute later, I stepped out of the woods. About fifty feet ahead of me, the ground dropped away completely, and I realized that I was looking at the cliffs that lined the river, the same ones that Finn and I had come across two nights ago.
And I suddenly realized how I could kill Porter once and for all—or at least take him down with me.
Instead of heading back into the woods, I left the trees behind and walked forward until I was standing by the edge of the cliffs. I peered down, but it looked the same as before. A hundred-foot drop, with a rocky shore below and the black ribbon of the river running alongside it.
More snow started to fall, turning into a steady shower. I stepped away from the edge, looking right and left through the thick, swirling flakes, but this spot was as good as any to make my last stand, so I turned around and faced the woods again. And then I stood there and waited, just waited for Porter to find me.
It didn’t take him long, since he knew the area a lot better than I did. Three minutes later, he ran out of the woods into the snow-dusted clearing in front of me.
“Maria, there you are,” he called out. “I knew that you couldn’t get away from me.”
Instead of offering up some fresh, cruel taunt, I shook my head, so that my dyed blond hair fell forward, covering most of my face, including my smeared, runny makeup. I also reached up and started curling a strand of it around my finger over and over again, playing along with Porter’s fantasy and giving him something to fixate on.
“Why would I run away from you, Bruce?” I crooned. “I was waiting here for you. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you.”
I had no idea what Maria Rivera’s voice had sounded like, so I made my tone low and breathy, without a trace of malice or sarcasm. It was the same tone that I’d heard Finn use when he was wooing a new client. And it actually seemed to work, because Porter nodded his head, agreeing with me.
“I know now that we belong together,” I said in that same breathy voice. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to realize it. I’ve been such a fool.”
For a moment, confusion filled Porter’s face, and I wondered if I’d gone too far, if I’d deviated too much from his memories of Maria and how she’d rejected him. But then his bloody, dusty face split into a wide smile, and he walked forward.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that,” he said, his voice taking on the same high, giddy note that he’d had in the cottage earlier.