Page 46 of Survivor
He was silent for a long beat. “Maybe I am. So what?” His gaze fell to the bottle. “What are you going to do with that, Rogue?”
I held it up and shrugged. “I don’t know … Smash you around the head with it?”
“You’ll have to get close to do that.”
He beckoned me with his free hand. “Are you coming? Or do you want me to chase you?”
Fear gripped the back of my mind, and this time, I allowed it to fuel me. I grabbed it, turned it on its head, and charged. I swerved at the last moment and fell to my knees, smashing the bottle into his knee cap.
Marick screamed, and the sound sent a satisfying surge through me. I was up and swinging again, but Marick twisted his body out of the way so fast he was a blur, and then a sharp stinging pain sliced across my abdomen.
I leaped back, clutching my torso. Wet and warm.
He’d cut me.
We faced off, circling each other. He was limping. Good.
“You didn’t scream.” He sounded pissed.
“You screamed enough for the both of us.”
He lunged at me suddenly, catching me around the waist and taking me down. My head slammed off the ground, and the world went black for a moment.
A hand on my throat.
I couldn’t breathe.
I brought the bottle up to smash it against his head. It shattered with a satisfying sound.
His grip relaxed, and I bucked and twisted out from under him, my head swimming, torso burning. I was losing blood. Too much blood. I needed to get away. My knees slipped out from under me as he hauled me back by my ankles. And then I was flat on my belly with him on top.
His breath was hot on the side of my face. “It’s time to pay, Rogue.”
He was hard against me, hands tugging at my shorts.
Panic flooded me. “No!” I thrashed, trying to get free, hands searching the ground for something, anything I could use.
A slender metallic object. I grasped it.
I need to go look for my laser pen in the cargo bay …
Laser. My thumb located the switch, and I pointed over my shoulder and fired.
Marick’s scream was a high-pitched, horrific thing. He was off me instantly. I rolled and stood, laser pointed. He was on the ground clutching his face and moaning.
I stood staring at him. The monster that had haunted my nightmares for so long. The man who’d made my life a misery for too long.
“Look at me.” I cut into his hand with the laser.
He screamed again.
“Look at me!”
He lifted his head, still clutching the smoldering wound on his face. One of his eyes was gone. Burned away.
I stepped closer and leaned in. “You’re finished, Marick. Done. You won’t ever hurt anyone else, ever again.”
I reared back and then kicked him in the head.
