Page 75 of Worth the Ruin
I stoop to grab the knife but a wave of dizziness crashes through me and I stagger, blinking away black spots. The momentary distraction is enough for Pete to tackle me from the side. The air whooshes from my lungs as we hit the ground and Pete rolls on top of me, straddling my hips and pinning me down. His blood is still flowing and heavy drops land on my chest. He slaps me again and I see stars, but when he comes back down for a second strike, this time with the knife in his hand once more, I throw my hands up to block his descent. He bares his teeth and digs the fingers of his other hand into the ground beside my head as he tries to force the blade towards my throat, inch by inch.
“You bitch,” Pete growls.
“Fuck you,” I spit back, gritting my teeth as I fight to keep the knife from plunging downward.
Commotion erupts outside, screams and gunshots, and I know that something serious is going down out there. I know in my gut that it’s Austin and pure love floods my chest like lava, warming every inch of me. He managed to get out of whatever bonds they’d put on him and now, they were paying for it.That’s my man.
“See what the fuck is going on!” Pete roars and Manny dashes to one of the windows that still miraculously has glass in it.
“Ohfuck,” Manny manages to get out just before the door to the barn flies open. I turn my head, still pushing desperately against Pete’s wrist as he forces it downward, and watch as Austin steps through.Holy shit. He looks like some kind of avenging angel with the sunlight filtering down on him from a hole in the roof, the blood splattered all over his chest and arms and face, and the absolute blazing fury in his eyes. He might as well have a sword of fire, dark wings flaring out behind his back.
“MELODY!” he roars and my chest twists. The fear. The worry. The fury. But despite all of that, I grin up at Pete savagely, letting him know without words that he and his friends are all as good as dead.
Manny attacks Austin with the machete in his hand and my heart stops being for a second. Austin grips his hatchet with both hands, throwing it up in front of him like a baton to block the blow. I wonder for a second why he didn’t come in with guns blazing but the answer crystallizes in my mind almost as soon as the question forms itself: he didn’t want the cold detachment of a gun. He wanted this to be up close and personal, heneededit to be. The dark, twisted part of me delights in that fact, mirroring the sentiment.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved.
“You stupid bitch,” Pete grits out. “You stupid fucking bitch. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I’ll fucking kill you! And then I’ll kill him! I’ll gut that fucker and dance on his fucking grave, do you hear me?” He’s maniacal now, nearly insane, and I wonder what in the fuck Austin did to this man to make him act this way, to need revenge this fucking badly. No matter what it is, I don’t care.
“That,” I say in a deadly quiet voice, “was the very,verywrong thing to say to me.”
I bring up a knee as hard as I can and he cries out in agony when I make contact with his balls. I arch my hips and roll to the right and his body tumbles off of mine as we roll. I spring up and he pushes to his knees, screaming some mix of profanities and unintelligible nonsense, spit flying, eyes wide and crazed. I spare a glance towards the door and see that Austin and Manny are still very much locked in their fight.Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Pete manages to hold on to the knife and he slashes out at me again. I catch his wrist easily and grab his elbow with my other hand, bringing his forearm down hard over my own knee as I thrust it upward. An unholy scream fills the air as his bone snaps, the jagged edge piercing through his skin. Blood spurts and he cradles his ruined arm. I hear someone vomit not far away—Dominic I guess.
I kick him in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards, landing hard on the ground with his arms splayed out beside him. I bring down a booted foot on his broken arm, and he screams so loudly it feels like my eardrums might burst. I don’t hesitate, just bring the knife down and slam it through his left eye, as promised.
“I told you it was going through your eye,” I whisper. “I’m a woman of my word.”
His screams turn into quiet gasps as he convulses. I yank the knife back and turn to back to Manny and Austin—only to findManny inpiecesall around Austin’s feet. He meets my gaze and his eyes are absolutely blazing with lethal fury.
He shifts his gaze behind me, and I follow it to find Dominic cowering under the table. Austin doesn’t seem too concerned about him and crosses to me in a few long strides. He drops the bloody hatchet to the ground and cradles my face between his big hands.
“Tell me you’re alright,” he says and it sounds like he’s so close to breaking, barely keeping everything under control. I grip his wrists.
“I’m alright. Not a scratch on me.” He clenches his jaw, and gently, but deliberately, runs one across my cheek. He holds it up in front of my face to show me the blood that must have dripped from my forehead. “Ok,hardlya scratch on me,” I amend. “But I’m fine, baby. I promise.”
He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against mine, letting out a long, shuddering breath. My eyes water and my chest aches knowing how worried he must have been, all of the possibilities running through his head. If the roles had been reversed…well, no one would be left alive, that’s for fucking sure.
“Are you ok? Is any of this blood yours?” I ask quietly.
“Fine,” he rumbles, and I honestly don’t know that he can say much more than that right now. He pulls away as Wynn, Johnson, and a few other people from The Farm pour into the barn, all looking fresh from battle, though none nearly as bloody as Austin.
“That one?” Austin asks, voice low and gruff. He tilts his head towards the table and I turn to look at the kid beneath it, rocking gently back and forth as he stares unblinking at the carnage around him. Part of me wants to let Dominic share Pete and Manny’s fate. He was part of this after all. He chose to follow these idiots and not do a thing to stop the terrible things about to happen. But I know that he doesn’t really deserve that. Hedeserves to be punished, no doubt about that, but not in the way Austin clearly has in mind.
“He didn’t want things to go down this way. He wasn’t like the others.” Dominic snaps his gaze to mine at that, his blue eyes finally focusing. He looks like he might cry and his mouth pops open in shock.
“Alright,” Austin says, but then I feel his entire body go rigid. My brow furrows…until I realize what he’s staring at: the table full of things they’d planned to use on me, all the ways they planned to hurt me to hurt him. I put a palm on his cheek and force his face back to mine.
“Let’s get out of here, ok?” He seems to barely hear me and I know all too well what he must be seeing and hearing: a red haze of rage and the roaring of his blood in his ears. I tug him towards the door.
“Mel?” Wynn asks. I nod, telling him I’m alright.
“Uh, hey, can you find the keys for these things?” I ask, holding up my right hand and jangling the cuffs still attached there. Wynn’s face darkens, realizing that I’d been restrained that way. He nods and I tug Austin outside.
It’s an absolute bloodbath. At least ten people dead, most from bullets, but there are plenty of other injuries—stab wounds and severed limbs, even a head lying a few feet from its body.Jesus fuck.We walk through the battlefield, my boots squishing in muddy, blood-filled earth. Austin’s still on edge, still lost in that dark, rage-filled place that I know all too well. He leads me to a group of vehicles hidden in the woods a few hundred yards away from the barn. We hop in an old Jeep, the suped up kind people used to take mudding with big ass tires and lights mounted along the top.
He floors it and we shoot off through the trees, bumping over the rough terrain, until we hit an open field. I can just spy the farmhouse in the distance, looking tiny it’s so far off, and Irealize that we’re still on The Farm property, just way in the back of it. Austin hits a worn road that I guess is for farm vehicles, and we head down it a ways, driving behind the back of the field in silence for what feels like hours. Finally, Austin throws the Jeep into park.
