My vision blurred, and then I felt the hot streams of fluid running first down my face, then my neck. More stitches—I’d be more Frankenstein than human if I kept up at this rate. For some insane reason, this made me laugh, and I rested my battered head against the wall behind me. I laughed louder, barely caring about the blurry image of Troy coming at me.
He kneeled beside me, putting his face an inch from mine. His face was twisted into a snarl. “Feeling a bit more cooperative?”
I laughed again, hysterically now. He was going to kill me—this man was really going to kill me—and all the fight I was putting up was a laugh. I’d lost it—officially now.
“She’s laughing,” Troy said back to Ben, still leaning against the tree as if this was some sort of everyday occurrence for him. Get up, take a shower, eat lunch, brutalize a young woman . . .
“Must not have hit her hard enough. I’ll make sure I don’t make the same mistake.” He grabbed my shoulders, fingers drilling into my skin.
I looked him straight on, calming my laughing fit, but I was still grinning. Sane people dealt with life and death situations by screaming, fighting, running, or maybe even fainting . . . I dealt with it by laughing like a lunatic. Sane had left the station long ago.
“Anyone ever diagnosis you with anger issues? There’s a great 12-step group that meets at the senior center in town if you’re interested.”
He slapped me across the cheek, the sting of it more painful than the head wound seeping droplets of blood around me. “You’re a wild one. I like that,” he said, brushing his finger across the same area he’d just slapped. “It’s too bad I’m going to have to kill you.”
I twisted my face away from his fingers, waiting for it to be finished. Waiting for fate to at last catch up with me after a one year stint of outmaneuvering it—well actually, if I was being honest with myself, my whole life I’d been dodging it.
As I was closing my eyes for the last time, my blurred vision caught sight of the tiniest ball of light, glowing xenon blue in color. The light burst into a beam of light, and had I been looking up at the sky, I could have been gazing at a shooting star. The streak of light closed in towards us at an unfathomable speed, the light growing larger, monopolizing my field of vision, until it exploded in front of me.
I heard Troy’s snarl surprise echoing away from me. In his place stood someone else—my materialized shooting star.
William was quivering with rage, squaring himself between me and Ben, as the echoes of something large splintering rippled into the courtyard.
He chanced a look back at me, his face falling as if he was looking at my corpse. His eyes narrowed into slits as he turned them back to Ben. “How dare you.”
Ben raised his hands at William. “Let’s not do anything you’ll regret.”
William started for him, his body rigid. “Trust me, I won’t regret it.”
Ben’s eyes widened, looking the most emotional I’d seen him so far, when Troy made his reappearance in the courtyard.
William stopped abruptly, stepping back and angling himself between Troy and me.
Troy looked too composed, like a volcano about to erupt. He paced towards us, glaring at William through lowered eyes. He stopped a few yards in front of him, running his fingers through his hair and pulling something from the back of his head.
“Tree killer,” he sneered, throwing a half-foot sliver of wood at William’s feet.
My vision was far from twenty-twenty at the present moment, but the sliver looked glossy with dark color . . . as if coated in blood. I’d hit my head hard—hard enough to believe that Troy had just pulled a six-inch piece of wood from the back of his head. Oh yeah, and that William had swooped in via a ray of light to save the day.
Time to chalk up delusional to my ever-increasing list of maladies.
“I think I understand why you took an unannounced sabbatical in the land of the lowly,” Troy said, slicking his hair back into place. “I like my girls spirited too, and where we come from that’s hard to come by. I wouldn’t mind breaking her in if you can’t.”
William started forward, fists at the ready, when Ben stepped forward. “That’s enough, Troy. We were not sent to carry out our usual bidding.”
Troy took a step back, obeying, although it looked like it took every bit of self-control he had to do it. “Sorry,” he said, before mouthing in William’s direction. “Sorry someone’s so sensitive.”
Ben ignored him. “We are here to merely deliver a friendly message,” Ben said, watching William carefully.
“I know the rules,” William said, his jaw tight. “I don’t need any reminders.”
Ben’s eyes circumnavigated the area purposefully. “It appears you do. We won’t press the issue tonight, I think our message is obvious”—he eyed me in explanation—“If I might make a suggestion? Don’t make John send for you again.”
“Well he knows where I am now,” William said, the challenge in his voice unmistakable.
“Yes,” Ben said, his eyes glinting. “He does.”
“Farewell, Mr. Winters,” he said jovially, bowing his head. “Until next time.” Ben turned to leave, gesturing with his head for Troy to do the same.
“Just so you know,” William called out to the retreating pair. “If either of you so much as lay one finger on her again, I will tear you both apart starting with those filthy appendages.”