So before he could even register the pain, I whipped around, grabbed him, and shoved him forward with every bit of strength in me. I damn near went forward with him, I’d used so much momentum.
I could hear him falling, but I couldn’t even spare a second of satisfaction at his grunts as he likely collided with twigs and rocks and brambles on his way down. Because I was already running again, knowing I just slowed the man down, not stopped him. And that there was still the giant and Adams himself to worry about.
It was likely another ten minutes before I heard it.
Trickling.
And if I knew one thing from the hikes, it was that the creeks and rivers had one thing that I could absolutely use as a weapon.
Rocks.
Giant-ass ones, sure, but also little ones I could pick up and do some damage with if someone got close to me again.
I turned, tearing off in the direction of the water, searching until I found the right two rocks, then dropping down to scoop small handfuls of the water up to my mouth with my non-bloody hand while I tried not to think about what diseases I might catch from drinking unknown waters.
I could get to a hospital if I survived this.
It was there, crouched down by the water, trying to bring some needed oxygen into my burning lungs, that I heard the rumbling of a plane.
Adams’s pilot, maybe? Coming to pick him—and me—up, perhaps?
Over my dead fucking body.
Getting up, I followed the path of the river for a few moments at half pace, knowing I was going to burn out or hurt myself if I kept going whole-hog indefinitely.
It wasn’t until I heard rustling that I picked it up again.
I mean, it was the woods.
It could be deer or bears or the goddamn wolverines Bellamy was constantly teasing me about.
But the way the hair on the back of my neck stood on end had me disregarding that thought.
See, no, I didn’t have any sort of formal training. What I did have, though, was fifteen and a half years of trusting my gut instincts, of responding to that little “flinch” that told you shit was not right, that you needed to get somewhere safe, or pull out your weapon.
Sometimes your body knew before your brain could actually register the problem. It was why people automatically reached for a falling mug before their brain said What the fuck are you doing? That is scalding hot!
When the hand reached out from behind and grabbed my throat, I couldn’t claim I was surprised. Because some part of me knew that things had just taken a turn for the worse.
My back was yanked against a man’s chest. But not one wide enough to be that giant asshole who’d killed Bellamy.
No.
This was Adams himself.
Panic flooded my system for a long, pivotal moment, making me need to actively fight against it to try to think of how to get myself out of this situation.
And just like that, some TV show I’d once watched a long time ago, so long ago that I couldn’t actually even picture the actors who’d starred in it or what show it was, came flooding back to me.
One guy was telling someone else that if you found yourself grabbed from behind, that you should go limp. No one expects it and their hold isn’t prepared for it. So you could often completely slip and scramble away.
My whole body went to lifeless.
And, just like I’d seen, Adams hadn’t expected it, making his hand slip from my neck as I fell down at his feet.
Scrambling up onto my knees, waited for him to lean downward.
Then, with every bit of fear and grief in my system, I slammed that rock into his face so hard I immediately heard a crack, followed by a howl of pain.
Oddly enough, that sound only spurred me on.
I never would have said that harming someone else got me off. Because that sort of put me in the same category as the men I’d killed, didn’t it? But in just this one case, oh, I was feeling it.
I flew up onto my feet, swinging with the other rock, the one with a bit of a point at the end. I was thankful that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness because I got to watch as the rock carved a little chunk out of the motherfucker’s cheek.
From then, I don’t know, it was like some beast inside me took over.
I was like an outsider in my body, watching as someone else kept swinging and swinging. Even when Adams fell, I dropped down on top of him, turning him over, and pummeling the rocks into his face with everything inside of me, watching as his features cracked and caved and became unrecognizable. He was long dead at one point but my arms kept swinging, full of grief and heartbreak over losing someone just as they were beginning to mean something truly amazing to me.