“I’ll stay,” I granted, “until you fall asleep.”
Her sigh was tinged with sadness, but she conceded without protest, already half-asleep on top of me. I stroked her hair back, the silk tinged pink because I hadn’t washed my bloody hands, and hummed one of the songs my mam had sang to me deep in my throat. Bea hummed in pleasure, squirmed a little, then settled into a dead sleep on my chest. The beauty of her trust felt like a black satin bow wrapped too tight around my fucking heart, but I welcomed the ache and held her well into the night.
* * *
* * *
I wasn’t sleeping. It was deep night, closer to morning hours than evening, but the sky outside Bea’s window was dark as anti-matter, not a cloud in the sky. Too dark to see anyone. But something alerted me to a presence, some faint sound or shift in black on black outside the window.
Someone was there.
Instantly, cold calm descended on me. I shifted out carefully and efficiently from under the weight of my sleeping shadow, did up my jeans, and slunk into the living room to reclaim my cut and weapons. Armed to the teeth, dangerous with protective, possessive rage, I moved to the window at the side of the house to peer outside.
Nothing.
I went to the front door, knowing any intruder worth his salt wouldn’t be near it, and slipped into the cold night. My boots were by the door, but I didn’t put them on. My bare feet would be nearly silent in the fresh, deep snow layering the garden, and I needed the element of surprise.
It was only when I rounded the house that I heard it, the shush and drag of something heavy through the snow. Peering out from around the side of the shingled house, I saw a blot of black in the grey light labouring over something on the ground, tugging it to the back porch.
I knew it was a body. Call it a premonition, experience, whatever the fuck, I knew that weight in the snow was a dead body being set out on the porch for Bea to find in the morning. Like a cat bringing its beloved owner a dead mouse, the killer had brought his obsession––my obsession––a gift.
I moved, cold and inhumane as the snow beneath my feet. The intruder was lingering over the body at the base of the stairs, arranging it, probably planting one of those sick as fuck religious quotes somewhere on their person.
They were too busy to notice a shift in the shadows, too narrowly obsessed to realize that the woman he lusted after already had a psychopath in her life.
I was just behind him, knife raised, a second away from striking when the light flicked on in Bea’s room. The disturbance brought the man back to himself. Startled, he squatted to take off in a sprint.
I tackled him hard to the ground, his skull hitting the iced-over cobblestones on the backyard path.
He didn’t pause to recover, already fighting viciously, rolling in the slippery snow so that he was on his back, a better position in any fight. There was a gun in one hand I hadn’t seen in the dark. He swung it up, but I blocked it with my forearm so the shot he fired blew past my left ear and knocked out my hearing.
Vaguely, I was aware of the lights going on in the rest of the house, of Bea yelling behind the locked back door, hopefully calling the cops.
Or not hopefully, because I was going to slash this motherfucker to ribbons.
He grunted hard, bringing his knee up into my groin, connecting with my balls in a way that ripped my breath from my lungs. Taking advantage of my momentary weakness, he shoved me and scuttled out from my hold, the snow easing his way. He gained his feet quickly, taller and more agile than I’d given him credit for.
He took off.
I followed, swallowing that bile that rose in my throat.
He was a fast motherfucker, supple on his feet as he charged into the street, zipping through parked cars, hurtling over trash cans, and sliding over windshields.
A grin worked its way onto my face as I gave chase. It had been so long since I had a real challenge. I knew I would catch him the way a lion knows it will get the gazelle. It was just a matter of when.
He turned the corner onto Main Street, and I knew it was over. Even at four in the morning, the street was too crowded with cars, mailboxes, and holiday decorations. There were even vehicles on the road from early deliveries and night workers.
He was fucked.
My mouth watered as I saw my opening. I had a gun and throwing knives, but I didn’t use them. Why use an inanimate object when I was such a well-honed weapon?