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Robbie moved closer. “Hold still. I’ll be fast. You won’t feel much. Wait for me on the other side. I’ll be right behind you. Promise you’ll wait for me on the other side.”
He was going to kill her. She couldn’t let that happen.
One chance. She would only get one.
She focused on the knife.
Just a bit closer.
She’d do what Neilson did, take him by surprise and use his own momentum against him.
“It’ll be okay. I promise.” His eyes glazed, and he smiled.
He got close enough for her to smell his rancid breath. She clenched her eyes closed and shot out of the chair, ramming her shoulder into his chest. He fell toward the stove, screaming when his back hit the flames. The knife clattered to the ground. Her feet braced wide, she shoved him into the fire again.
“Lulu.” He screamed her name, over and over.
She slammed her knee into the softness of his groin. He squealed a demented sound and dropped to the linoleum.
A sob ripped from her throat. She scrambled, grabbed the gun from the counter, and aimed at his chest. He writhed on the floor. The acrid scent of burning flesh, blood, and smoke filled the room. Her hands trembled. She shook her head and positioned the gun as her self-defense instructor had illustrated in class.
She steadied her aim. Flames danced in front of her as her finger twitched against the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sirens wailed in the distance. William broke into a full run to Lucy’s apartment, trying to ignore the rising tide of panic in his chest. The door stood wide open, but no one was around. Something was very wrong.
He rushed across the entryway, and his heart stopped.
Smoke burned his nostrils. Neilson was mid-military crawl across the carpet, leaving an unmistakably gruesome red trail behind him. The light chirp of a smoke detector beeped in the kitchen.
William rushed to Neilson. Blood gurgled down his chin as he tried to speak. William turned him to his back, yanked off his own suit coat and held it against the man’s seeping chest. “Where’s Lucy?”
Neilson mouthed her name, pointing to the kitchen.
No.
William bolted to the kitchen. Plumes of filmy soot made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of him. He moved farther into the room, coughing into his hand as flames licked along the cupboards. Thick gray smoke tumbled from the burning wood. He nearly came apart when he found her holding a gun trained on Robbie.
William moved behind her, and she jerked away at his touch against her shoulder. He steadied her arm as the beefy guy squirmed on the ground, shrill, indiscernible sounds bubbling from his throat. Angry burns festered where his clothing fused with skin along his back.
“Lucy, give me the gun.” William kept the words as even as he could.
“No. This has to end. He can’t keep doing this to me.” She coughed, and her finger shook dangerously against the trigger.
If she pulled that trigger, it would shred her.
“This isn’t you. You aren’t a killer.” He moved his hand over hers. “It’s time to give me the gun.”
Her grip on the handle relaxed enough so he could slide it into his hand. He flipped on the safety and tucked it in the back of his waistband with a silent prayer of thanks that she hadn’t followed through. Robbie continued to writhe on the ground, hideous sounds of pain and rage coming from deep in his throat.
His heart stopped beating. He couldn’t lose her.
Smoke continued to fill the kitchen, the heat from the flames intense. She started to collapse against him. He wrapped his arm around her to hoist her against his chest. She sobbed. Cruel, wrenching sounds escaped from her small frame. He carried her from the apartment.
Lucy wheezed against his chest. A slippery, wet warmth oozed from her arm.
Adrenaline seared through him, and every muscle in his body clenched.
