The thing about killing someone is that she never imagined she might be in the position where that’s the only logical option. Now that she is, she absolutely never expected that her body would fight through the nerves and adrenaline to act on its own, bringing the blade up to his throat and slicing a clean line from one ear to the other.
It’s not as simple as she thought it might be, though. Doesn’t cut deep enough on the first try. How the hell is she supposed to know how much pressure to use to cut through a windpipe? Maybe she should have stabbed him instead. Fuck, that would have been easier, she thinks, right before he grabs her by the neck, slamming her head into the wall. She’s tossed off the bed where the edge of a side table collides hard with her ribs. Blinding hot pain jolts through her like a poker from a fire pit, and she screams, trying to suck in air, only for a blackout tofuzz the edges of her vision when inhaling inflates her ribcage further.
She can’t do much except writhe on the floor while trying to catch her breath. When she finally blinks back into focus, Dalton has fallen beside her in a pool of his own blood. After a few strangled gurgles, the room goes silent.
Turns out she did cut deep enough, after all.
The horror of what she’s done has little time to set in. That has to be for later. Right now, Nora scrambles toward the door, fighting shock and grabbing the rifle in the corner. Doesn’t have any idea what she’ll do when she gets outside, but Theo’s already got one of his captors in a headlock when she flings the door open. They struggle like bulls, and Theo cries out when he’s slammed back into a tree, but his grip is strong and soon the other man slumps to the ground in a red-faced heap.
She points the gun, sending their final challenger running into the woods, only for it to jam, allowing the man to escape. Nora growls in frustration, wishing he were close enough to throw the whole thing at him instead.
“Is he dead?” She points to the last one passed out in the snow.
“I don’t know.” Theo drops to his knees and she clears her weapon, raising it to finish him off, as if that’s a thing she does all the time, when it certainly is not. It shocks her how quickly that choice is made in her head. Maybe they all really are animals when pushed to the brink, she thinks sadly.
“I got it,” he says quickly. “You don’t have to. I’ll do it.”
He takes the other man’s knife, fallen in the snow, and plunges it into a soft temple with a single, swift thrust. She slumps at his side, a whoosh of breath leaving his lungs as he catches her with a pained groan and pulls her in close, and then it’s her turn to let out a high-pitched yelp because everything in her fucking hurts.
“Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay,” she begs, barely able to pry herself away long enough to examine his blood-coated face. It matches the red covering her own shirt, and he pales at the sight.
“It’s not mine.” She uses her clean sleeve to wipe the blood gently from his eyes.
“Are you okay? Did he touch you? I’m gonna kill him—”
“I already did,” she admits. “I already did.”
They’re surrounded by the dead, and the weight of that is heavy between them. Never planned on racking up a body count, but then again, they never planned on any of this. What were they supposed to do, anyway? Her survival instinct is far stronger than she thought after spending years assuming it was gone.
She can see the headlines now if they ever get rescued.‘Stranded plane crash survivors go on murderous rampage.’
Theo wipes the tears from her face with a cold thumb, and she tries not to shatter under his touch. “There’s still one left.”
“He’s alone and unarmed. He’s not coming back. He’ll hide out in Barrow until he freezes.”
She wants to melt into a puddle right here in the snow for however long he’ll hold her, but her ribs flare as the adrenaline begins to crest and fall, and she pales, letting out a litany of curses.
“What’s happening? Nora? Talk to me.”
“I think my ribs are broken,” she grinds out. “But it’s fine, I’ll be fine…”
That would be a whole lot more convincing if she didn’t follow up the promise by coughing up blood into freshly fallen snow.
Chapter 20
On the list of things that Theo expected to happen today, getting ambushed by strangers and then watching Nora throw up blood across the snow ranked very low.
Maybe it shouldn’t have. Faced with so many other challenges, he allowed their encounter with those men to sit at the back of his mind instead of treating it like the threat they were. Now his girl is injured and there’s little he can do about it.
His girl.
She is more than that to him, and yet calling her anything else, even in his own head, feels presumptuous.
The treatment for broken ribs is minimal at best. What worries him more is the possibility of internal bleeding. She wouldn’t be coughing up blood if that rib didn’t puncture something. The knowledge sits like a lead weight inside him, heavy and suffocating.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she lies through gritted teeth, leaning on him as they make their way back inside.
“Your definition of fine is very different than mine.”
