My right hand closed around his wrist inches from the blade slicing into my side, his strength against mine. The blade trembled in the air as we both strained to move it.
He gathered his legs under himself, leaning into the knife. I pushed out with every ounce of strength I possessed. It carried his arm wide, bringing him within my long reach. I swung my left arm, cast and all, toward his face.
Pain exploded in my hand as I connected, but it sent him backward. I held onto his right wrist, refusing to give up control of the knife.
We rolled over the floor, a tangle of arms and legs. Lana yelled in the background, and I vaguely noticed her moving from the back of the cabin to the front.
Deke kneed me in the stomach, and my grip on his hand loosened. I felt him try to pull away.
No!my mind screamed.
I planted my right foot and lunged, pulling on his arm as I put my weight into his left side and rolled him over.
Deke went rigid beneath me, and a quick, surprised gasp left his lungs.
Something hot and wet trickled over my hand.
I pushed back and looked down.
The knife was buried in Deke’s chest, going in at angle from right to left under his sternum.
I looked at his face. Realization had dawned in his eyes, making them wide and full of disbelief.
His feet kicked and blood poured out of the wound. I let go of the knife and sat back.
“You should have run,” I repeated, this time my voice carrying a note of sadness at the stupidity of it all.
The recognition of what was happening left his expression as his gaze unfocused. His breaths came faster for a few seconds, then grew shallow until they finally stopped altogether moments later.
Fuck!
I rolled back, my butt hitting the floor as it hit me he was dead. My hands shook, both from the adrenaline leaving my body and from the knowledge I’d killed him. Even unintentionally, he’d died because we’d been fighting.
“Toren.” Lana slammed into my side, wrapping her arms around me.
That was all it took. I wrapped a hand over her arm and held on as the first sobs wracked my body.
Chapter 34
Lana
My heart broke alongside that of the man sobbing in my arms.
I’d never heard Toren cry. Even stuck between two boulders, broken and bruised, he’d never cried.
He clutched at my arms wrapped around his bulk like I was the only thing holding him together.
So, I held on tighter.
I pressed my face into his shoulder and didn’t say anything, my own tears soaking into his shirt. There wasn’t anything to say.
For long minutes, we sat huddled together, letting all the emotions process through us, his heavy sobs and my softer hiccups the only sound except for the occasional squawk on the porch from one of the chickens.
Toren shook beneath my grasp. His good hand fisted in the back of my shirt, the sobs coming out rough and broken, like they were being torn out of a place that hadn’t been opened in years.
Which, maybe it hadn’t been.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Long enough for my knees to ache against the floorboards, and for Toren’sbreathing to have slowed when a vehicle finally came up the driveway.
