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The cold touch of the steel jolted me from my daze as effectively as a bucket of ice water. That’s why he didn’t shoot me in the head. He’s capturing me. For Saberton? Someone else?
Didn’t matter. Wasn’t going to happen.
As Judd reached for my other wrist, I jerked my cuffed hand back, yanking the handcuffs from his grasp. He let out a surprised cry that turned into a yelp of pain as I whipped the unlocked side of the cuffs across his leg like a mini-flail. My zombie superpowers were being lazy little shits at the moment, but I’d scraped my way up to two whole stripes on my white belt in jiu jitsu, and I had a black belt in redneck pissed-off-bitch dirty fighting.
“Shit! You fucking b-aaagh!” Judd went to his knees as my kick slammed into the back of his leg. Red-faced, he groped for the holster at the small of his back. My chest was a fiery ball of agony, but I knew if he shot me again it was all over. No way was I going to let this asshole take me down.
With a cry of primal rage, I shoved up past the pain, launched myself at him and slammed my elbow into his face as hard as I could. Cartilage crunched in beautiful melody, bringing a manic grin to my face. While Judd roared in pain, I wrenched his gun from the holster and flung it as far into the gloom as I could. I hated to throw a weapon away, but I didn’t want to give him a chance to wrestle it from me.
“Bitch!” Blood fountained from Judd’s nose, but apparently he was equally determined to not go
down without a fight. He smacked his head into mine hard enough for me to see stars, then followed up with a heavy punch to my ribs. White hot pain seared through my entire body, and I crumpled, whimpering. Yet the scent of his brain wrapped around me, taunting the hunger, and my whimper turned into a growl.
Judd let out an ugly laugh. “Think you’re tough, huh? I can’t wait to break every fucking bone in your body. Twice.” He grabbed the dangling cuff and gave my arm a vicious tug.
My parasite wasn’t doing much to control the pain, but when he yanked my arm it was as if my precious little brain-starved zombie parasite dumped one last dose of “fuck this asshole” into my system. I lunged, clamped my teeth onto his forearm, and bit down as hard as I could.
Judd screamed and released the handcuff. I held on like a tick and bit down through skin and the top layer of muscle. He screamed again, a high-pitched sound of panic and revulsion, then jerked back, dragging me to my feet as I clamped down harder and my mouth filled with blood. Beating at me with his free fist, he thrashed, struggling to shake me loose.
I let go and retreated a few steps. No point in losing my teeth to this prick for something as trivial as an arm. Not with his luscious brain waiting for me. My growl burbled with blood as he staggered back. I shambled in pursuit, then fell to my hands and knees, still reaching for him.
Face pale and eyes wide, Judd stared in horror at the bleeding wound on his arm. He jerked his eyes to me as sheer terror flooded his face, then he let out a strangled cry and fled to his car. I gathered myself to dodge if he tried to run me over, but instead he peeled out in a sharp turn and sped off toward the highway.
The sound of the engine died away, leaving the rasp of my breathing and the croak of frogs by the river. I spat blood into the dirt, wiped at my mouth with a shaking hand, then stumbled to my car while pain and hunger raged through me.
Chapter 24
Every breath sent lava through my veins. I dragged myself half onto the driver’s seat and fumbled a brain packet from the console. My hands shook too much to tear it open, but my teeth got the job done. I sucked the packet dry then shuddered as my parasite went to work and dulled the white hot edge of the pain. Not enough, though. More. Need more. I searched the console and the glove box, scrabbled through pens and maps and receipts. Nothing. I’m out. Shit.
Not the end of the world, I told myself firmly, though panic scrabbled at the edges of my mind. No need to freak. The situation was ten tons of fucked up, but that meant I was justified in calling for backup. Brain delivery in thirty minutes or it’s free. A manic giggle slipped out as I grabbed my phone off the dash and—
No Service
A sob escaped before I recovered the shreds of my composure. Okay. Fine. So I didn’t have backup. That meant I had two choices: give up, or save myself. And fuck giving up. I’d take this step by step, and the first step was to get my ass out of here before Judd checked the stuff in the garbage bag bundle and realized it wasn’t the murder weapons.
I shifted to sit upright, and pain flared like a red-hot coal in my chest. With a breathless scream, I jerked forward to take the pressure off the head of the crossbow bolt then hugged the steering wheel. Tears snaked down my cheeks as I shuddered. Hey, moron, you can’t lean back and chill when you have a triple-bladed bolt head sticking out of your back!
Seconds ticked by, but at long last the red haze of agony lifted enough that I could work through a plan of action. I needed to be able to drive without leaning on the wheel, but the fucking bolt had a carbon shaft that I couldn’t break with my ordinary wimpy Angel strength. And, with that barbed tip in place, no way could I pull it out from the front. Desperate, I twisted my arm up behind me only to discover that, because the vest was so damn huge, the bolt hadn’t gone through the back panel. Couldn’t pull it out with the vest in the way, but the good thing was that the front and back panels attached with Velcro. It took me half a minute of agony and cold sweat to remove my jacket and the back panel, but then, even though I managed to get my fingers on the bolt, I had zero leverage to pull it out.
Great. From bad to worse. Nice going, Angel. The front vest panel was still nailed to me, and several inches of carbon shaft currently protruded from my back—with the tip poised to snag the seat every time I shifted. This is gonna suck. Straightening, I clenched my hand around the purple and gold fletching, gritted my teeth, then tugged. Pain raced through my chest, and brain-hunger twisted my gut in a vicious dance, but I didn’t stop until I felt the blades touch my back and six inches of bloody shaft stuck out the front.
My breath came in shallow gasps. I let my hand drop then clenched it into a fist. Home was a twenty-mile drive away, and here I was barely able to see straight through the pain and hunger. Maybe it would be better to head to my storage unit instead? I had more brains there, though that wasn’t saying a whole lot. But the storage unit was farther away, and I already knew it was going to be touch-and-go to simply make it home.
A dose would help. V12. Hell, pain control was part of its design. My reminder alarm wouldn’t go off for another two hours, but then again, Dr. Nikas had simply said “twice a day.” A little early shouldn’t matter, and this was an emergency.
With the ease of habit, I injected a dose then chased it with a capsule. Barely a hint of the feel-good whispered through me, and a scant handful of faint sparkles glimmered on the dash. The hunger only calmed a tiny bit, but the pain eased off to dull numbness as my parasite stumbled into action. Good enough. Now I could get the hell out of here.
Driving while sitting up perfectly straight was way more awkward than I expected, but leaning back was out of the question. I kept my hands clenched on the wheel and drove as safely and law abidingly as possible since, not only did I have zero plausible explanation as to why I had a crossbow bolt sticking out from below my right tit, but I had a feeling my reputation with the police might suffer if I ate whichever unlucky officer pulled me over.
I drove the three miles back up Hickory Horn Road then another two on the narrow, unlit country highway before I saw another vehicle. I hunched as the headlights approached, even though I knew the chances were nonexistent that anyone would catch sight of the crossbow bolt as we passed. Still, best to play it safe—
The church van zoomed by, and the scent of warm brains swirled in its wake. A brief whiff, but enough to stoke the hunger to full flame. It scorched nerve endings, fanned higher every time a car passed, while I stared straight ahead and counted the miles. Ten miles left. I’d managed to hold on so far, passed half a dozen cars without chasing anyone down to peel the vehicle open like a can of tuna. I could hold on a little while longer. Thank god the night was chilly enough that most people were driving with their windows up.
As if to mock my gratitude, a pickup rattled by with its windows wide open. The heady bouquet of a redneck brain caressed me, wringing an ugly rasp of a growl from my throat. I bared my teeth at the piece of shit truck in my rearview mirror. A quick U-turn and I could chase down the driver, get the brains I needed.
Pull it together, Angel! So fucking hungry. And no point calling the lab at this point, either. They were on the other side of the parish. The closest refuge was home, and that’s where I needed to go. Brains waited for me there, my emergency stash and—
I pulled onto the shoulder and fumbled for my phone, breathed a thank you for the two bars. “Dad!” I gasped out the instant the call connected. “My f-fij.” Shit. My speech was going. “Fihj!” Combination. I needed to give him the combination to my mini-fridge, but the numbers jumped and jumbled in my head. Change of plan. “No, feesa. In feesha. Bag of fash . . . foshen bussa spouss.”
