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I flinched at her revelation, my energy momentarily dimming. Claudia felt it and she took the opportunity, grabbing hold of my head and raising it, slamming it against the ground with vicious force. I saw black spots crowding my vision as searing pain radiated from the back of my head and through my body. I cursed myself for being distracted as Claudia hissed at me. "There's no point in you being alive if I can't overtake you. Let's do this the old-fashioned way."
I tried to gather my energy, but Claudia bashed my head against the floor again, and unconsciousness threatened to overtake me, to blot out this agonizing pain. I tried to open my eyes but they wouldn't cooperate. I desperately tried to push her off me, but she was too strong and I was fading. I tried to gather my energy again but my attempt failed, my mind too weak. I wanted to struggle, but my body wouldn't cooperate, lying there limply. I felt her lift my head again and waited for the impact. I'm sorry, I thought, as faces flashed before me, of the ones I had failed. I'm sorry.
The impact never came. Instead, I felt the weight of Claudia disappear.
"Caitlin!" Simon's voice had never sounded so beautiful as I felt his hands on my face, cradling my head. "Caitlin, wake up!" I struggled to surface, the anguish and fear in Simon's voice calling to me.
"Simon?" I said groggily, my eyes fluttering open. His face above me was hazy at first, and then he came into sharp focus. His face flooded with relief as he lowered his head, his lips grazing my forehead.
"It's okay, baby. You're okay. We need to get you to a hospital." I felt Simon fumbling for his pocket and saw him pull out his phone. I struggled to sit up but Simon held me down. "Don't move. Your head's in pretty bad shape."
"Simon, please." Now that things were starting to become clearer, panic was gnawing at me. Where was Claudia?
"Shh, calm down." Simon stroked my cheek. "She can't hurt you anymore."
I turned my head, shock coursing through my body when I saw Claudia slumped on the floor, a knife sticking out of her chest. Her lifeless eyes were still open but unfocused as the pool of blood around her grew. She was close enough that I could reach out and touch her. I shut my eyes, wanting to blot the sight from my memory. Even though I knew the real Claudia was long gone, it was still a sickening sight.
I felt Simon's fingers lightly tapping my cheek. "Baby, open your eyes. You need to stay awake. Your head injury is pretty bad and you need to stay conscious."
I obeyed Simon's request, even though I badly wanted to keep my eyes shut. It took every ounce of strength I had left to keep my eyes open.
"526 Guardian Way in Norwalk," he said into the phone. "My girlfriend's been attacked. Please hurry."
Simon paused and I watched him listening as he smiled at me reassuringly. He watched me as he spoke to the 911 dispatcher. "Yes, the attacker was another girl in a jealous rage. She knocked me unconscious so I didn't see what happened." He paused again, and when he continued his voice was choked up. "When I came to, my girlfriend was almost passed out from getting her head slammed against the floor. She's bleeding a lot. She said the girl came at her with a knife and she fought back but the other girl was much stronger and bashed her head in. She was getting ready to stab my girlfriend, but they struggled and my girlfriend was able to use the knife against her. I think the other girl is dead."
I started trembling at Simon's words because I knew that wasn't what happened. I stared at him while he continued talking to the dispatcher and then hung up the phone.
"What are you talking about?" I whispered. "I didn't stab Claudia."
"We need to claim self-defense. They'll put us both away if we tell them Claudia was overtaken by a vardoger and it was trying to kill you. No one will believe it. I can't say I stabbed her protecting you because they won't buy it. It's too much excessive force, especially since her back was to me. They won't understand that it wasn't just a human that was attacking you."
Simon sounded so reasonable but I was speechless. I tried to gather my wits together and made myself look at Claudia again, flinching when her dead eyes gazed back at me. I almost didn't believe she was dead, expecting her to jump at me when I least expected it. I tried to reassure myself with the fact that vardogers couldn't survive without a human body to be connected to. The only reason the other vardogers were able to detach from their persons and come after me was because Claudia had the unique power to let them attach to her.
I was roused from my thoughts when Simon gently laid my head back down on the ground. I blanched when he reached over, wiping the handle of the blade sticking out of Claudia's chest with the bottom of his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I rasped, horror making my voice waver. I felt nausea rolling through me as I watched Simon pick up Claudia's lifeless hand and place it around the knife handle before letting it drop back to the ground.
"I'm sorry, Caitlin, but we have to make sure the fingerprints match our story." Simon took my hand and pulled it over to the knife, but I snatched my hand back in terror.
Simon inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly before he continued. "Please, Caitlin. This is for your own good." He took my hand again and wrapped it around the knife handle, gently placing my hand back on my stomach when he was done. I felt detached from the scene, a witness to a nightmare that seemed to getting worse, despite the fact that Claudia was no longer a threat.
"How did it really happen?" I whispered.
"She was killing you." Simon's eyes were suddenly blazing with fury but his hands were gentle as he came back beside me, brushing the hair out of my face. "I came to and she was about to finish you off. She was so focused on you that she didn't notice me getting up and going to the kitchen to get a knife. I stabbed her."
I shuddered, not just at the description but the matter-of-fact way Simon was telling it. Despite it being a vardoger he killed, the human body was still oozing blood.
"But...you stabbed her in the front. How is that possible?"
Simon's mouth tightened. "I knew we had to have a believable story for the police. You couldn't have stabbed her in the back. Claudia was so focused on you that I was able to push her off you and stab her."
My whole body was starting to tremble. Simon didn't seem the least bit bothered by what he had done. And how had he been strong enough to push Claudia back? She had superhuman strength.
"Simon," I stuttered. "You're scaring me. I know you were just protecting me, but...you seem so unaffected by what you did. How were you strong enough to pull her off me, anyway?"
Simon's eyes bored into mine, full of fierce emotions. "I didn't kill a person, Caitlin. I killed a vardoger. When I saw what she was doing to you, nothing else mattered except saving you. I would do anything to protect you, including killing someone. Something." Simon took a deep breath. "I don't know what came over me, but suddenly I felt like I could pick up a house. I don't know if it was adrenaline but I was able to throw her off of you without much effort."
I heard the distant sound of sirens. "Maybe it was the vardoger inside you that gave you strength. Although I don't know why it would help kill Claudia's vardoger."
