Page 93 of Once Upon a Fable

Breathing hard, I pushed off from my knees.

I turned to rush to my Jeep.

Something huge and hard tackled me from the darkness.

Air was knocked out of my lungs; pain detonated from the impact as we fell together, splashing onto the rain-drenched ground.

In a sheet of white lightning, I froze as my captor pinned me to the mud and tried to once again wrap his hands around my throat.

His preferred method of murder.

His only focus to destroy me.

Our eyes clashed in the night. His long hair hung, dripping wet as he fought to keep me down. Instinct fought back. My hands tried to push him away. My hips surged up to knock him off. My skin once again sparked with unwanted electricity.

“You don’t get to leave me. Not you too.” He swatted away my hands, reaching for my throat.

I glanced at my Jeep, just waiting to carry me home.

I curled my fingers around my keys that were my ticket to safety.

And...I snapped.

I lost it.

He doesn’t get to hurt me anymore!

With a bolt of power, I knocked one of his knees out from under him, sending him tipping sideways. I rolled with him, pinning him beneath me, reversing our position.

I didn’t hesitate.

With my hands clutching deadly keys between my knuckles, I struck his face, his throat, his chest. “I curse you!”

Fresh blood bloomed where the metal bit into his skin, mixing red-black in the night with waterfalls of rain drowning us.

I added to his scars. His many, many scars. I would slice his damn throat if I could.

He grunted as I wounded him.

He raised his hands to protect his face as I slashed like a mad woman, no thought to my strikes just that I had to keep hurting him to hold him at bay.

“Stop!” he growled.

“Let me go!”

“Never.” His eyes blazed. “You’re mine to do whatever I want with.”

“How wrong you are!” I swiped harder, faster, driving his head into the mud.

“For the love of fucking God.” His hips shot upward, unbalancing me. “You little fool, you can’t win!” He tipped me.

It was my turn to roll sideways, moaning in pain as his heavy weight sandwiched me into the wet dirt.

Mud painted both of us.

Our hair was caked in it. Our eyelashes and cheeks, our throats and our souls. Every inch filthy and ruined.

Once again, our eyes locked in the raining gloom.