Page 12 of Vile Bastards
“You were supposed to keep her safe,” Bohnes growls, rising to his feet. His teeth are clenched and—if he didn’t look like death warmed-over—I might truly have to fight for my life right now. “She’s supposed to be at the track. Why is she here?”
“Alexei Grove came looking for her,” I explain, and the entire dirty scenario replays in my head again. I decide to skip the fact that she allowed that blond-haired germaphobe to rut her into the muddy wall of the winner’s circle, or the fact that I shamelessly jacked off to the whole thing, humiliated and hating myself for it even as I loved it. “She was worried about him and wanted to follow him.”
“And you let her?!” Bohnes puts his face in his hands, and I can see that he’s shaking all over. He drops his arms, and the look he throws my way causes me to take a menacing step forward. My fingers curl around the weapon.
I could shoot this ghoul, and who would care? Who? Friggin’ nobody.
Only … Scarlett would.
I school my temper. Killing Bohnes won’t save my woman from whatever trouble she’s gotten herself into.
“When was the last time you stopped Scarlett from doing what she wanted to do, huh?” I retort. She took off so fast that I had two choices: follow her or stay behind. There was no keeping her there. “She must still be with Alexei; they left together just before Ash stumbled onto me.”
I gesture his way, but he holds up a hand.
“Shush.” The word is snapped out like a command, and both Bohnes and I bristle, but neither of us question it. He’s far too serious to play dominance games right now. “Do you hear that?”
It takes a minute to listen past my thundering heart, my rapid breaths, the rush of adrenaline fogging my brain. But then … I do. I hear it. And it scares the shit out of me.
A scream like that is never good news.
Only tragedy waits behind a sound as ragged and broken as that.
Alexei
The river nearly drowns us both, carrying our rapidly weakening bodies in a cruel but quiet current until I’m slammed mercilessly against a fallen log. I cling to it with one arm, desperately grasping Scarlett with the other.
For the second time that night, I’m certain that my choices are to let her go and live or hold her and die.
This time, I don’t bother to entertain the former thought.
Either we both make it out or neither of us makes it out.
My fingernails rip and tear, sending sharp, hot pain through me that helps cut the frigid grip of the river, the cool numbness drifting over me and causing my lids to sink. They’re weighted down, heavy, and I start to wonder why I’m so eager to live? Wouldn’t it just be simpler to die? I could see Papa. I could …
I dig my nails into the wood and, with a ragged scream, wrench my body up until my torso slams across the log’s surface. Scarlett’s dead weight makes my left arm feel like it might very well detach, but I drive my numb fingertips into her skin and refuse to be parted.
I’m nothing, if not obstinate.
With another broken scream, I flex the muscles in my left arm and throw Scarlett up and over the log. There it is. We’re both more or less out of the water. I’m panting terribly, shivering, teeth chattering, but there’s no one coming to save us.
Either we save ourselves or we die.
I turn to face the river, moonlight glittering on the dark surface, a beckoning finger from Mother Nature. Come, take a dip, relax. I curse her ethereal and deadly beauty as I grab onto Scarlett’s shoulders and start to scoot backward along the log toward the shore.
The tree’s roots are a gnarled bundle, mud and grass clinging to them in thick clusters. It’s the heavy weight, and the desperate cling of the few roots still buried in the ground, that keep the log from being pulled down the river.
Getting past them proves to be a challenge. I’m disoriented and confused, and for a brief minute there, I almost forget where I am and what I’m doing. I start to drift off, slumping forward, and then my eyes snap open with a start.
I almost toppled us both back into the water.
“F-fool,” I grate out, and the sound of my own voice helps rouse me. The bundle of roots is about the size of a small car. In order to get around it, I’m forced to jump down into the shallow water, feeling that impossible cold sweep up to my waist.
With my hands under Scarlett’s armpits, I drag her down off the log and into the water. That helps a bit, taking some of her weight off of me as I move backward toward the shore.
