When she sealed her mouth over mine sharing her air, I truly thought this was it.
I'm going to drown.
And I was okay with that for two reasons. The first being Finn would go free and the second, I was taking a part of her with me when I moved on. I was going to die happy and loved.
I was absorbing the sound of Finn’s breathing when I heard a gun being racked. Glancing up, I saw that it was Merle’s barrel pointed at my forehead. At the same time, Finn’s scream rent the air and she was pulled from my grasp by Heron. I was getting awfully tired of my so-called brothers showing up in pairs.
“Get up,” Merle says, taking a step back keeping him out of attack range. “Slowly.”
With no weapons on me, I do as he says and felt my blood boil at Finn’s pain and struggling.
“Nix,” she says with fury lacing her voice. “It needs to be said, your friends are dicks.”
Confident we would fight our way out of this, I gave myself over to laughter. Not liking that, Merle used the butt of his gun to smash my face in.
“You are so going to die for that,” Finn growls. “That’s my face, mine, and the only one busting it up is me.”
“It’ll take more than blunt force to dull my good looks,” I wink at her even though my cheek now had a pulse.
“If anyone is going to clock you, honey, it’s me.”
“Shut up,” Heron says, tightening his grip in her hair.
“Nix,” she pouts. “Did you spill my secrets then?”
“Which secrets, baby? Be specific.”
Grinning evilly, she says, “You know, that hair pulling for me is foreplay.”
“Sure didn’t,” I try and smirk but couldn't manage it. “Guess he just got lucky.”
With Merle’s eyes on me, it went unspoken between us how this was going to go down. My woman wanted a fight and far be it for me to stop her.
“Oh well,” she sighs. “It’s true what they say about luck then.”
“And what’s that?” Heron asks yanking her head back hard.
Smiling through the pain she says, “It rhymes with fuck,” and then she struck.
In a blink, I was on Merle intent on disarming him. Trading blows, I landed a solid jab to his temple that sent him face-first into the sand. Pulling him up by the back of his neck, the coward tossed a handful of shit into my eyes, temporarily blinding me. Rushing me, Merle took us to the ground burying a fist into my kidney.
If we survived this, I was having an x-ray done to make sure my organs weren’t pulverized.
When I heard Finn’s battle cry, it fueled my own.
The next few minutes slowed to a crawl. Where I used my ears instead of my eyes to fight back.
Unfortunately, Merle scored another blow and the stars I was seeing were not from the sky.
Fuck, not only was I physically exhausted, I was emotionally tired of this shit too.
With one hand around my throat and the barrel pressed into my forehead, I knew I had to keep him occupied so his focus wasn’t on Finn.
“Ten million for pussy,” he says leaning in. “Kill her and we’ll split it. You can buy better pussy than hers, Phoenix.”
“My pussy is priceless, asshole!” Finn yells our way. “And you, quit squirming. That’s lazy man’s fighting.”
“Decide, Phoenix,” he says cutting off my air.
“It’s her,” I grate out but felt the beast rising. “It will always be her.”
And before he could reply, I broke his hold by snapping his wrist. Taking Merle to his back, I fumble, looking for the gun I can’t see.
“Kill you in a sec,” Finn says running over to me and grabbing my hand she flips it over placing the gun in my palm. Kissing my cheek, she coos, “Get ‘em, baby.”
“Do it,” Merle orders. “Fucking traitor.”
So I did.
Squeezing the trigger, I put every round into his chest.
Rolling off, I stumble getting to my feet and call for her.
“I got this,” she says cheerfully. Jesus Christ, she wasn’t even out of breath. Running toward the water, I splashed my face several times to clear my vision. Once that was done, I stood off to the side so I could watch my woman beat the fucking shit out of Heron. And she was beating the fucking shit out of him too.
Heron, who was too slow, too obvious, and too tired.
His face was covered in blood, his nose leaking like a fountain, and he was favoring his right side.
“Come on!” she screams and when he pushes forward, Finn widens her stance. Heron was within striking distance when she delivered a punishing side kick. When he crumbles, she circled him demanding he get back up. After several moments of him not moving, she crouches down, checks his pulse, and groans.
“Shit. He’s dead. That was so anti-climactic.”
“He was new,” I say shaking my head in disappointment for her. Being denied a painful death sucked.
“Clearly,” she says wiping her hands off. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she says sweeping my leg and straddling me. “If you ever fucking stall on my behalf again, I swear to God, I will throw you from a roof.”
“Finn—”
“Without a safety harness.”
“Listen to me,” I say fighting the urge to roll her over and fuck her.
“He could have pulled the trigger!” she screams in my face and then ended the vocal assault to begin the physical one. Slapping me all over, I gave her a minute to get it out before pinning her wrists.
“You need to trust me,” I whisper.
“I need you alive,” she whispers back.
Pulling her into my arms, I hold her close and when she clutches me, I closed my eyes.
Kissing my neck, she says, “Tomorrow we finish it.”
With dread in my gut, I agreed, “Tomorrow we finish it.”
God help us both.