Time froze as his face came into view. The left side of it was normal, but the other side was ruined. His once handsome face had been marred beyond repair. It looked as if he’d tried to have surgery to repair the burns, but the skin over his face showed the lumps and was too shiny to blend in to the rest. His eyelids were gone, leaving his eye socket exposed. Blackness filled the empty spot. Half of his nose was gone, and his entire mouth had been burned badly.
The smile that had once been able to trick woman like Gigi, my informant at one point, into doing whatever he wanted, was something from a nightmare. The skin stretched taut and his teeth jutted out from them, too much for the damaged skin. The corners were so damaged that spit leaked from them.
My heart hammered in my chest as I realized that I’d done that to him. He’d left a deep scar on the side of my face, but I’d ruined him. Instead of the horror that I should’ve felt, a wave of bitter joy hit me. He deserved it. I wasn’t getting any humanity awards anytime soon, but I was glad that his face was transformed to show the real man, the monster inside.
Sallisaw stepped farther out of the shadows and grinned wider at me. More spit spilled from his face and I shivered.
He’d loved to lick me. He smoked cigars constantly and his breath would smell like stale smoke that he knew made me gag. He’d run his tongue over my face and neck, reveling in the way it’d make me heave. He’d liked to spit on me, too. Anything to break me.
Seeing that spit again filled me with fire. I didn’t want to fight, but I wasn’t going down without one of us being dead. There was a man upstairs, missing out of the whole guarding my body thing, that I wanted to live for, even if it was just sex.
“Detective Willows. You’ve changed.” His voice was harsher, rougher than it’d ever been. Gone was the smooth man who could manipulate the world around him.
I jerked my foot off the hoe and gingerly put it on the ground, wincing as I did. I could run, but it would hurt. “Would it be in poor taste to point out that you’ve changed, as well?”
His smile slipped and he stepped closer to me. “What? My new look? You don’t like it?”
I glanced towards the porch, hoping Thad was coming with his gun. “What’s not to like?”
He hissed and the controlled man he once was appeared to be gone. “You fucking cunt. You’ve ruined me.”
I stepped towards the porch, wincing again. “Looks aren’t everything, Sal.”
He pulled a gun from his jacket and kept it aimed towards the ground. “You did what no one else could do. You took everything from me. Just some fucking snatch from Texas and you took Steven Sallisaw down.”
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, so I just kept silent, still slowly shifting closer to the house.
“This is what I look like after ten surgeries. I had to leave the country to get them done because doctors here wouldn’t touch me. It was too bad. All of my skin was gone, Detective. Ten surgeries and this is what I fucking look like!” He was screaming by the end. “No one fucking looks at me! No one can handle seeing me! You can’t either! Even with your fucking scar, you can’t look at me!”
I knew there was no way that Thad hadn’t heard that. He had to be coming. “This is all about no one being able to look at you? You’re being a little vain.”
“They pushed me out. I couldn’t focus. Too much pain and drugs, too much obsession with you. They pushed me out. Took my own family from me and look at me now. Coming after some ugly slut by myself like a common fucking criminal.”
I hesitated in my slow shifting. He lost his gang? Sallisaw without power wasn’t something to laugh at, but he wouldn’t have any kind of the reach he would’ve just months earlier. “How’d you find me if you lost your gang?”
“My family. They gave me a parting gift. You’re all I get for all I’ve done for them. Just a measly kill and then I’ll have nothing and no one. All because of you. I should’ve killed you that first day. I should’ve slit your fucking throat.”
Fire grew in me. “You should’ve, you sick fuck. Think of all that you’d still have if you’d just killed me. Think of everything you lost. Do you even have a home? Do you think anyone would take you in?”
He screamed and pointed the gun at me. “I’ll just kill you now!”
“What a pathetic piece of trash. I’m all you have left. Isn’t that ironic. This is all my fault and yet, I’m the only thing you have.” I saw Thad sneaking around the back of the house and my heart pumped even faster. “You used to laugh at me when I was alone in that room. Do you remember? You’d laugh and tell me that I was going to die alone, so I might as well accept it. How does it feel knowing that you predicted your own future? Is it still as funny?”
He roared in anger and fired off a shot at my feet. The earth exploded around me, stinging my bare legs as it hit them. “I’m going to make you suffer.”
Thad was getting closer. I watched in horror as the bunny jumped from the garden, rustling the leaves of the plants, and drawing Sallisaw’s attention. He swung around, catching a clear view of Thad, and swung his gun around to him.
I screamed and reacted. I wasn’t a cop, but I was still a fighter when I had to be. I guessed that would never fade. I charged Sallisaw as his gun when off and slammed my body into his back. He flew forward, landing under me in a heap. I blindly fought for his gun, desperate to keep him from hurting Thad.
Sallisaw slammed his elbow back into my face, but I didn’t stop tugging at the hand his gun was in. I pressed my knee in to his back and ripped into his shoulder with my teeth, drawing blood and hurting him enough that his hand loosened on the gun. Snatching it from him, I slammed the butt of it down on his head.
He went limp under me and I didn’t wait to jump up and run to check on Thad. He was leaning against the side of the house, his arm bleeding.
“Are you okay?” I cupped his face and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I was terrified he’d killed you. I didn’t see where he’d hit you. Is it bad?”
Thad shook his head. “It’s fine. I was coming to help, but you just fucking handled it.”
I pulled him from the wall and nodded. “We need to call an ambulance. And do something with him.”
I looked down at Sallisaw’s limp form and felt even more anger flood my veins. He’d hurt Thad. He wasn’t dead, either. He was going to be put in the hands of the justice system. I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t going to be the person who handled him, after all. I just wanted him gone so it could all be over.
“I left my phone upstairs. The office was calling me to tell me that someone else had popped up on the radar. A new crime syndicate. One of the men under Sallisaw took over and started making big moves.”
I stepped around Sallisaw and helped Thad towards the porch. “I need to find something to stop the bleeding. I’ll help you to the porch and then you can keep an eye on him while I run upstairs and get a towel and your phone.”
He grumbled about being fine, but I didn’t hear anything else over the rustling of clothes coming from behind us. I spun just as Sallisaw was raising another, smaller gun at Thad’s back.
I knew that he wanted me to suffer. I could see it in his face. He wanted to kill Thad in front of me and that would be good enough for him. He was okay with dying after hurting me.
I wouldn’t let it happen. I shoved Thad out of the way as Sallisaw’s finger squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out and then a force slammed into my chest. The pain only lasted for a second. Before I hit the ground, I was already numb.
I heard more shots ring out and then shouting, but I couldn’t hear anything. I stared up at the bright morning sky, unable to move, wondering how I’d lost my hearing as the sky darkened and I faded to nothing.
I came to in the ambulance with pain shocking through my body and a tube shoved down my throat just to pass out again. And once again, while being rolled through a long hallway with blinding fluorescent lights over my head. Each time the pain was worse. Each time the shouting around me was louder.
I somehow knew what was going on each time. I knew I was dying. I just hoped I’d saved Thad. I smiled as I thought of him and the fun I’d had before it was too late. More shouting filled the space around me and another wave of pain hit and left me unconscious again.
*
Beeping filled my head and I tried to reach for my alarm clock. It felt too early to wake up. The thought of having to roll into the shower before getting ready for work filled me with dread. It was too warm for thick slacks and button-down shirts. I didn’t want to wear them. I wanted to wear a bikini and lay on the beach.
I wanted to feel the sun on my skin and a big man next to me. I really wanted the big man. With one blue eye and one green eye.
The beeping sped up and I tried harder to swing my arm around to shut it up. Groaning, I tried to open my eyes and realized I couldn’t. They felt swollen shut. My arms were so heavy, I couldn’t lift them, and the urge to scream was growing by the second.
“Ms. Willows, you’re okay. I need you to calm down.” A stranger’s voice filled my head.
The beeping sped up and I started to panic. Where was I? Was I back in Sallisaw’s lair? Tied down and available for whatever sick thing he wanted to put me through? A scream ripped from my mouth, shattering through the sound of the beeping and scorching my throat. Pain blossomed in my chest and more voices raised around me.
“Ms. Willows, you have to calm down. You’re hurting yourself. You’re at the hospital. You just came out of surgery. Calm down, please!”
I couldn’t. I tried to free myself, tugging and pulling at my arms, despite the pain.
“We have to put her under. She’s going to rip her chest wide open.” A different voice, raised and urgent. “Do it.”
I opened my mouth to scream again when something was slapped over it and a chemically tasting air filled my mouth. I sucked in, in a panic, and a tingling feeling washed over my limbs.
The feeling of being on a beach came back to me as the beeping faded.