Carla wasn’t sure how long she stood there, half kneeling with the gravel of the road gouging into her soft skin. That pain was just a whisper compared the scream of the rest of her body, and that was nothing compared to her shattered heart.
It was dark behind her eyelids and time seemed to stretch out. She knew Maurice had pulled the trigger, she’d heard the sound of the gun, and she knew she was going to die at any minute. What she didn’t know what why it was taking so damn long.
With a gasp, she opened her eyes, peeling them back and was shocked to see Maurice there, staring at her with as much shock and surprise as she was sure was in her own expression. With a snarl, he held up the gun again, pulling the trigger again and again and the empty barrel spun each time, but no bullets came out. It was empty. Somehow, some way, it was empty.
But still he kept trying and then she was laughing again, at the joy of being alive, somehow miraculously alive despite being shot at multiple times by a maniac. And she was also laughing at the continuous look of shock that Maurice wore on his stupid face.
“He must have removed the bullets,” he was saying over and over to himself. He scurried over to where he had picked up the gun, swiping his meaty hands through the grass, uselessly searching for the missing bullets and all the while she laughed. “He must have…somehow he must have…”
Maurice growled then, a pure animal sound of rage and frustration and he looked so much like a pig just then, rooting through the grass and shrieking like a little piglet that she started giggling even harder.
Carla knew, in the back of her mind, that she was losing it. That she was past the point that pure will and strength and adrenaline could take her and all that she had left was the spark that still burned dimly inside her. The spark that Joel had put there, had fostered, had loved and encouraged. Yes, she was losing, and she was probably going to die any moment at the hands of a deranged psychopath, but at least she’d go out laughing. He couldn’t take that away from her.
More enraged than she’d ever seen him Maurice finally turned to her. He tossed the gun aside to land with a heavy thud in the grass next to Joel’s still prone body. He didn’t waste any time with words this time around, just lunged at her with his fingers splayed out and curled like talons and a snarl twisting his features into a nightmare image.
Carla screamed then, kicking backwards, trying to get away, but every movement was pure torture and she only made it as far as the ditch before she stumbled. It took every ounce of strength she had to pull herself back to her feet and she pushed herself to keep going, to keep running, to keep moving no matter how badly it hurt. And it did. It really did.
The agony of it made stars explode in odd shapes in front of her eyes and made her body feel so heavy it was like she was moving through quicksand. And she wasn’t moving quick enough, not nearly.
Maurice was right behind her. She could feel his presence like a deadly snake at her back and she cried out when his fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her up short. He tugged, hard and only once but it was enough to make her scream out in pain as it felt like he was ripping off her entire scalp. Pain writhed through her, bringing sudden nausea with it in an intense wave. She dropped to one knee in the grass, trying to catch her breath, to clear her head, to fight back the bile that was trying to force its way through her throat.
“Leave me alone!” she shouted at him with as much force as she could muster which, to tell the truth, wasn’t nearly as much as she would have hoped. “Let me go.”
Her words seemed to fall on deaf ears, though because Maurice, if anything, tightened his grip on her hair, dragging her back further. Carla grit her teeth, fighting against the pain, fighting against him, but it seemed like every move she made he countered it.
She kicked out a foot, trying to connect with his shin but he skittered out of the way of her heavy boot. She struggled once more to get away, using all of her strength, that little that was left to her after the accident to pull against his grip on her. But nothing seemed to work.
With a scream of rage and heartbreak and fear she turned on him, turning until she was standing there face to face with the man who wanted to kill her, who had probably killed Joel. The thought brought pure agony with it and it fueled her on as she did the last thing she could think of.
With all of her body weight, and every ounce of power she could muster, she dug in her boots, ducked her shoulder and rammed it straight into his solar plexus. Maurice made a gasping sound as the wind was knocked out of him and Carla felt a moment of triumph as he wind milled backwards, finally releasing her hair.
She didn’t wait to see how much damage she had done, she just took off towards the road. Her only hope was to find a passing car, a good Samaritan that would pick her up and take her to safety. Carla knew she would be doomed if she got lost amongst the cliffs and rocky crevasses of the surrounding mountains.
Hands wrapped around her a moment before what felt like a ton of bricks hit her from behind and she flew to the ground. Carla skidded a few feet on the loose gravel on the side of the road, but she barely felt it. As she turned around quickly, all she could feel was overwhelming fear as Maurice jumped on top of her.
She tried to scream, tried to call out for help as hopeless as it was but suddenly she couldn’t make a sound. Maurice’s hands were wrapped around her throat and he was pressing her down into the pavement and rocks. Panic set in as she tried to get him off of her, to get him away. Carla bucked her entire body, spurred on by terror and the knowledge of her certain death but her injuries made it almost impossible to fight back. So, she used the only weapons she had.
Carla curled her fingers into talons and swiped at his face.
“Fucking bitch!” Maurice growled at her and she was taken aback by the look shining in his dark eyes. She could see it now, it was there, plain for the whole world to see. There was something broken inside of him that would never be fixed. His face was beet red and his expression an animal’s wild snarl and it had her scratching out again. And again, and again.
Anything she could do to get herself free, and it worked for a moment. He loosened his grip just enough for her to draw a precious, life-giving breath but then he was back, his fingers around her throat pressing even harder and she clawed at them, at his arms, at anything she could reach but he didn’t react.
She could feel it. Her lungs struggling for oxygen that wouldn’t come, her body wracked with painful, jerking seizures as it tried to gasp for air but it didn’t come. The whole world seemed to darken around the edges, narrowing until only a pinprick of light was left and in that pinprick was a face she never thought she’d see again. Joel.
Carla knew then that her body was giving up, even though a part of her still fought on. As long as there was a chance she would keep fighting for her life but that chance was growing slimmer and slimmer and now Joel was smiling softly down at her. His mouth was moving, trying to tell her something but she couldn’t hear it. But she felt it. As her world began to stop turning, she felt those words move through her like an explosion.
I love you.
Tears ran down her cheek unheeded as her heavy eyelids fluttered, flashing Maurice for a second but she shied away from that and back towards Joel. In her mind, she reached out to him with one hand.
I love you too, Joel. So much. So much more than I can ever say. And then her whole world really did seem to stop.
There was a sudden, deafening bang that sounded, cracking through the air just above her and she felt a warm wetness soak through her side. Carla froze for a moment, her oxygen starved brain searching for answers but they didn’t come.
Finally, she blinked open her eyes to see Maurice, his expression no longer in a rictus of hatred and violence, but of shock, and beyond that a flicker of fear. He jerked once, still above her, before slowly loosening his grip on her injured throat and rising up like a wounded bear, crying out one last time before toppling to the side, still half on top of her.
With a shriek, she tried to push his mass off of her, desperate to get away from any part of him but she could barely move, could still barely breathe through her swollen throat. And she was confused. Slowly, she turned her head from where she was still laying on the side of the road where Maurice had tried to strangle her and there he was.
Joel. Just standing there a few feet away, as bloody and beaten as she felt but standing nonetheless even if his leg did look like it was at an odd angle. And clenched in his hand, pointed straight at where Maurice had just been, was the gun. He must have reloaded the thing, but the logistics were too much for her confused mind to understand.
She only needed to know two things. That Joel was alive, and that everything was going to be okay. She knew he would make sure of that. With a sigh, she let it all go, all the fear, all the pain. Everything except the knowledge of him. She wanted to tell him that she loved him but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words. And a moment later she fell back, letting her eyes slide shut as the sound of distant sirens cut through the air.