Chapter 185 WHEN SURVIVAL TURNED SALVAGE
Chapter 182
Rosa's POV
The air pressed down on me like the inside of a furnace.
Hot, very heavy and suffocating.
Leo stood a few feet away, his gun pointed straight at me. His eyes were cold. Steady. The kind of eyes that had done this before.
But mine were already moving to the branch which laid holding ground close begging to help me out of the quagmire I put myself in. I should not have promise the idiot anything close to gold. Now I have used my hand to invite an untamed beast.
It lay on the ground. It laid thick, heavy and close enough to my foot that I could feel it without looking down.
My heart slammed against my ribs. One shot was all he needed that would be the end of me.
I moved.
My fingers closed around the branch and I swung it hard before he could even blink.
Bang!
Wood cracked against his skull.
"Ahh!"
Leo stumbled backward, both hands flying to his head. The gun slipped away from his foot where he had placed it.
For one beautiful second, the world slowed down.
I ran towards the gun.
My legs moved faster than my mind could think of where the gun was. It was Just a few steps.
I could already see myself grabbing it, holding it up, ending this nightmare once and for all.
But Leo was faster than I thought.
His foot caught my leg mid-stride. The ground rose up and hit me like a wall. I tasted dirt. My vision exploded with white stars. But my eyes never left the gun; it was still closer to me than it was to him.
He knew it too.
"No..." Leo snarled.
He grabbed my ankle and yanked. My nails scraped across the dirt as he dragged me backward. I twisted around and drove my heel into his side. Once. Twice. Three times.
"You… bloody..." He grunted through clenched teeth, each word squeezed out like it cost him something.
He pulled me closer anyway.
Then his hand found my throat.
Large fingers. Strong fingers. They wrapped around my neck like a vice and he squeezed. All thoughts of the gun vanished. All thoughts of everything vanished. There was only his grip and my shrinking air and the darkness creeping in from the edges of my eyes.
He climbed over me, pressing his full weight down, using every inch of his size to crush the life out of me. His face hovered above mine. Twisted. Furious. Eyes burning with something that went beyond anger.
This was personal.
"Manipulative little liar," he breathed. "You were lying the whole time. Every single word out of your mouth was a lie." He squeezed harder. "But you will not escape this. Not tonight."
I punched his chest. It did nothing.
I hit his arms. He didn't even flinch.
My lungs began to burn. My fingers went numb. The trees above us blurred and swayed. I could feel my body starting to give up before my mind was ready to.
No.
Not like this.
I stopped fighting his hands. He wasn't expecting that. For just a split second, something shifted in his expression. Confusion. Curiosity.
That was enough.
I pulled my knee slowly upward. Positioned it carefully between us. And then I drove it up with everything I had left.
Hard.
The sound that came out of Leo was not human.
"AHHH— AHHH!"
He rolled off me instantly, curling in on himself, both hands grabbing at his lower body. He hit the ground writhing and gasping. Every rough breath he took sounded like it was killing him.
I didn't stop to watch.
I scrambled toward the gun. Dirt flew under my hands and knees. The night gown I was wearing had been torn to strips, caked in mud and smelling of earth and river water, but none of that mattered. Only the gun mattered.
My fingers were inches away when his hand grabbed the back of my neck again.
I screamed.
He slammed me into the ground so hard the world went black for half a second. When my vision came back, he was dragging me by the torn fabric of my gown, pulling me toward the river. I could hear the water now. Dark and fast and cold.
He was going to throw me in.
I went limp.
He paused just long enough to adjust his grip and that pause was all I needed. My hand shot out and found the gun in the darkness.
Cold metal. Heavy. Real.
He felt the change in me. His fist returned to my neck immediately, driving my face down into the river's edge. The cold water rushed over my head. My ears filled with the deep hollow silence that lives underwater. My lungs screamed.
I couldn't see.
I couldn't breathe.
But my finger found the trigger.
Bang. Bang.
The grip around my neck disappeared.
Just like that. Gone. Like it had never been there at all.
I burst out of the water choking and gasping for breath. I rolled onto the bank and lay there with my cheek against the cold mud, pulling air into my lungs in desperate ragged gulps. My whole body shook. My hands wouldn't stop trembling. Like I had fought world war and I had conquered.
I looked back at the river.
Leo was still in it.
He wasn't fighting. He wasn't swimming. He was drifting slowly downward, his body turning quietly beneath the surface, getting smaller and smaller until the dark water swallowed him whole.
I didn't move for a long time.
I just lay there. Shaking, breathing heavily.
My head hung low for survival.
Then I heard a strange voice.
Rosa!”
I paused.
Rosa,” the voice hit me again. It sounds like Mila's voice, my sister.
Then footsteps followed. It thundered behind me. Like it was approaching.
Rosa! Daughter of Blackthorn.”
I snapped my head backward.
One that has dedicated her life to evil.”