“You good?” I ask her in my helmet.
“Fuck, I think I really hurt myself.”
“Improvise baby.” I tell her. “I’m going to strike out at you. Fight me. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Good girl.”
It’s only a second before I’m on top of her, my arm swinging down next to her head with the large blade, letting it bounce off the floor with a loud metal on concrete sound. The images of me stabbing her to death from my nightmare flood my head as I swing again, missing her on purpose, trying to push them away. I shake my head and blink rapidly, forcing the memories from my mind as best as I can, but they’re so powerful, trying to take over me, like they have ahold of my arm and are moving it for me, getting closer to her with each drive downwards.
It’s a fucking premonition. Damnit. I really do kill her don’t I?
As I stab at her again, the blade catches the sleeve of her jacket, tearing it, ripping it open, and a stream of red smears across the shiny blade. I freeze for a second, my consciousness fighting the subconscious force pushing me onward.
“Fuck!” She screams in pain.
It’s like I’m running on instinct, the plan faltering, the knife driving me to the muscle memory of my body as I fight the demon of the dream in my head.
You’re not killing her for real asshole. Snap out of it.
“No!” She screams as I drive downward again, the knife plunging into a piece of drywall next to her face, busting it open, coating her in white powder that dusts her visor.
Her hands brush it away as she kicks out at me, her foot hitting my chest right as she flips the mirrored shield off her face.
“Damien.” She says loud enough to leech into my head, but not enough for Valentino to hear as he draws closer, his rifle aimed at the struggle. “Damien, where are you in there?”
She can feel it just like I can, the shift in me, the way my body moves with the silencing of my words. I don’t make noise when I kill. I do it silently, and if she’s been researching who the Reaper really is to know it’s me, she understands that. My lack of words out loud must be terrifying her as much as it’s scaring me.
Her visor flips open, and I can see her blue eyes open wide in fear, and it snaps something in me. I break into a million pieces as I see myself attacking the woman I love, have always loved, and will always love, just as I did in my dreams. Only here she’s not naked under me but clothed in riding gear and a willing participant to start.
“Fuck.” I grunt, bringing the knife down into the sheetrock by her head pausing over her to catch my breath, right as Valentino and Antonio come up on us.
I can hear the rifle shift in his hands behind me, and with the last shred of me that’s left I nod slowly to her and bring the knife slowly and deliberately across her throat.
Her hands fly up to grab at it, and she squeezes the blood packet in her fist, popping it open. Red fluid pours out over her neck and chest, and she does an Oscar worthy performance of lurching and gasping under my body. She kicks her feet and shakes her head, flinging the blood everywhere. It splatters me and coats my hands as I pretend to hold her neck, grabbing another packet from her and breaking it open, making it squirt up into my face like arterial spray.
“I’m sorry Dani. I love you.” I scream into the air above me, flinging my bloody hands up into the air before clawing at the strap of my helmet, crying out in the agony of murdering the only person I’ve ever wanted.
It’s so believable that the tears pouring from the corners of my eyes are real as I rip off my helmet and throw it to the ground with a loud clatter. I curl into myself, grabbing my face, smearing the blood all over my skin, sobbing into my palms.
“I knew you had it in you.” Valentino hisses behind me as I hear the rifle cock, a round being chambered. “Too bad you won’t be here long enough to miss her.”
“What?!” I yelp out as the barrel of the gun touches my back, freezing me in place, making both my heart and breath stop.
Motherfucker.
Chapter
Twenty-One
“Valentino, what are you doing?” Antonio yells out behind me.
“Something that needs to be done.” He says calmly, devoid of all emotion. “Uncle and Mister Scarpino say so.”
The sound of Dani’s father’s name on his lips does more than make me heated, it boils my insides.
That motherfucker!
