I wrapped the sweet potatoes up along with the lilies and almonds and headed back towards the beach. I found myself a little excited to be able to show Raine what I had found. There were still a couple of hours before sunset, so we’d have plenty of time to get the almonds out of the fruit and wash the tubers. I wondered if Raine knew of some clever way to cook any of this stuff. I could heat something over a fire and boil water, but that was just about it. At least she wouldn’t have to eat fish again tonight if she didn’t want to. We could make something that resembled an actual meal because I was fucking starving for something different, and she’d smile and be happy and I’d make love to her on the sand. Within a couple of days, I’d be able to make love to her in our new shelter. Maybe it would even qualify as a house. Whatever it was called, I was going to feed her decent meals and make love to her in it as often as possible.
That’s when I heard her scream.
All thoughts of food and sex disappeared from my head, and instinct took over.
I had just come over the hill hiding the open beach from my view. I heard the scream right as I looked down from the top and saw Raine, arms held behind her back by a deeply tanned man in jeans and a plain white T-shirt. There were three others all gathered around her – laughing, jeering. The one standing in front of her reached out, gripped the hem of her shirt, and pulled it up, exposing her breasts as they all continued to laugh.
“Bastian!” Raine’s scream pierced through my ears, my head, my heart. I didn’t even feel my feet start to move or consciously register the gathered nutrition as it fell from my arms; I was just suddenly flying down the sandy bank, already seeing their blood on my hands.
I’d slaughter every last one of them for even considering touching her.
I guess I wasn’t all that hungry after all.
Chapter 13 - Fury
Five hundred feet away. The darker skinned guy with dreadlocks held the hem of Raine’s shirt up high and chortled as he started reaching for her bare breast.
Four hundred feet away. One of the other two, a short and chunky man with dirty blond hair, moved to one side, making sure he had a better view. His hand dropped to the front of his pants so he could palm his dick.
Three hundred feet away. The bastard with the buzz-cut and beer gut placed his palms against Dreadlocks’ back, pushing him forwards and making his hand collide with Raine’s breast. They all laughed.
Two hundred feet away. The motherfucker with the slick, black-colored ponytail, who was holding Raine’s arms backwards, pulled back harder, making her cry out.
One hundred feet away. They all turned to look at me as a guttural, infuriated roar erupted from my chest.
I collided with Dreadlocks before anyone else could move, throwing him several feet backwards into the sand with me on top of him. I didn’t recall pulling my jackknife out, but it was already embedded in his neck, and blood spurted out in violent streams, matching his heart rate. He tried to scream, but a wet, rasping sound was all he could make with the knife in his throat. I twisted the blade, severing his left carotid artery before one of the others grabbed my shoulders and started pulling me off of him. It was Buzz-cut, the fucker who pushed Dreadlocks into Raine. If he hadn’t, the fucker never would have had the chance to touch her – not like that. I started seeing everything through a crystal clear, red haze.
My mindset was complete. I could have been in any environment – in any arena, in any jungle, or on any beach. There was nothing inside my head but the deaths of the motherfuckers around me, and I would not be stopped until they were all nothing but lifeless flesh. I didn’t think about it or rationalize it, it was just automatic. This was my element. This was my forte.
Buzz-cut yanked on my elbows, and I let him haul me upright and grab onto my elbows behind my back. He was screaming and cursing in Spanish, but the words themselves didn’t register. Dreadlocks rolled onto one side, his hand gripping the side of his neck as blood continued to drench the sand from the hole where my jackknife was still embedded.
The chunky blond guy in shorts who had been fondling himself came up in front of me, brandishing a switchblade. I snarled at him, egging him on with incomprehensible taunts. He took a step forward, holding his knife in front of him, waiting to jab it into my gut. I pushed back against Buzz-cut’s chest, ignoring the pull on my shoulder sockets, and Chunky took another step forward. Stupid fuck.
I wrenched forward and then angled myself back, using the guy holding on to me as leverage. I brought my legs up high and wrapped my ankles around Chunky’s neck. The muscles in my legs constricted, pulling him up between my thighs, and I twisted the lower half of my body to the side. I heard the distinctive crack as the strength of my femurs broke his neck, and he fell to the ground with his mouth opening and closing rapidly, trying to make a sound.
As my legs dropped back to the sand, I bent at the waist and brought Buzz-cut up and over my back to land on his companion. As I dove towards him, my left hand went to his throat, but the angle was awkward due to the position of the dying fucker with the knife lying next to his outstretched hand. As Buzz-cut tried to reach for the knife, I pounded my right fist into his face over and over again. I smashed my fist into both of his eye sockets, and blood poured from his eyes, mouth, and nose. My fist continued to do irreparable damage to the bastard’s face as I registered Raine’s screams to my right and glanced over to her.
Ponytail was dragging her backwards through the shallow water towards a small speedboat anchored just a few feet from the beach. I hadn’t even seen the boat before since my attention had been otherwise focused. They were almost to the boat itself, and he grabbed Raine by the waist, throwing her up and over the short bow before I could react. I pulled myself up onto my feet and jabbed my heel out to Buzz-cut’s knee as I rose. The sharp cracking sound of his knee bending back at the wrong angle, breaking his leg in the process, was drowned out by his screaming. Buzz-cut with his now broken knee and fucked up face was immediately forgotten as I shoved away from him and started towards the boat.
Pressure in a tight, distinct line registered on the back of my right thigh, just above the back of my knee, followed by the pain. I ignored it and ran on. Ponytail was on the ladder running over the side of the boat, and then he was on board and the motor started up. My feet pounded on the wet sand as he floored the gas. The boat tore out across the water. I was too far away. I couldn’t reach it in time.
One hundred feet away. I watched impotently as my reason for existence was roughly grabbed and thrown to the floor of the boat. My gut wrenched, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.
Two hundred feet away. I watched the motherfucker raise his middle finger to me and heard his laughter before he turned back to his cargo.
Three hundred feet away. Raine was screaming again, and I saw Ponytail’s foot rise up and kick towards the bottom of the boat.
Four hundred feet away. I felt blood dripping down the back of my leg and hoped whatever the injury was, that it would be enough to kill me, but I doubted it.
Five hundred feet away. I saw the anchor for the boat still partially buried in the sand near the edge of the water – and the long rope attached to it.
My feet splashed in the shallow water, and the drag from the waves pulled at my legs. I dove through the air in one huge leap and wrapped my wrist around the rope to the anchor. I raised my other hand to grasp the rope a little higher up and started to pull. Sharp, intense pain traveled up the back of my leg as it hit the water. I tightened my shoulders and biceps to keep my arms from being pulled out of their sockets as I rocketed forward.
The boat began to drag me behind it, and keeping my head above the water was nearly impossible. Salty fluid filled my nose, and I coughed to get it out, which only caused me to inhale more water. Tilting my chin to my chest, I could no longer see in front of me, but at least I could keep from drowning before I got to the boat. I kept pulling with my arms, ignoring the pain in my biceps, my lungs, my leg. Counting each pull wi
th my arms, I measured the distance in my head until I was nearing the back of the boat and the propellers. By some miracle, the fucker hadn’t turned around to see me hanging on to the rope. I held on tight to a large knot tied in the line – as close as I could get without hitting the propeller – and reached around to the side to pull my body up to the edge. My fingers scraped over the rough surface, but I corrected my grip and pulled myself onto the ledge at the back of the boat.
Raine was on the floor with blood coming out of a cut on her lip, and that motherfucking bastard was standing over her. As my feet hit the deck, he turned, and his eyes widened as he realized I was really there. His shock didn’t last long, and he reached down and pulled Raine onto her feet, held her in front of him, and wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“You might as well let go,” I said. My voice was calm, and the back of my mind registered it as Landon’s voice of death. In my mind I wondered if I had ever sounded like this before. “No matter what else happens here, you are going to die. That’s a given.”
“Bastian…” My name was nothing more than a whisper on her lips.
“Shh,” I responded. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. I was so focused on him, I couldn’t even see her in his grasp.
“I’ll kill the bitch,” the motherfucker growled. He was trying to keep his voice steady and tough, but he was failing. His eyes showed it all – he knew he was going to die.
“Take your hands off of her now, and I promise to kill you quickly.” I took half of a step towards them and saw his fingers tighten against her windpipe. “You know you’re already dead. It’s just a matter of how long I make it last.”
“I’ll kill her!”
“How?” I purred at him. “You aren’t holding a weapon. Can you hurt her faster than I can get to you? Are you willing to take the chance? I have all kinds of ways of making you feel pain.”
He moved but not in the direction I expected.
Being surprised in battle is not something that had happened to me very often. I could only assume I was severely out of practice when I didn’t catch on to his plan until it was too late. Using his body, he shoved Raine to the side of the boat, over the edge, and into the water. He spun around to face the controls and cranked up the gas.
I had very little time to act and no time to think. Raine was behind us, unprotected in the waves. The boat, which could be our best rescue chance, was at full throttle and heading out to sea. Most importantly, I definitely, definitely was not going to let that asshole live. I had to go after Raine immediately because she could drown in minutes, but I couldn’t leave him on the boat. There was only one option left. I jumped for him, grabbed him by his ponytail, thankful he had enough hair to form a tight grip, and leapt overboard with him in my grasp.
The boat continued to move at top speed out to sea.
Ponytail’s nails dug into the skin of my arm just above where I held him by the hair. I had to use the other arm to keep my head above water, searching the slow moving waves for a sign of Raine. I saw her about a hundred yards away, bobbing up and down in the currents. The shore was another thousand yards behind her.
Shit.
“Raine!” I screamed out at her and saw her turn in my direction. I wanted her to head towards me, not towards the shore like she would be inclined to do. I needed her with me. I had to have her close where I could touch her and know she was safe.
I kept the hand holding the half-drowned bastard under the waves, feeling his struggles subside. I wasn’t going to be able to kill him the way I wanted to – slowly and painfully. It was going to have to be fast so I could get Raine back to shore.
I pulled Ponytail up closer to me, his head above the waves again as I swam towards Raine. She was doing well, treading water and keeping herself afloat. I wished I had my knife on me so I could at least cut the bastard I was holding. I looked back to his face, and he spat seawater at me.
I swirled in the water and brought the fucker up close to me as he struggled to get out of my grasp. I grabbed one of the loops on his jeans and brought his torso up close to mine and then brought my knee up quickly, crushing his balls up into his body. He yelled and started thrashing around in the water. With a quick jerk of my neck, I nailed his nose with my forehead, and blood started gushing into the water. I shoved him back underneath the waves and started swimming to Raine again.
The hands gripping my arm became more desperate, clawing at my skin for a minute before the movements slowed and then stopped. I shook the bastard by his hair once and then let him go. He didn’t resurface but slowly sank into the waves. I resisted the urge to drag him back to shore, resuscitate him, and then beat his ass more thoroughly.
It took several more minutes, but eventually I reached out and felt the skin of Raine’s arm. She immediately wrapped both arms around my neck and held on as tight as she could.
“Loosen up a little, baby,” I said. I grabbed her waist under the water and held her against me for a moment before moving her to my back. “Hold on tight, but let me breathe, okay?”
“Yes.” Raine’s hot breath in my ear should have been both comforting and soothing, but my mind was still too focused, too eager to kill. I couldn’t think about much of anything but getting back to the last motherfucker who had dared to threaten what was mine and finishing him off.
We were a ways out but not a distance I hadn’t swum before, and nowhere near too far even though my right leg was getting a little tired and achy. Raine’s arms around my neck were almost cutting off my air, but I kept trudging on until my feet were finally in the sand and then out of the water. I reached up and grabbed her forearms and pulled them gently from around my neck, having a little bit of difficulty with that because she didn’t seem to want to let go. I took that as a good sign – she must not be badly hurt. I pulled her around in front of me and took her face between my hands. I scanned her up and down. Aside from her busted lip, I didn’t see any blood or signs of further injury. I glanced out over the water and saw the boat barely still visible on the horizon. I turned back to Raine.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, my words clipped and strained. My muscles were still desperate to latch on to something and squeeze the life out of it.
“I don’t think so,” she responded through deep breaths.
I let go of her without another word and stomped across the sand to where Buzz-cut was still lying in the sand, trying to both hop and drag himself away simultaneously. It wasn’t working well with one leg, and he had only managed to move himself about two hundred yards down the beach – like he could go somewhere and fucking hide from me. I didn’t even have to run to catch up with him.
When I reached him, I grabbed his injured leg, pulling and twisting it as he screamed. He flipped over onto his back, and the look of terror in his eyes reminded me of how Raine had looked as Ponytail had held her. It was the same look on her face when Buzz-cut had shoved Dreadlocks to make him grope her. I felt my chest tighten, and I increased my grip on his ankle until I could feel the outline of the bone against my thumb. Keeping up the pressure, I jerked it hard to the left, listening to the snap of the bone before his howls drowned out all the sound around us.
He still had a bloodied knife in his hand, and he tried to get near enough with it to cut my skin. He didn’t even come close, but I got tired of dodging, so I kicked his hand, breaking two fingers and causing the knife to fly off into the water. He turned his head, his eyes searching for the lost weapon.
“You want it back?” I snarled at him and then laughed. “You want to fucking cut me, you fucking son-of-a-bitch? You want to cut me? Let’s go get your little toy, shall we?”
I dragged him to the water and shoved his face into the wet sand. He struggled under my grip until I pulled him up by his ears just long enough to take a breath before I shoved him back down under the shallow waves. I found myself wishing he had a ponytail, too, so I could yank him around by it, but I made do with what was there.
Images of Buzz-cut
pushing Dreadlocks kept infiltrating my brain as I started slamming his head into the wet sand repeatedly. His face was a bloody mess of shallow cuts and scrapes. I caught a glimpse of the knife just a few feet away, hauled him up, and dragged him over to it before throwing him headfirst towards the weapon.
“Come on, you pussy!” I screamed. “Pick up the fucking knife! Pick it up, and I’ll fucking gut you with it, you worthless piece of shit!”
He was moaning and bawling and wouldn’t even go towards the slim blade. He put his broken hand up over his bleeding face and begged me not to kill him.
“You were dead when you first laid eyes on her,” I said softly. Landon’s voice was back on my tongue. I took three steps to reach him, grabbed the knife out of the water, and pulled him back onto the dry sand. I pushed the knife towards his face, making sure he got a good look at it before I opened him up, throat to gut.
He gurgled, and blood began to pour from his mouth. The fingers of his good hand gripped my wrist, but there was no power behind it. I punched him in the stomach, feeling the gash open wider and his insides start to pour out. I punched his face, feeling his nose break underneath my knuckles. It felt fucking fantastic, so I did it again and again. Eventually his hands fell to the sides of his head and he stopped struggling. My fists continued to pound into his face. Sometimes I felt my fists hit sand, but that didn’t necessarily mean I missed my target. I alternated left and right, throwing punches to what was left of his face and to his chest, listening to the sound of breaking ribs.
“Bastian! Bastian, please stop! Stop, Bastian! He’s dead, Bastian…please stop…”
Eventually I heard her, though I’m not sure how long Raine had been begging me to stop. Her hands were on my shoulders, trying to pull me from the mutilated corpse underneath me. I stopped the movement of my aching arms and leaned back on my heels. Slender fingers wrapped around my bicep and yanked at my arm. A sharp pain in the back of my leg shot up my thigh from its focal point above my knee and then cascaded all the way down to my ankle. My leg tried to buckle, but I told it to cut that shit out and stood up straight.