I bring my arm down hard, shrieking with fear, feral and black and sticky. At the last second he twists away, using the railing for leverage, hoisting himself up and spinning away. The shank misses his neck and slides down his shoulder into his back, slipping right through the fabric and skin and slamming against something hard. Bunched muscle? His shoulder bone? Whatever it is, it’s like hitting a rock wall, a sudden stop that jangles all the way up my shoulder.

“You bitch,” he howls.

He kicks me off him, the screwdriver snagging in his shirt. There’s a loud ripping noise, then air. My fingers come away empty, the plastic handle wrenched from my grip. My weapon clatters to the floor by his feet, and he shoves it away with a shoe. It skids down the hall and into the bedroom—too far for me to lunge for it, especially considering the weapon in his other hand.

The gun, aimed at my chest.

“Shiiiiit.” I think it. I scream it. Maybe both.

Retaliation comes like a cannon shot, a sudden backhand to the face. I didn’t see it coming, didn’t notice the smooth arc of his arm coming at me until it’s too late. The heel of his wrist clocks me in the ear, but it’s the gun that hits me the hardest. It slams my cheek with a wet crunch, whipping my head backward, blasting stars across my vision, hurling my body into the wall.

I slide down it, and then...nothing. The room swims in and out of focus. There’s a strange ringing in my right ear, but no pain. Only a heavy pressure on my cheek, a dull, empty moment where my brain acknowledges the blow, but it doesn’t hurt. Not yet.

And then the pain arrives, a shattering explosion on the whole right side of my head. Like a sledgehammer to the cheek, like my face was dipped in lava. Dull and sharp at the same time, fire and ice and a million beestings. It’s a sickening agony that short-circuits my brain and lifts me up and out of my body, crowding out every thought except Beatrix, hiding somewhere in this house.

Please, God, don’t let this bring her running.

I suck a breath and hold it, listening for a scream, a flurry of footsteps coming my way, but there’s nothing. Only silence.

Just in case, I heave myself up off the floor, stumbling to a strategic spot in the middle of the room, gasping in pain while puffing myself up, straightening my back and spreading my legs wide, an easy human target to take a bullet meant for my daughter.

Not happening.

Not today.

“You’re going to regret that.”

I press a hand to my throbbing cheek and glare, my eyes welling with hot, angry tears.

The only thing I regret, asshole, is that I missed.

C A M

5:51 p.m.