Page 4 of Queen of Ruin

Everything burns.

My throat. My chest. My shoulder.

I want to breathe but I can’t. Heat builds behind my closed eyes and nausea curls in my gut while all my thoughts jumble together.

I was just driving.

I was just trying to get home.

But that woman and the blood and then the⁠—

The pressure of the seatbelt against my chest suddenly vanishes and I’m falling. I hit the roof of my car and groan as hot pain flashes through my chest and back. Glass crunches somewhere around me, the warning ding of an unconnected seatbelt rings through the air, and there’s a dull rumble like approaching thunder.

Then hands.

They grab at my limbs and my clothes. One even sinks into my hair. I’m hauled mercilessly out of my car and dumped onto the tarmac just as I regain the strength to open my eyes.

My poor car rests on the side of the road, upside down, with the wheels still spinning. Broken glass twinkles across the road, reflecting the too-bright headlights from the stationary car parked a few feet away.

“What the…” My tongue catches at the back of my throat and suddenly I’m coughing, then wincing as each breath radiates pain through my chest.

The woman… where is she? What happened?

A dull thump reaches me. Then another. Then a cry from a man and a much harder thump that squelches slightly. I roll onto my side and see her.

The stranger.

She’s on her feet but swaying from side to side as if a strong breeze might be enough to knock her over. A tall, burly man stands in front of her and throws his fist at her face. When it collides, the sound sickens me and my stomach flips. Somehow, she remains standing.

“Hey!” I croak, fighting to get to my feet. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Leave her alone!” My organs fly up to my throat as a second man, likely the one who dragged me from the car, kicks me hard in the gut. It’s enough to shock me into silence and pain consumes me for a few seconds.

But I’m used to pain.

This is nothing compared to cold turkey.

Another blow comes, one so powerful that it lifts me off the ground for a second, and when I land, momentum makes me roll away and slump to a stop. The tang of copper coats the back of my tongue and my next breath sends spots of blood onto the ground.

That sound reaches me again. Fists against flesh.

She cries out, a sound of pain that cuts through me worse than the glass embedding in my palms as I try to get onto my hands and knees. Another blow and she crashes to the ground like a crumpled paper bag and her gun, previously loosely held in weak fingers, lands with a clatter and skitters across the ground.

Right toward me.

I spot it at the same time as the bastard who rearranged my guts does and he lunges for it, but for once in my life, I’m faster. Rolling over it, I snatch it up, lift it, and pull the trigger before the thought’s even complete in my mind.

The bullet thuds into the stranger’s throat, and he immediately lifts his hand to the side of his neck. He chokes and takes a single step back, then a fountain of blood pours from his parted lips, and he stumbles backward once more, then again and again until he falls down onto the ground with a furious yell from the man standing over that woman with his fist raised.

I sit up, take aim, and shoot him too.

2

DIEGO

The second man crumples to the ground instantly, and silence comes when the dying man I shot in the throat succumbs to his injuries.

I sit there, frozen.

I shot him.