The world exploded in jagged shades of orange and purple as a choir of arsonists set her skull ablaze.
A second blow turned everything silent and still and dark for a moment, before it all rushed back in a deafening wave.
She probably wouldn’t wake up from a third...
And that’s when Natasha’s searching hand clamped onto the yellow-and-black handle of that crappy buck-fifty screwdriver.
She gripped it tight.
Then rammed the blade and shank right into Davis’s side.Thnk.
His mouth fell open, fist drooping.
She pulled the screwdriver free –shkk– and drove it in again.Thnk.Shkk. And again.Thnk.
He let go of her hair and staggered back a step.Shkk.
This time, the screwdriver stabbed deep into his belly.Thnk.
Davis blinked at her.
Natasha tightened her grip on the handle and twisted.
With a normal screwdriver that probably wouldn’t do much, but the buck-fifty’s shank was all bent from getting her wrists unshackled, so instead of just swivelling around, the blade would be grinding its way through his innards. Causing all sorts of horrible damage.
Good.
Davis swayed back on his good leg, but the other one wouldn’t take his weight any more and down he went with a crashing thump.
Left hand clutching his stomach, he tried to claw and push himself away from her, the screwdriver still sticking out of his midriff. Blood-soaked jeans leaving a thick scarlet smear across the concrete floor. Wet and gleaming in thehead torch’s glow as yet more blood pulsed out of his punctured guts.
The barn swirled around Natasha’s head and her working knee gave way, dumping her on her backside against the workbench again. Leaving her swaying. Holding onto the floor to keep herself from falling off as everything danced and spun.
Davis got as far as the table saw.
He was still struggling to escape, but his good leg just slipped on the blood-slicked floor and he didn’t seem to have the strength in his arms any more. So eventually he stopped even trying and...sagged.
Natasha closed her eyes as the waltzing world picked up pace, twirling and reeling. Arms and legs and head and every single breath getting heavier, until everything went...
— an albino crocodile —
on a scarlet lake
71
Sunlight streamed in through the window, making the dusty black flakes sparkle as Logan scraped the burnt bits off his toast, into the sink.
Which turned the low-fat spread a bit grey as he slathered it on. But it was all going in the same place as his mug of tea, so it didn’t really matter.
Technically, given he was in full uniform again this morning – complete with a third pip on each epaulette – it should’ve been coffee and doughnuts for breakfast, but you made do with what you had.
Something folkyhigh-diddle-de-deed out of the radio, to accompany Logan’s return trip to the fridge – there to liberate, unwrap, and flop the last slice of plastic cheese onto his hot can’t-believe-it’s-not-buttery toast.
Crunching away, as the teeny birds mobbed the feeders in the back garden. Like a swarm of itsy-bitsy feathery sharks. All the borders were in bloom, a sea of colour for the bumbling bees. Quite bucolic, for a Friday morning in Aberdeen.
Have to give that grass a mow before the barbecue, though.
The microwave’s clock blinked over to 06:18.