“Finally! Finally, I have you!”
Becca couldn’t move. She felt played out. Spent. Done.
His evil face glared into hers. “Nothing to say, bitch?” He hauled his right hand back and slapped her.
My baby, she thought. My baby. Have to save my baby…
As if reading her mind, he snarled, “That abomination will die before it is born. You will all die. I’ve been waiting. Waiting! And now the time is right.”
“Please…”
“That’s right. Beg. It will do you no good. The devil’s own will be returned to him. Now!”
No way was Hudson going to sit in the car like a trained dog while Becca’s life was in danger. No effin’ way!
Nor was Mac waiting for backup. He parked his Jeep on a stretch of road less than a quarter of a mile from the cabins, and with strict instructions for Hudson to wait for the sheriff’s department, he slid into the night.
Hudson gave him thirty seconds, then checked the glove box and lo and behold, there was Mac’s backup weapon. Perfect. He checked the chamber. It was loaded.
He wasn’t going to wait for the damned backup.
Not with Becca’s life in danger.
Not with his unborn kid’s life at risk.
Sliding the heavy sidearm into his waistband, he stole into the night, circling around the north end of the property, spying Mac, barely discernible in the security lights near the front porch.
He crouched along a broken fence line, his finger on the trigger. Tonight, that son of a bitch who’d been terrorizing Becca was going to die.
She had to move. Had to! The knife was still in his hand though he seemed intent on shaking some truth from her.
He glared down at her, enjoying the capture. “Nothing to say?” he whispered.
She flung herself forward, intending to bite him but he held her back, then turned her roughly around, pressing her back against him, the knife blade cutting into her throat. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you, slut? I knew you’d come. Just like Jezebel. You’re so much the same.”
Terrified, she tried to think of a way to escape, any avenue that would set her free.
“Have you learned the truth yet?” he hissed in her ear. “Like she did? That she came from incest. Father and daughter! You, too, fucking whore!”
Becca tried to speak but she felt the knife at her throat break skin. A thin trickle of blood ran down her neck.
He was holding her fast to him, his chest pressed hard to her back. She hardly dared breathe, couldn’t risk moving as they stood on the cliff face, the piercing wind whirling and yowling around them, the black ocean frothing and raging below. Just as it was in your visions. As if this is your destiny.
“She was pregnant with her vile child, just as you are,” he whispered.
His enjoyment sent rage flowing through her, but she needed to keep him talking.
“Renee?” she managed.
“That slut was asking questions around town, a tell-all book about the sickness at Siren Song.”
“What sickness?” The blade pressed, cold on her throat.
“You know, whore. You know.”
She shuddered. It was as if she were being held by the devil himself. “No…truly…I don’t know.”
“Jezebel and Rebecca are the most foul,” he intoned, as if it were a litany he said to himself often. “They can never be allowed to breed, to continue the cycle. Jezebel came to Siren Song and learned. That’s how I found her. I smelled the fetus within her. That’s why she had to die.”
Becca was shivering, the wind slapping at them, the salt in the air sticking to her skin. “You killed her in the maze,” she said unevenly.
“Jezebel thought she had me, but I had planned to kill her all along and leave her at the base of the statue that bears her abominable mother’s name.”
“Mary?”
“She could see things,” he said with the faintest hint of admiration. “So can you.”
“So can you,” Becca said, recalling how he’d seen Jessie’s vision on the road.
“It won’t work,” he suddenly said. He leaned closer and licked the inside of her ear. “It never does, sister, I always win.”
Her stomach convulsed and she nearly threw up.
But then he shifted slightly, the knife slipping just a fraction. Becca’s fury took over. She kicked backward as hard as she could, then reached behind her and wrenched his balls in a death squeeze.
“Bitch!” he howled in surprise, his grip loosening. He doubled over in pain.
Hudson counted the seconds. One…two…three… Sweat was building on his back beneath his jacket. He had to get to Becca. Had to save her and their child. They were all he had. All he wanted and if this prick so much as harmed one hair on her head.
But he was scared to his soul. This madman was relentless and focused on Becca.
“Bitch!”
The shout roared through the night.
Mac yelled something but Hudson didn’t hear. He jumped to his feet and ran blindly forward, hand hard on the gun.
He was gonna blow the sucker away.
Becca clung to Justice but he beat on her with his fists. She couldn’t breathe. Had to let go. He was swearing and flinging his arms. His knife slammed downward, gouging into her thigh. She cried out.
Bang!
A shot shattered the night.
Justice, with a scream louder than the wind, fell to the ground, writhing.
What? Oh, God, what’s happening?
Becca spun, her leg burning. She was staring straight at Hudson, one arm in a sling, a large pistol in his right hand. He walked forward quickly, the nose of the gun aimed directly at Justice’s slithering and twisting form. Hudson’s face was a mask of fury, his eyes dark with murder, as if he intended to empty every round in the gun into the man who had nearly killed Becca.
“Don’t!” she warned as sirens screamed over the wind and Mac burst out of the end unit of the motel. “Hudson, don’t!”
Mac screamed, “Put the gun down, Walker! Now!” His sidearm was aimed not at Hudson, but the wounded man. “We want this fucker alive. He’s got a lot of explaining to do, and he can start with Jessie Brentwood.”
Hudson lowered his gun and Becca nearly collapsed against him. “It’s over,” she whispered as his good arm held her tight. “It’s finally over.”
The sheriff’s department seemed to appear by magic. One moment Hudson was holding Becca and Mac was staring down the writhing monster on the ground, gun aimed at the man’s chest, the next a swarm of armed men were running across the grounds.
Becca pressed her face into Hudson’s chest. She heard him swear softly. “We need to take you back to the hospital,” he said.
“I never want to go there again.”
“You’re hurt.”
“But alive. He didn’t hurt our baby. He wanted to. He wanted to hurt our baby.”
“He’s sick.”
“It’s something to do with Siren Song, Hudson. He wanted to kill everyone from Siren Song.”
Her teeth were chattering. Hudson didn’t wait any longer. He led her toward Mac’s Jeep. “Gotta get you help,” he murmured.
Mac materialized out of the gloom. “I’ll call an ambulance,” he said, glancing at Becca. “We’re ordering one for the woman in the cabin.”
“Madeline? She’s alive?” Becca turned toward him.
“Barely. But she’s breathing okay.”
“I can go in the Jeep,” she assured him.
Hudson said to Mac, “You want to stay, I can drive.”
Mac nodded and handed him the keys.
“Thank you,” Becca said to him, heartfelt.
Mac paused. “I should be thanking you. I put you all through hell for a long, long time. And none of you were responsible for Jessie’s death.”
“Becca and my baby are alive, in part because of you,” Hudson said, helping Becca into the passenger seat. “We’re all even.”
With that Hudson slid in the driver’s seat and turned away from the motel and Deception Bay and toward Ocean Park Hospital once more.