Eyes dazed, Alyssa brought her hands to her face, struggling to keep awake against the claiming pull of darkness. She couldn't pass out. Not now. God knows what would happen to her if she did.

There was no fighting him off. Not like this. Not with his size and weight to his advantage. Strength pitted against strength, hers would never stack up. Another blow like that and she'd never recover. Added to the fact that he wanted her to struggle. To scream and rail against him. Bastard was enjoying it. And as much as it sliced against her instincts, Alyssa ceased her struggles. Fell silent and limp.

When in the woods and faced with a raging bear, the first thing you were told was to not fight back. Not to scream or flail. Even if it started eating you.

She heard his muttered curses, felt the jerk of his hand between them groping at his flaccid member. His swift, jagged pumps.

Alyssa's bitter laugh rang out, soft at first but soon the sound gained strength. Even though the vibration of it through her chest made every bone ache in protest. "What's the matter? Can't get it up?" His legs were tangled with hers making it impossible for her to slip away so she clawed around her, fingers closing around the curve of a discarded stiletto. The heel five inches of spiked steel.

"Shut up." More pumps. More grating curses.

"It's always the same with you roid-raging junkie morons."

"I said shut the fuck up!" He reared back, levering off of her. His assault distracted by a sobering flicker of recognition. Of understanding. And the fury that gripped him was even more terrifying than his obsessive love. He sees me, she thought. He knows I'm not Annelise.

Eyes blazing his hand reached around behind him and flash of silver stole her breath as Randy revealed a gun and poised the barrel between her eyes.

"Where is sh—?" his question ended on a cry as a blur of stripped fury launched through the air, all claws and teeth to latch around the vulnerable point of his throat. Cleo dangled from the raw flesh, her yowl loud enough to rattle Alyssa into action. Fingers clenched around her makeshift weapon, Alyssa sat up and plunged the thin metal stiletto into the muscle of his thigh. His scream was a roar of agonized fury as he took hold of Cleo and lobbed her across the room like a football.

A kind of rage Alyssa had never experienced swelled up inside of her. Beating her was one thing, but laying hands on her cat? The sonofabitch was going down. Alyssa jerked the spiked metal end from his flesh and shoved it back in a second time, wrenching with all her strength until he buckled back and off her completely.

Staggering free, she skirted past him, snagged a sweater from a hook at the front entrance and had it over her head, unlocked the door and had the knob in her hand when she froze. The smart choice would have been to run. To take off into the night and scream for help until her lungs bled, but to what end?

When Eva had told her about the wave of protective instinct that washed through her, compelling her to take the man who dared hold a blade at Hailey's throat, Alyssa had thought her sister crazy. But now, as she stood here, and it all made sense. Six years of repressed bitterness, anger and fear exploded in her chest within a fraction of a second, obliterating commonsense and rational thinking.

All she cared about was blood. Revenge. Justice.

Alyssa spun around as she dragged the sweater over her head and—gathering his rising head in her hands—drove her knee straight into his face, knocking him back down.

"Come on," she spat, sliding her arms into the sleeves of her sweater, covering her body from his furious gaze. "Come on you fucking bastard."

He swayed to his knees, blood dribbling from his split lip, eyes lethal. The gun was out of reach, for either of them. Randy lumbered to his feet, swiped a hand across his face and spat the blood from his mouth. "You're not Anna."

"No." Her lips curled into a snarling grin as they wove in a dangerous circle. "I'm not." She saw his swing coming in fast but without finesse. He was a brawler, not a fighter. All brawn and no brains. She ducked the blow, countered with a swift jerk of her left elbow into his throat but didn't quite make her target. He lunged, shoulder catching her in the chest, arms around her as he forced her back into the wall, then swung her around, tossing her further into the room. Alyssa hit the ground, smacking into couch and coffee table, but she rolled back up to her feet, missing the vicious stomp of his heel by inches.

She had to keep to her feet. To keep moving. She was quick and light and could dance around him but on the ground he had the advantage. On the ground she would lose. Hands up, poised on her toes, Alyssa stared him down. And attacked.

For every blow she connected he deflected or dodged two but his strength was waning as sweat poured into his eyes and his breathing labored and for all the screaming fatigue in her limbs, the furious ache of forming welts and bruises, triumph surged giving her the boost of energy she needed.

Until his meaty fists found the softest part of her belly and drove in so deep she'd have sworn he reached up between her lungs. Seizing her, he flung her around, pinging her from wall to wall to whatever hard surface he could drive her into, ending with a punishing collision of her face with the floor.

Randy's solid weight settled over her waist, his thighs straddling her as he wrenched her around and his leered face swam into focus.

This is it, she thought a measure of acceptance settling into her body. She'd fought, she'd waged brutal bloody war with her greatest demon and lost. But she'd fought and could die knowing that. Resigned to her fate, Alyssa closed her eyes.

#

Ethan burst into the cabin, heart in his throat. He'd heard the sound of what could only be described a sheer chaos erupting from within. Circling his finger in silent command, Holden and Carlos broke from his side to sweep around the sides, Holden right and Carlos left. Ethan rushed up the steps opened the door and stepped into the madness.

Alyssa lay stunned on the ground with a figure looming over her, barely conscious. Judging the shattered mess of the room, she'd fought with everything she had but was outmatched in her opponent. The man was a beast. A hulking figure of drug-addled rage.

Ethan had his weapon up and aimed with a practiced sweep of his arm. "Touch her again, asshole. Give me a reason."

Shifting on his knees, Randy's hands curled into fists, he roared at Ethan—actually fucking roared—a long and loud grating scream of a train bearing down the tracks. Intent on destroying everything in its path.

Head low he charged and Alyssa's voice rang out to him, but Ethan's instincts were locked in on his target. A blur of movement and sound and light all filtered through the scope of his honed focus.

Ethan pulled the trigger and the first punch shocked him in his chest—center point—through and through. The bastard staggered but otherwise kept coming. Blood streaming from his mouth. Ethan fired again, another hit to the chest, a third lower to the abdomen—striking near his liver and a few degrees lower, a bullet to the thigh above an existing wound.

The bull kept coming, dove—his shoulder driving Ethan back through the door, and the pair of them tumbling back, grappling and rolling over the edge of the deck, out into the snow and ice-crusted sand. Ethan tasted blood in his mouth, had it smeared in his eyes. He lost his gun in the skirmish. Heavy fists wailed on him and he drew his arms over his face and head, shielding from the blows, sneaking in to drive in a few of his own.

"Randy!" Alyssa's voice stilled them both and she jabbed the back of his head with the barrel of the gun. "Get off him. Now."

Hands up, Randy rocked back on his knees, lurched to his feet, body wracked with tremors of shock and wounds streaming with blood.

"Alyssa, lower the gun," Ethan heard Carlos' sharp voice command as he stole in from Ethan's left, Glock poised to take a shot. He'd rounded the back end of the cabin and now closed in. Ethan pushed to his feet, and moved to take the weapon from her but she jerked away from him, her eyes trained on Randy's sneering face.

"Give me the gun."

"No," she whispered. "No. He can't live. He can't."

"It's over."
Blood welled in his mouth, spilled past his lips, his skin taking on a greyish cast. Alyssa lowered her gun and Randy's laugh slid out, a low, taunting rumble.

"That's it, bitch. Do as...fucking told." Hugging his arms to his body, the tremors intensified. Weakened, Randy sank to his knees. "Fuck. Fucking hell. Call...ambulance, cop. Think you...pierced something."

Accepting the gun from Alyssa's slackened fingers, Ethan tucked the piece in his belt. By now Holden had regrouped with them and the three of them stood with Alyssa, staring down at a dying man.

"Damn Chief, what's the number for the ambulance again?" Carlos smirked, keeping his gun handy but with the safety engaged. "Can't remember for the life of me."

"Strange." Holden scratched a hand through his hair. "Neither can I."

The whites around Randy's eyes widened with understanding. "...Cops," he wheezed. "Can't...let...die."

"You're already dead. It's just taking a minute or so for your body to catch up." Ethan lowered to haunches so he and Randy were level, set his elbows casually on his knees. "That cold you feel creeping into your skin has nothing to do with the weather. That's death making you her bitch as your lungs fill with blood. Hurts doesn't it? Though that's not enough to kill you. Not quickly anyways. But that bullet you took to the liver likely ruptured some pretty major arteries. So whatever isn't seeping into your lungs is now hemorrhaging into your belly." His smiled flashed as Randy's weakened body slumped back on the sand. "I suggest you take what little time you have left to make peace, because there's only one place you're going. And I'll wake up every morning with a smile on my face knowing I sent you there."

A flicker of sheer terror twisted across his face as Randy's lips parted to speak but only managed a series of frothy, bloody groans before his eyes rolled back and the panting tremors in his chest ceased. Kneeling over him, Ethan set fingers to the base of his throat.

"Carlos, call dispatch. Tell them we've got a body. Randy Kincaid. Deceased."