Voracious - Alice Henderson [128]
Her knee screamed in protest as her weight hit it. Stefan stared at her in fury, one eye destroyed and streaming with blood, the other glowing fiery red and widening into a luminescent disk.
She brought her fists up in a flurry of powerful blows, connecting with his gut, solar plexus, throat, and ruined eye. Then she drove her thumb into the eye socket and, screaming, he released her. Her knee buckled, and she stumbled but regained her balance, staggering back against the metal bed frame. She grabbed the metal eagerly, trying to remain standing.
The chair lay just to her left, and she grabbed it again before Stefan had a chance to recover. Swinging it high in an arc over her head, she leaped forward and struck him once again on the head, then brought it up, uppercutting his chin and then shoved it forward, driving him against the wall. The same sharp leg that had claimed his eye now slid into his abdomen.
He stared at her, disbelieving, from the other side of the chair.
With all her weight, she bore into the chair, driving it deeper inside him.
His eyes narrowed, and a solid, bony spike erupted from his chest, rib cage deforming and re-forming into a single lethal blade. Reaching up, he grabbed her hands where they gripped the chair, and he pulled her toward him with tremendous force. The chair legs pierced through him and drove into the wall beyond, raining bloody plaster over the carpet.
She felt a terrible rip in her being, a searing, hot penetration that pierced her skin and entered her chest, punching through ribs and ripping into a lung. The lung collapsed, and she gasped for air as the blade drove further, breaking ribs in her back before bursting through on the other side. Her mouth opened, eyes involuntarily shuttering in the back of her head as blood bubbled up and dribbled down her chin.
The creature, now just inches away, licked the blood from her face with a single, long stroke of his tongue.
He pushed her away, and the agony reached an unbearable level. As the bony spike withdrew from her, so much blood entered her lungs that she coughed and sputtered, no longer able to breathe.
When she was at arm’s length, he yanked her forward again, the spike entering her abdomen this time, tearing destructively through her organs with unimaginable force, snagging on her diaphragm and jerking the last breath from her one good lung.
Madeline fought off a wave of unconsciousness, then realized with a panic that it was actually death sneaking up on her, not blissful unconsciousness at all.
Stefan pulled her nearer, the bony spike piercing her kidneys before it burst through her back once more. Hot liquid streamed down her back, and the stench of bile and urine filled her nose. Images of the Sickle Moon Killer devouring the skin of his victims reeled in her head. What had always repulsed her could save her now. She could do it herself for an entirely different reason. But she wasn’t going to vomit Stefan’s blood and flesh back up like the Killer had done. She had to devour him. Become one with him.
Then she was back next to Stefan, impaled on the jagged spear, lips inches from his throat. Those haunting images would work for her this time. She had done this before, reliving the Sickle Moon Killer’s memories countless times, and she knew she could do it again. Only this time it would not be to cause pain but to end it. With her last bit of strength, Madeline strained forward, the spike driving even deeper inside her, tearing a wider hole in her back. She closed the last inch separating them and brought her mouth to his throat.
Biting down hard, she shook her head, tearing a gash in his neck. But she didn’t let go, though parts of his skin and muscle tore off in her mouth. She swallowed them. Sucking powerfully, she drew his blood into her mouth, taking full, deep swallows of the hot liquid.
He twisted beneath her, tried to angle his neck away, but she clung on, taking in gulp after gulp, resisting the urge to vomit.