The Fear Dissertation // A Jonathan Crane Dark Romance

42

A sharp blow dances through my ribcage, and I'm pulled back by the elbows, stings of pain reverberating through my arms. My footing's unsteady in heels, my ankles rolling like a newborn giraffe as I stumble — but I'm fixated on Jonathan.

Two men accost him and force him to his knees. One of them kicks him in the abdomen, a heavy blow, while the other twists his arm back until he's wincing in pain. I cry out, trying to fight off the man subduing me, but he's firm and unmoving as a rock, clamping my wrists together with his hands at the small of my back.

There's four of them in total. All large and thuggish, thickset wearing balaclavas and loading bullets into the chambers of their pistols. All except the one restraining me — his hands too busy stopping me fighting him off.

"Nice and easy," one of the men holding Jonathan says. He throws a punch and a crack rips through the air as Jonathan's glasses shatter, his head thrown back. By the way his eyes drift out of focus, the way his head lolls as he fights to hold it upright, I estimate he's another punch away from being knocked completely unconscious.

Even so, he throws his head against the man's skull — the thug recoils from the blow and spits up bile. Through clenched teeth, Jonathan manages, "If you hurt Sienna, your deaths will be long and painful."

The man holding him laughs. Begins to choke Jonathan by the collar until he's spluttering, while Jonathan fights him the whole time. "We're meant to make this look like an accident. But I might force you to watch as we hurt her instead. Eh?"

I've become immune to fear. I do not feel it for my own life. No desperation, no survival instinct. Or maybe I'm all blown out for the day, after the tarantulas.

But when I see them hurt Jonathan, when I see his eyes drift in and out of focus, his face wince, things change.

It's not fear, exactly, though that simmers underneath. Though there's the same undercurrents of adrenaline shooting through me.

It's an ice cold rage.

I kick one leg up, bent at the knee, and drive my heel into the thug's groin. He howls in pain and I take my chance, acting on pure instinct. Rip my shoe from my foot. The leather stiletto is cool in my palm. I try to tear my other hand free from his grasp and he focuses on restraining it. A classic misdirect. Then, with all the force I can muster — a force I didn't know I contained — I rip my arm out from his clasp. Turn.

Drive the stiletto into his eye socket with enough impact it buries completely. Angled toward his brain.

I know the anatomy very well. I've stared at images of the human brain for almost a decade.

Again, I don't think — I act. Like I can sense the movement around me without seeing it, hearing it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know I have only a few seconds before he collapses. So I seize him and stand behind him, using him as a human shield for the bullets the others begin to fire. My hand finds his holster and pulls the pistol free. I've never loaded a gun before, but the movies have taught me enough, and I have no option to second-guess myself. I pull back the slide, and when I hear a satisfactory click, shove the corpse away.

Then I begin raining bullets.

The men fire back but if I'm hit, I don't feel it — I take them down in quick succession, working my way clockwise across the three left. One ducks down to avoid the bullets — wise move. Or at least, a move that buys him time. My next shots hit him square.

I'm ready to fire the last one when I freeze. Eyes widen in horror.

He grins, muzzle of his own pistol pressed to Jonathan's head. "Put that down," he orders. "Or your boyfriend dies."