A Justified Kill (11 page)

Hanna
lay on the bed staring at her,
wide eyed. With her jaw clenched she pressed her lips
together to keep from crying
again
.
S
h
e no
dded
in reluctant
understandi
ng and
leaned her head back on the pillow. Closing her eyes, she turned her still dirty face away from Amber.

Amber felt bad for leaving Hanna to deal with
everything
on her own, but she had no
choice
.
When the hallway was clear, she s
lipped
from
the room and out through the sliding glass doors
. Quickly l
eaving the hospital, she
hopped in the jeep
and got out of the parking lot just as the patrol car was pulling in. She
quickly glanced into the rearview mirror and over her shoulder. The officer
hadn’t paid her any attention and release the breath she had been holding.

Now on a mission, s
he headed back toward the campgrounds.
She was familiar with the roads in the area, so she pulled her jeep off the road and out of view. Jogging through the woods, her hiking boots crunched only lightly on the branches and she slowed her pace once she got closer to the campsite.

One thing her mother had taught her was
how
to stay well hidden.
Blending into her surroundings,
Gerald never knew
he was being watched
. A
ctually he was being
stalked since he was now her prey
.
It would ha
ve been so easy to walk straight
into the campsite and
stab him in his sleep, but doing so
would be a merciful kill, plus, she was not a murderer, not in her human form
anyway
.
In her wolf form, she knew it could be a different story. Werewolves loved the taste of human blood.
Gerald would
wish it had been the human who
killed him instead of her beast. Though the thought was somewhat troubling, she wanted Gerald to know what was happening to him.
She w
anted him to know
the pain
. He should
feel the
same kind of
humiliation and suffering he had inflicted on
Hanna and probably
countless
other girls
. She hoped
her wolf made him suffer. Not allow him a quick and painless death.
She wanted him to feel terror.

Amber couldn’t help but think of Hanna, how she had
tearfully
and shamefully
given the details of everything Geral
d had done to her. From what Hanna
could tell, he had held her in the small tent
for two to three weeks. Amber held her while she shuddered, recalling how he assaulted her, raping her repeatedly. W
hen she fought back,
he hit her hard enough to knock her out
and
she w
ould wake
up screaming into the gag with him panting over her. Other times he would hit her hard enough to just to stun her so she couldn’t fight. She was awake through the entire ordeal, but couldn’t move or do anything to get away.
Clenching her hands in anger, Amber
had listened to Hanna
telling the doctor
the details of his attack.

Sitting the heart of the woods, watching his campsite for movement,
Amber closed her eyes and shook her head lightly to clear the vivid images from her mind.
She knew h
olding Hanna was
little comfort for what she had been through. It had taken all her will power to not rush out of the room and run out to the woods and kill him for what he had done. She had to keep her mind on what was happening and what she needed to do.
Amber planned her attack.

****

Standing in the
kitchen
of the bar, she wished she could go back out to the campsite and end his pitiful life right then and there
. She
still
fought for control, forcing herself to remain calm.
She was so ready to allow her wolf to make
its first kill and satiate the bloodlust
which
would ove
rcome her upon her first turn.
Lost in thought she didn’t notice Catherine standing in fr
ont of her until she spoke
.

“Hon, you still look like crap, are you sure you feel like being here tonight
?
” Catherine bobbed up and down in front of Amber, trying to get her
to look her in the eye.

Amber
did her best to avoid
eye
contact by looking
over her head
and
out into the bar that was
already filling with people.
She actually fe
lt the way she looked, like shit
. S
he hadn’t g
otten any sleep because she had stayed in the woods after leaving the hospital
. Even
though she went back to her room for a couple hours
,
sleep eluded her when she tried to nap before her shift at the bar. A dark corner would be the perfect place to crawl into and crash for a couple hours.
Lack of sleep caused her to be extremely cranky, and with her wolf
constantly pushing at her sense
s
non-stop
didn’t help the matter one bit
. She was ready to shift and rid herself of the frustration building in her body and
the out of control feelings
in her mind.

Completely ignoring Catherine who had continued talking, she left the kitchen area and
entered the bar
, looking around
. She didn’t smell him,
nor did she see
Gerald
in the corner where his other buddies already sat.
The bar was full of people, in her frame of mind she just needed to get to work,
so she brushed past
the annoying little woman
who had for some reason moved to stand in front of her again
. Ignoring her questions, Amber began
her rounds through the bar
. Greeting
the locals with a pasted on
friendly smile
, she took
their drink orders while talking the small talk that was expected of her.
Then there was a sudden
mental nudge and the
hairs on her arms
raised
on end, the tingling sensation ended at the base of her neck where those hairs
stood straight up
. He was
t
here
. She could smell his stench
and fe
l
t
he
rself turning to stare in Gerald’s direction
, watching
him saunter
into the bar.

Gerald’s face was a swollen mess. He looked like he had been on the losing end of a boxing match. The round house kick she had planted on his face had left an ugly black and blue bruise that ran the
length of his cheek to his
jaw
.
The broken nose he sported was the result of Hanna’s last kick.
The
sickening sound of
shatter
ing cartilage had
resonated through the campsite. His
blood
had
spl
ashed across his face
and dripped onto the ground
before she
’d
pulled Hanna away. A satisfied grin slipped across her lips at knowing he had to be in pain, the hand clasping his side where Hanna had lan
ded a few good kicks was proof of that.

             
Even knowing he was in pain, i
t irritated her to watch
Gerald
try to
swagger towards
his friends
in the corner
. Listening in
tently
to his response when she heard them asking
who had jumped him
.

“You should see the other guy
,
” Gerald boasted falsely
, he
gingerly
straddled
the chair
while they all laughed with him
at his response.

One of the men lifted his hand.
For Amber, it was suddenly
like everything was in slow motion.
C
atching her eye, he motioned, beckoning for her to come to their table.
It felt like time had
slowed down
. Even the sounds of the bar had become a low murmur
.
She had to blink a couple times before things returned to normal.
Now what the hell had just happened
?
She couldn’
t stop the frown
that spread across her brow. Unfortunately their table was in her section that night and she
reluctantly headed towards the corner.

The
prodding
was insistent in her mind and she wondered if this was what her mother had
talked
about
. She
’d told
her
that her
wolf would always be with her and would guide her.
Her body felt like it was moving on its own
accord
. Be
fore she realized
it,
she stood
staring down at Gerald
. It took everything she had to fight the
urge
to bare her teeth
,
to
keep from
lean
ing
towards him and wrap
ping
her hands around his throat. S
he felt the vibrations of a low
growl
begin
in her throat and
forced herself to
straighten, to
move
away from him
. No one appeared to notice
the sound because the bar was so noisy
.
S
hifting her eyes so she was looking at the tabl
e instead of them prevented anyone
f
rom seeing that her eyes
were the
swirling mix of chocolate and yellow specks. Deep down, she knew
without a doubt
her change was
definitely
upon her and
the next
night
, w
hen the full moon was high, her wolf would
finally
emerge.
An evil smile slid across her lips when she
quickly
glanced back at Gerald, who was eyeing her.