As beaten and ravaged as she was, he still recognized her immediately as he fell to the floor in shock and fear.
“Please, help me,” Jesse Newhook repeated, finally finding her voice she started to sob, letting go of Don’s shirt and letting her arm fall limp against the stair.
Don stayed curled up against the cold concrete floor for a moment. No matter how hard the girl screamed and sobbed, it could not overpower the voice in the back of his head that screamed the undeniable truth of the situation at him:
He’d broken this story wide open.
“Come on!” Derek yelled, giving Cathy’s arm another hard tug as his feet pounded against the pavement and he brought his sleeve to his face, wiping away blood and sweat.
“Ah!” she wailed, as she felt something in her arm stretch and then snap and threaten to dislocate altogether. She hissed back the pain as he pulled her forward again, and she tried to run along with him as the houses sped by in her peripheral vision.
Derek spun around, glancing quickly over Cathy’s shoulder and then spinning back. “Hurry up, you fat whore!” he bellowed, forcing her to pick up speed as he did.
Cathy turned, seeing what Derek had seen as Xander came around the corner after them. She turned back, seeing a tree along the side of the road that she’d seen many times before. It stood in between Xander and Sara’s houses, and had since long before either of them had been born. Suddenly she fell to the sidewalk, the skin on both her knees ripping against the pavement and exposing the meat underneath to the harsh air and rocks that found their way in almost immediately.
“Fuck!” Derek screamed, letting her arm go and bringing the knife back to point at her. Licking his lips, he calmed himself and stepped close to her. “You know, I’m beginning to think you’re more of a hindrance than an asset,” he mused, stroking her hair with the flat end of the blade. “Maybe it’s time we ended our arrangement.”
Cathy drove her head forward, pushing off the sidewalk with her heels and sending her forehead straight into Derek’s crotch.
His eyes went wide as she scrambled to her feet, running over the lawn and away from him. Hissing as he fell to his knees, he closed his eyes tightly and tried to will the pain away. “Oh, you little bitch,” he whispered. “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that.”
“Doubt it,” Xander quipped, his knee connecting with Derek’s eye just as the killer opened his eyes.
Derek’s head knocked backward, sending him onto his ass. “Fucker!” he cried out, lunging forward and grabbing Xander across the waist, forcing them both to the ground. “Can’t I ever be rid of you?”
Xander only growled in response, reaching up and grabbed Derek by the face, sticking his fingers into the boy’s eyes and mouth as he tried to pry him off. “I’ll kill you,” he snarled, one beat at a time, his pupils locked on Derek’s.
Face searing with anger, Derek brought the knife around, connecting it with Xander’s throat.
Xander’s eyes went wide as he felt his jugular rupture, sending warm, sticky fluid bathing out onto Derek’s hand. He tried to speak, but no words would come. They continued to look at each other for a long moment before Derek took out the blade, helping the blood flow more freely.
“I doubt it,” Derek whispered finally, bringing the knife down again and sticking it right through Xander’s shoulder.
He felt his right arm go numb, that tingly feeling like when your foot falls asleep crawling up and down it. Derek pulled the knife out again, bringing it down a third time near where Xander’s neck met his chest. Blood spurted up in a large gush, the impact from one blow forcing it out through all the others. His vision became dark around the corners, though not the way it did when he was transforming. It was something he’d felt once before, very briefly, during his first fight with Genblade.
He closed his eyes and Sara leaned over, kissing him gently on the lips.
-BANG!-
His eyes burst open again, watching as Derek’s shoulder erupted in a spread of flesh and blood, spraying pink and yellow and red in all directions.
Derek opened his mouth to say something to Xander, finally dropping his knife to bring his hand up to the throbbing wound that had opened up half his arm. Blood gurgled from his lips again as he tried to form a fist, then fell flat onto the concrete, mashing his nose into three pieces in the process.
Cathy dropped the still smoldering handgun that had belonged to Xander’s father, letting it fall to the grass as though it were something disgusting to touch. Her lip was still curled and contorted into hatred as she fell to her knees on his front lawn, her lip shaking but no tears coming down her face. “That’ll teach you to call me worthless,” she said to Derek’s bleeding backside, her face contorting in contempt.
Xander rose to his feet and walked over to her, lingering at her side for a moment. He reached out to touch her face, but she pulled away. He reached out again, her face jerking away. Finally, he touched her soft cheek and she immediately began to sob, grabbing his arms and forcing her head into his shoulder as he wrapped them around her.
EPILOGUE
Xander sat hunched against the large wooden bar, twirling his half-empty glass around his index finger as quickly as he could, watching it shimmer like crystal. He let it go and it continued spinning on its own for a moment before he caught it, bringing it to his lips and downing a large mouthful.
Behind the bar, the baldheaded bartender stopped pouring beer from his tap
