“In your name Jesus Christ I release the demons from the body of this sinner. I cast them from the dark out into the light!” He brought down the knife in one swift motion, straight into my shoulder. I felt the blade hit bone before coming out the other side, tacking me to the wood floor. I felt it all over again when he withdrew the blade, wiggling it around in my flesh to release its hold on the floor.

I was about to pass out. My vision blurred from the pain.

“Get the fuck away from her,” a very familiar voice commanded. When Preppy came into view radiating anger with his gun trained on Eric I thought it was all a dream or a hallucination.

Preppy stood there seething as his eyes darted between my gushing wound and the man holding the knife. If it was a hallucination, it was a damn good one.

Preppy was a mix of beautiful hatred and lustful revenge. He was already handsome with his burning amber eyes, sandy blond hair, a strong body full of lean muscles and tattoos that decorated every inch of his tan skin including the sides of his head, but in that room he looked like pure heaven with evil intentions and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. But standing there, nostrils flaring, I noticed a new kind of beauty in Preppy. Darker. More sinister.

Preppy’s face was twisted in anger. The cords of his neck were strained and tight. His chest puffed out in fury, heaving up and down against the fabric of his tight white tank top, the kind meant to be worn under a shirt. His suspenders were attached to his pants, but they weren’t on his shoulders, instead they hung down around each side of his thighs. The muscles of his forearms and biceps flexed under his colorful tattoos as he adjusted his grip on the gun in his hand.

Preppy was pure unadulterated power, crackling and zapping with energy like a wind vane struck by lightning. An electric aura of revenge encircled him as he maintained a focus I’d rarely seen from him unless we were naked. Which made sense, because there was something very sexual about the way he moved forward. The confidence, the rhythm. The way the sweat beaded on his temple before sliding down his face and neck. Erotic, yet frightening.

It was a dance of revenge and Preppy had taken the lead.

Eric cackled when he saw Preppy moving and responded to his move by slowly sliding the blade under my chin, piercing my skin with the tip.

Preppy froze and Eric looked triumphant that he had the upper hand.

That was until Preppy fired and Eric’s bicep exploded. He cried out and slumped to the ground.

“Fuck, Doc!” Preppy cried. He ran to me and frantically searched my face. He ran his hands over my body to check for more wounds. He tore off a strip of his shirt and tied it around my shoulder. I managed to tip my chin to tell him I was all right.

His eyes locked onto mine. “Are you sure? I need to hear you say it, Doc.”

“I’m sure,” I croaked out. “It’s not East. It’s Eric. Like Eric and Conner, Eric,” I said, the words taking everything I had to form.

“Fuck,” Preppy growled, glancing to where Eric was groaning on the floor. King and Bear appeared.

“End him,” Preppy said, shoving his arms under me and lifting me into his arms.

King and Bear strolled toward Eric, but they didn’t make it very far. The room shook, a high-pitched ringing sounded in my ears. The roof on the far side of the room collapsed, trapping King and Bear behind it.

Or under it.

“Fuck, we have to get you out of here,” Preppy shouted, climbing over debris with me in his arms.

“Preppy, wait!” I shouted with everything I had. He turned and his eyes followed to where I was staring at a red faced and angry looking Eric. His hand shaking.

A gun pointed at Preppy.

“You know, I don’t even like these things,” Eric said, shaking the gun from side to side with his right hand, his left hung straight and lifeless by his side. “But the weapon isn’t what’s important here. Ending your life is.” His lip twitched. “So a gun it is.”

Preppy slowly set me down on the rubble with my back against the wall. “If it’s me you want. It’s me you can have. Just let her go.” Preppy stepped in front of me shielding me with his body. He held up his hands in surrender.

His empty hands made me realize he didn’t have his gun. He must have dropped it when he picked me up. I searched around, spotting it just out of reach in the rubble.

Eric sneered at Preppy. “There is no OR, I want BOTH of you dead.” Without warning Eric shifted his aim to me and fired. That’s when everything shifted and became like watching a movie in slow motion. Even the POP POP POP from the gun sounded slurred and drawn out. Preppy leapt sideways, his body almost still in the air as he stretched himself out as long as he could, like an outfielder trying to catch a baseball. Only he wasn’t playing some game. He was shielding me.

And it wasn’t a baseball he caught.

It was a bullet.

Preppy landed on his side with an ‘UMPH’. The fabric of his undershirt grew red with his blood. I crawled over to him, barely noticing Eric approaching.

“We need to get you the fuck out of here,” Preppy ground out, sitting up. “No matter what happens you go to Bo. Take care of him.”

I was about to argue when he added. “Please, Dre. Just take care of our boy.”

Tan pointed-toe dress shoes clicked against the concrete. Eric crouched down in front of us. A look of satisfaction crossed his face when he realized he had us defenseless and cornered.

When another part of the roof collapsed nearby I used that moment of distraction to extend my foot and slide Preppy’s gun between my legs.

“I’d really hoped we’d have more time to get reacquainted, Dre. But it appears that Romeo over here is cutting our time short. Well, that and I kind of made the building explode,” Eric sang while staring hatred at Preppy. “Why don’t you move the fuck over so I can kill this fucking whore first without having to shoot through you...again,” he laughed. “Then I can send you to hell where you belong.”

Preppy chuckled. “Hell? Bitch, I just got back from there and I don’t plan on going back any time soon. So sorry, but you’ll be making this trip solo.”

“What you don’t understand is that it’s all too fucking late!” Eric shouted manically, pressing his gun against Preppy’s forehead. “This is just the rain. Soon, you’ll be drowning in the flood.”

“Listen, motherfucker. I love Bon Jovi as much as the next man, but let’s focus less on quoting the poignant lyrics of an iconic hair-band, and concentrate more on the fact that I’m about to cut you open, gut you like a fucking mullet, and feed your balls to my pig.”