louder, eyes gleaming. “Now I’ll show that mech-bastard and ‘is master the error of ‘is ways. Been watchin’ I ‘ave. Saw you two out a time or two. Saw you kiss ‘im in the streets when I were plottin’ me attack.” He smiled. “Now we’ll see which one of us ends up laughin’.”
He grabbed one of the syringes. Esme strained but he managed to tear her sleeve with the hook and jerked a small leather tourniquet around her upper arm. The pain as it tightened made her vision swim. Blade had never been so rough with her when he used to use a tourniquet on her.
Esme screamed as Higgins pinned her arm ruthlessly with the pressure of the hook, sliding the needle into her vein with his other hand. The sudden greedy suck of the machine filled the syringe vial in seconds, then blood spurted into the base of the enormous canister in the corner.
“No!” Her fingers were growing cold until he let the tourniquet go with a wrench. The sensation of the needle prickled at her, a cold sweat breaking out all over her skin. Esme was helpless to watch as he turned toward the tray to fetch another syringe.
A wordless roar echoed through the room. Esme’s head jerked toward the door.
“John!” she screamed. “John!”
Her heart thundered to life in her chest and she yanked again. Her hand slipped a fraction further through the leather strap as Higgins moved toward the door.
“What the ‘ell?” he snapped.
The door exploded inwards and Higgins flew back as a man was hurled through it. They both knocked over the tray of implements, the other man’s neck twisted at an alarming angle.
Rip shouldered through the door, his black eyes locking on her. Esme’s breath caught on a sob and she twisted against the restraints, tears blinding her.
“Be careful,” she cried. “Please be careful.”
Higgins came at him and Rip roared in fury again, grabbing the hook and burying it deep in the table in the corner. Higgins wrenched at it, his teeth bared, but the hook was stuck. Rip stepped forward and punched him, teeth and blood spraying everywhere.
Esme’s arm was growing cold. She looked down at the tube and watched her blood being sucked toward the machine. “Hurry,” she called.
Rip turned, his gaze locking on her arm. Then he was at her side, ripping the needle from her vein and pressing down on the tiny hole. Blood wet his fingers and Rip lifted his hand, staring at it with a breathless catch to his gasp.
“John,” she whispered.
He blinked and pressed back down again.
“Watch out for the--”
Rip roared as something hit him from behind. His left knee gave way and he lashed out behind him as the hunchback dragged the knife out of his thigh and hefted it high again.
The hunchback flew across the room, smashing into the glass canister. Glass showered everywhere as he was impaled on a particularly sharp piece.
“No!” Higgins screamed, coming from the right and sinking the hook into Rip’s side. The pair of them grappled, Rip staggering on his injured leg.
Esme yanked on the leather restraint, pain stealing her breath as her skin scraped and tore. Then her hand finally slipped free. She wasted no time, reaching for the other restraint and ripping the leather open.
Rip drove Higgins into the table and it splintered beneath the weight of them. Esme watched in horror as Higgins drove the hook high and buried it in Rip’s back.
He’ll heal, she told herself as she yanked at the straps around her feet. It was incredibly difficult to kill a blue blood. Still… It wasn’t impossible.
Shoving off the table, she staggered against it as her head spun. Higgins lifted the hook again, Rip’s hand clenched around his throat as he held him down. Esme didn’t need to even think. She saw the cleaver on the floor at her feet and picked it up, hefting the weight in her hand like an old friend. This she knew.
Higgin’s hook was just like a plucked chicken spread on her board. Esme lifted the cleaver high as the hook descended and cut through his arm to the bone.
Higgins screamed as blood sprayed across her face, warm and wet. The cleaver was stuck and Esme yanked at it, bile in her throat. Or perhaps not quite like a chicken. She swallowed hard and lifted it again, determined to complete the job. Her man was already injured. Nothing was going to hurt him anymore.
The cleaver cut through this time and the