Face of Fury (Zoe Prime #5) - Blake Pierce Page 0,73

dashing up the last few steps just in case he was already coming out to meet her.

Zoe kept the gun out and steady in front of her as her eyes scanned the dark rooms in all directions, turning swiftly toward the only one that was lit: a bathroom, she saw by the white tile just inside the doorway. She stepped smartly around into position, facing the doorway fully, so that she could see inside.

There was a woman lying on the floor, her blonde hair fanned out over her face. Shelley’s cold white eyes flashed into Zoe’s head, gripping her with an almost paralyzing fear. Even from here Zoe could see the blood pooling from the woman’s head, making drips on the tiles. Zoe rushed forward again, dashing into the bathroom and checking the bathtub—rapidly filling with water—and spinning to look behind the door. Nothing. He wasn’t there.

She stepped back toward the doorway again, moving over the woman’s body so that she could squat down beside her. Zoe reached out two fingers and held them against the prone neck, her hands shaking with the need for the woman to be alive, feeling how her skin was chill to the touch—but there was something weakly moving under her fingertips, the heart still beating. Zoe drew in a relieved gasp. She wasn’t too late.

But if the victim was here, and not yet dead, then the killer clearly meant to drown her in the tub. Which meant that he still had to be somewhere in the house.

Why had he left his victim behind?

And where was he now?

In the split second that she realized it, Zoe stood and spun, coming to her feet facing back into the hallway that she had come from. But it was too late. Because he was already there, standing right behind her, and something dark in his hand was already swinging around toward her.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Zoe was unable to react in time before the heavy club swung down against her hand, knocking the gun down without a chance to save it. She had no time to register the pain in her hand, either, only time to step back and let the numbers fly in front of her eyes, telling her how to save herself.

She dimly registered relief that the gun had not fired on hitting the ground, but it was replaced immediately by the more pressing concern: Ford’s arm flying back again with the club, telling her the angle and trajectory at which it would come down, making her lean back sharply, ducking under its range. She heard the whistle of air moving as it passed over her head, almost hitting her. The killer growled as the club hit the wood of the door instead, splintering it, spraying Zoe with a hail of loose paint chips.

Zoe saw the window of opportunity open to barrel forward into him, to knock him back, but his arm was going back again, and she saw that her plan would put her right into the line of fire for his next sweep. He was going to hit her.

She couldn’t go any further back—not with the woman prone on the floor behind her, a ready tripping hazard.

He was stronger, heavier, and he had the advantage.

All of this passed through her brain in the briefest of moments, and she knew that she had to act. The window of opportunity would close.

She launched herself forward bodily through the air, springing at his midsection with her arms stretched out and her head turned to the side. She would use all of her weight to plow into him, pushing him backward as they crashed together, making him fall so that she could get the advantage—

But he had thirty pounds on her, and even though it was only thirty pounds, evidently some of his weight was muscle. He staggered backward a few steps but did not fall, and the progress of his arm toward her head was not arrested—slowed, maybe—and it still came down across her back, so hard and heavy that she found herself gasping out, dropping down, loosening her hold on him and letting go.

And he took another step before she could recover, enough to get the distance he needed, and even though Zoe could see the numbers and angles and knew that he was coming for her, she couldn’t do a thing to stop it as the club crashed down across the back of her head. She dropped to the floor, feeling the pain across the base of her