Scarlet Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

more than he intended. Taking advantage
of his unbalanced state, she stepped up to him and brought her
elbow across the man’s cheek. He crumpled to the floor.
    She knelt down beside him. “Who sent you?”
    His eyes flickered as he struggled to stay awake.
“Why should I tell you?”
    Scarlett was not sure what made her say her next
words, they just seemed to flow from her lips. “Because I’ll kill
you quickly. You can bet they won’t be so nice.”
    The man’s breaths came in ragged gasps. “Fine...
Derrick. Derrick Martins.”
    The name stung. She was not quite sure why, but that
man’s name, connected with her attempted murder was like a knife to
her heart. “Why? Who am I to him?”
    A cough burst from the man’s lips. “I don’t know. I
think it had something to do with the accident, the explosion.”
    Scarlett’s confusion only deepened. Scraps of
memories raced through her mind, but none of it made sense. She
looked down at the floor and the smeared blood puddle. “I...”
    Her vision exploded in a flash of pain and light.
She felt her body falling backward and her mind threatened to black
out. Scarlett resisted the urge to slip into the darkness and
landed hard on the floor.
    She shook her head just in time to see the man
lunging at her. His body descended toward her with his hands
outstretched toward her throat.
    Without thinking, Scarlett flipped her legs up. Her
thighs clamped down around her attacker’s neck. His body slammed
into her, shoving her along the smooth floor with his momentum. He
fell to the floor with a thud and scrambled to get traction.
    Scarlett locked her ankles and squeezed her legs
like a vise. Rage filled her again, rage at her own distraction and
the opportunity she had given him. Her eyes burned and her lips
were curled in anger. She watched as his arms flailed, trying
anything to reach her. She clenched her teeth and relished in his
helplessness.
    His eyes bulged in his skull. Their gazes locked for
a brief moment. Then she wrenched her legs to the side, snapping
his neck with a sickening crack.
    Scarlett’s fury evaporated instantly. She looked
down at the burst blood vessels around the white edges of his
eyeballs. The horror of what she’d just done slammed into her chest
and took her breath away.
    Cash and Ruby burst through the door to find
Scarlett with her legs around the dead man’s head. Ruby was the
first one to speak. “Oh my.”
    Scarlett glanced up at her brother and mother then
back down to the man she’d just killed. Her face was a mask of
shock and terror. She shoved herself away from the now lifeless
body. With her back to the wall, she stared at the motionless
corpse.
    “ I killed him. I don’t even know
who he was, and I killed him.”
     

Chapter 7
A Magic Trick
    The physical act of taking someone’s life is easy.
Living with it, now that’s the hard part.
    * * *
    Ruby dabbed the washcloth on Scarlett’s arms and
face, erasing the tiny splatters of blood. Scarlett knew she would
always see those red spots, always feel their sick wetness against
her skin. Even several minutes later, she could still feel the
crack of the man’s neck reverberate through her bones.
    Scarlett stared off into the distance, reliving that
moment over and over in her mind. “I can’t believe I did it.”
    Ruby stepped over and rinsed out the cloth in the
kitchen sink. “Oh sweetheart. Ya did what was necessary.”
    “ I know ma, but... Is this who I
really am? Was I like this before you found me? A
killer?”
    Ruby sat back down next to Scarlett at the cherry
table and wrapped her arms around her daughter. The older woman’s
voice was tired but soothing. “Ah may not have given birth to ya,
but I know ya well ‘nuff. Yer definitely not a cold-blooded
killer.”
    There was a long pause before Ruby spoke again, but
when she did, a tiny bit of strength had returned. “He’s the one
who tried to kill ya before, isn’t he?”
    Scarlett just nodded as she reached up