¬ Hiln
She crumpled.
Her arms released me, and I fell, my head cracking against the stone. Through the haze of pain, I saw her collapse beside me.
The ruin of her throat made time stop.
Blood pumped out in thick, dark gouts from the wound that had nearly severed her neck.
A jagged tearing had opened her throat from one side of her neck to the other, and the sound she made—the wet, choking gurgle as blood flooded her airway—was a sound I knew I would hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
No…
Her hands clasped down at her throat. Blood poured between her fingers. Poured down her chest. Poured onto the cobblestones in a dark, spreading pool that gleamed under the lamplight.
And her eyes found mine.
They were wide, terrified, and wet with tears that spilled down her cheeks and mixed with the blood that wouldn't stop flowing.
Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly. No sound came out. Just blood, bubbling up between her lips, and spilling down her chin in rivulets.
