Chapter 9 - Vengeance in the Rain
Grace ducked beneath the gleaming steel, the tip of the blade slicing clean through the collar of her jacket.
She countered with a brutal liver punch, but Sabrina rolled with the blow, using her momentum to drive a knee toward Grace’s ribs. Grace blocked with her forearm, the force of the collision sending both women sliding across the slick, gravel-covered roof.
The helicopter’s spotlight pinned them in a circle of harsh, white light. The pilot, seeing the fight spiral out of control, began to tilt the aircraft, preparing to abort the extraction.
Sabrina lunged again, a flurry of feral, precision stabs. She was fast, vicious, and fighting for her life. The knife grazed Grace’s left shoulder, hot blood immediately soaking through the dark fabric.
Grace didn't retreat. She ignored the fire in her shoulder, her military training taking over completely. Pain was just data; fear was an irrelevant variable.
Sabrina overextended on a downward thrust.
Grace stepped inside the guard, parrying Sabrina’s wrist with her left hand, and drove her right palm directly upward into Sabrina’s already fractured jaw.
*CRACK!*
A spray of blood mixed with the rain. Sabrina stumbled, dazed, but Grace gave her no quarter.
Grace grabbed Sabrina’s wrist, twisted it in a brutal joint lock, and drove her heel down onto the side of Sabrina’s knee.
The joint gave way with a sickening pop.
Sabrina shrieked, collapsing onto her good knee, the knife slipping from her nerveless fingers and clattering into a drainage grate.
Grace stood over her, breathing hard, rain plastering her hair to her forehead. She pressed the muzzle of the Glock firmly against the center of Sabrina’s forehead.
The helicopter above banked hard, pulling away into the storm clouds, abandoning its operative to the dark.
"Kill me," Sabrina hissed through broken teeth, her eyes burning with pure malice. "Go on, soldier. Do it. Pull the trigger. You’re just like me. You kill for a living."
Grace stared down at the woman who had terrorized a little girl, murdered innocent people, and tried to destroy a grieving family from the inside out.
Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger.
"Grace!"
A voice pierced the roar of the wind.
Ethan stood at the doorway of the roof access stairs. He was soaked to the skin, his white shirt clinging to his chest. In his arms, wrapped securely in his heavy tuxedo jacket, was Lily.
Lily was looking at Grace.
Her large, dark eyes weren't filled with fear anymore. They were filled with hope.
Grace looked from Sabrina’s sneering, pathetic face to the little girl watching her from the doorway.
Slowly, deliberately, Grace eased her finger off the trigger.
She lowered the hammer of the weapon.
"No," Grace said, her voice quiet but carrying an immense weight. "I’m not like you. I protect people. You just destroy them."
Grace swung the butt of the heavy pistol down against Sabrina’s temple, knocking her cleanly into unconsciousness.
Sabrina slumped onto the wet gravel, defeated, broken, and finished.
Grace turned toward Ethan and Lily. The adrenaline drained from her limbs, leaving her swaying slightly in the rain, the wound on her shoulder throbbing with dull heat.
Ethan stepped forward across the rooftop, closing the distance between them. Without a word, he pulled Grace into his embrace, holding both her and Lily against his chest while the storm raged around them.
And in the circle of their arms, Lily reached out a small, trembling hand.
She touched Grace’s bruised cheek, leaned close to Grace’s ear, and spoke four words aloud for the first time in four long years:
May you like
"Thank you, Mama Grace."
***
