Page 78 of If Looks Could Kill

Pearl wakes to a piercing pain in her gut.

It’s dark and cold, like a cave, like the grave.

There’s a lamp in the distance. She feels, more than sees, a large figure crouching over her, kneeling on her right side, examining her navel area with urgent interest. A gleam of dull orange light slides along the blade in his hand.

Her head is groggy, and nothing makes sense, but it’s him, she’s here, it’s real, and she’s alone, just coming out of a daze in a basement with Jack the Ripper.

No time. No time.

She’s going to die.

She crawls her fingers along the floor. He doesn’t notice. She’s on a folded sheet. Beyond it, she finds a bit of gravel and flings it, hoping the noise will startle him. It does, but he shrugs it off. He presses fingers into her gut, marking the spot of his next cut, and readies his blade.

No time.

Her extended right hand finds something metallic and heavy and long. A tool? A pipe? It’ll do. She swings it up and over, clocking him on the side of the head with it.

His full, suffocating weight collapses on top of her. It presses the tip of the blade into her body once more before it flops sideways. She cries out in pain, gashed in two places.

He’s moving, scrambling to get up, to reach for her throat. No time, no time.

She twists hard to the left, throwing his weight off-balance and rolling him off her. The wounds in her belly scream. Before he can settle, she brings the heavy metal object crashing down upon his head once more.

It stuns him briefly. It won’t be long.

“Help me!” she screams. “Help!”

No one comes. No one hears.

She has no time left at all.