The Rules They Broke

Chapter 44: The End Part III

OLIVIA

Rivers shoved his forearm into her throat, cutting off her air. Olivia spluttered and tried kicking at his legs, but her assault meant nothing to the huge man.

How could the father of the bubbliest, nicest cheerleader at her school be like this? How could Melanie's dad have a cold sneer on his face and be trying to choke her to death?

She had gotten this all wrong.

"Stop-" she gasped, pushing at his arms. "Please - wait-"

"What else did your mother tell you?" Rivers growled. "Tell me now."

"I don't-" Olivia wheezed. "I don't know, please."

"She must've given you something else. Did she give you anything else besides this piece of paper?"

When Olivia didn't reply, he pushed harder against her throat. Darkness threatened to overwhelm her.

"Answer me, bitch!"

And then, in a weird moment of clarity, Olivia remembered that her mother had indeed given her something else.

She pulled the pepper spray from her back pocket, faced it in the general direction away from her, and held her breath in case she was doing this all wrong.

Then she sprayed the entire thing into Officer River's open mouth.

Officer Rivers roared in pain, and his grip on her faltered as he blindly pushed away the pepper spray. It clattered from Olivia's hands onto the floor and she ducked down away from his flailing arms, madly grabbing for the can rolling away under Officer Rivers's feet.

She managed to catch it and scrambled away, but a hard boot came down on her ankle. She yelped and turned to find Rivers blinking crazily, his gun held in his hands.

"You're done," he growled.

Olivia threw her arm up across her head and crouched down against the ground. A bullet wouldn't stop at anything, but she didn't want to see the gun go off.

Please let nobody else get hurt. 

And please let it be quick.

"Hey, ASSHOLE!"

Olivia almost sobbed from relief.

As if in slow motion, she saw Logan leap from the door towards Rivers, launching himself at him.

The two tumbled to the ground in a heap of flailing limbs. Olivia pushed herself up on her forearms and painstakingly got to her elbows.

Logan got off two punches to Rivers's face before Rivers got a grasp on his gun and began trying to put the muzzle to Logan's head. Logan strained and grunted as he pushed it upwards, trying to keep it above his head.

Rivers brought up his knee and shoved it into Logan's stomach and Logan's grip faltered. The gun went dangerously close to his face and instead of trying harder to put it between his eyes, Rivers shoved it against his head, hitting him hard with the butt of the gun one, then twice.

The two struggled.

There was a loud boom as the gun went off.

"NO!" Olivia screamed.

As Rivers threw Logan off him, Olivia crashed into the officer, spraying him again in the mouth. Rivers choked this time, spluttering and coughing up bile onto the floor.

She got to her feet, keeping her eyes on the officer and holding the can of mace in her hand towards him. "Logan?" Olivia needed to see if he was okay but she couldn't take her eyes off Rivers. "Are you okay? Did he - are you -"