Manx- Temple Slashed

  She pushed her right hand into her pocket. Her fingers closed around the wrench that was shaped like a knife. Her thumb felt the ridges of the stamp that said TRIUMPH.

  Now. Now is the moment. Make it count, her father told her.

  Lou kissed her on the temple, his lips brushing her softly.

  Vic shoved herself up. Her back spasmed, a sick flexing in the muscle, almost intense enough to cause her to stagger, but she did not even allow herself to grunt in pain.
...

  She jerked the wrench out of her pocket. It snagged on fabric, and for one terrible instant it almost dropped out of her fingers. She held on, pulled it loose, and slashed it at his eyes. The blow went a little high. The sharp tip of the wrench caught him above the left temple and tore open a four-inch flap of his curiously soggy, loose skin. She felt it grinding raggedly across bone.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Manx clapped one gaunt hand to his forehead. His expression suggested a man who has been struck by a sudden, dismaying thought. He staggered back from her. One heel slipped in the grass. She stabbed at his throat with the wrench, but he was already out of reach, falling across the hood of his Wraith.

- Bad Mother: Under