Don’t be rude.
Don’t be nice.
Stay polite.
Be firm.
Don’t give a reason.
No, no, no, no, no……
My voice catches somewhere between my heart and my throat.
“I—I-I’m fine,” I manage. The words come out thinner than I want them to, barely more than a breath.
“Sure, you are,” he says.
And then he moves.
Fast.
Too fast for me to process it properly.
One second, he’s three steps away, the next he’s closing the distance, his trainers barely making a sound on the snow. Instinct kicks in before reason. I spin on my heel and run.
My boots slide on the snow, but I don’t fall. Not yet. My bag slams against my hip with every step, the strap biting into my shoulder. The trees whip past me, dark and skeletal, branches reaching in like fingers. The cold air slices into my lungs, too sharp, too much, but I drag it in anyway.
I don’t scream. I can’t. My body’s in survival mode now, and survival, it seems, is focused on speed, not volume. Behind me, I hear him curse, then the sound of his feet pounding after me. He’s heavier, but he’s fast. Too fast.
The path curves ahead, a bend I’ve walked so many times it should feel familiar. Tonight, it’s a blind corner, a question mark. If I can just get around it, just get out of the tree line, I’ll be closer to the apartment buildings, closer to people, closer to lights and doors and neighbors with phones and locks and….
He grabs me. A hand fist-tight in the back of my coat, jerking me back so hard my teeth clack together. The world snaps sideways. My breath catches, and this time the scream tears loose,high, and raw.
I cry out, instinct more than voice. My feet scrabble for purchase, boots skidding. My arms flail backwards, hitting air, his chest, something solid. Panic is bright white in my veins, burning away coherent thought.
“No….” I choke. “Let go….”
I do the only thing my body remembers how to do from that self-defense class I took exactly once three years ago. I snap my knee back, hard, aiming for where I hope his thigh, or better, his groin, will be. I catch something. He grunts, the grip on my coat loosening for a heartbeat. I almost get away. My body surges forward, weight tipping toward freedom.
Almost. Then his hand clamps down again, fingers tangling in my scarf this time, yanking me back so sharply I gag. My vision splotches at the edges with black dots. His breath ghosts hot and sour against the side of my face.
“Don’t make a scene,” he hisses, and there’s a furious edge under the fake calm now. “I said you dropped something.”
It’s such a stupid sentence. Such a pointless lie. But somehow that makes it worse. My brain wants to fixate on it because the alternative, really understanding where this is going, feels too big.
My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest. Every survival instinct I have is screaming. My hands claw at his fingers, trying to pry them off my scarf, nails scraping skin. My lungs burn. I can’t get enough air.
And then there’s another noise. A roar. Not from me. From somewhere behind him. It’s not human. Not at first listen. It’s the kind of sound that belongs to something larger, something wild and cornered and furious. A growl, low and full of fury, ripped straight from the gut. Then a crash.
The weight on me lifts in an instant. My body lurches forward with the sudden absence of pressure, and I stumble, dropping to my knees. Pain shoots up my legs, sharp and hot, where they slam into the packed snow and hidden roots beneath. I suck in a breath that tastes like iron and frost.
There’s grunting behind me now. Cursing. The unmistakable thud of fists meeting flesh. The sound of bodies colliding, rolling, breaking branches, and kicking up snow. I twist around, palmsburning as I push myself backward in the slush, boots sliding, heart thundering. Just in time to see a shape slam into the man who grabbed me.
Leather. Muscle. Fury.
A stranger.
He hits him like a freight train, all momentum and intent, shoulder driving into the other man’s ribs. They crash to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Fists fly. Someone’s yelling, maybe both of them. The sound is rough and raw and real in a way I can’t process.
