Maybe I did. Because I was back to glaring out my kitchen window with my fingertips digging into the granite countertop. Hoping they might sink in and permanently embed themselves. Anchor me so I couldn’t do something supremely stupid.
Like run out the door and start making demands I had no right to make.
Why the hell was the fool hesitating at the base of her steps? Why were his shoulders and back heaving, hands in fists?
This guy...it was like...
Like he was pissed.
Not pissed.
Enraged.
My heart did something funny when he finally snapped into action. It was a slow, unfurling of awareness that pushed around the periphery of my consciousness as I watched him climb the steps. An overwhelming sense that slicked like ice down my spine, forcing me to stand and take note.
My eyes narrowed, scrutinizing his every move.
I didn’t have a direct view of the door since it was on the side of the house, only the deck where the douchebag stood fully in my line of sight. He pounded on her door with the back of his fist.
There was movement. I couldn’t actually see her door, but somehow, I knew she’d cracked it open. It was a shift in the atmosphere. Iknewshe opened it just as assuredly as I knew that she tried to force it closed.
Then the piece of shit was trying to shove it open. He reeled back, lifted a foot, and kicked it in.
Rynna.
Rynna.
Every fear I’d ever had tumbled free and lit my veins.
Gasoline and flames.
My soul screamed.
I wouldn’t fucking let this happen.
Not again. I flew out my door, down the steps, and across the street before I was barreling up hers.
My heart was in my fucking throat, stomach twisted in a single knot of dread. Dread that raged. A steely demand that I protect her.
Save her. Defend her. Keep her.It chanted through that hollow space.
Would have run out to protect anyone. I knew I would. Still, there was no questioning the driving force was completely different when I came up behind the bastard and saw Rynna sobbing on the ground.
Fear consumed her, her expression full of horror and pleas as she scooted back across the floor.
He loomed over her, encroaching, filled with that rage I’d sworn I’d witnessed from the window. He was spewing a verbal attack I knew was mere seconds from becoming physical. “You fucking bitch. You ruined my life.”
He was so consumed with debasing her that he hadn’t noticed I was there. That I was inching forward, trying to quiet my breaths that were jolting from my lungs in spastic quakes.
A chill climbed to the air. Freezing. Clotting the tension. Every second stretched out. Dense and dark and deep.
A whimper from the ground, and my heart nearly fucking left my chest when those java eyes flashed my direction.
It only lasted for one of those extended seconds, but there was more communication in that brief exchange than in any conversation I’d ever had in my life.
Relief.
Deliverance.
