I’d found it mostly uninspiring and not worth a repeat.
Besides, I hated someone close and in my space.
You liked it just fine when Bastian held you close. You liked it even more when you were fighting.
I gripped the hilt of my knife. Released. Gripped. My gaze drifted up to the roofline of the bar. The tops of several casinos were visible beyond. I could just make out the bronze glass of the Avernus.
Yes, something about Bastian set my senses alight. So what? I was female. And he was a male that could make the pulse of any woman go haywire.
A group of three women stepped out of the bar snapping my thoughts off Bastian. The friends were laughing and hugging. Two of them set off down the sidewalk while the other one turned in the opposite direction.
She was smiling and looking at her phone as she walked. I shook my head. She wasn’t aware of her surroundings at all.Stupid.
She didn’t notice the man, half a block down, smoking a cigarette in a shadowed doorway.
Watching her.
Yes, I’d done a little research. While I’d been sitting in my empty apartment, I’d read all about the rapist hunting on the Las Vegas streets.
There had been four violent attacks in good suburbs. Women who’d been out and were walking home alone.
He’d left DNA, but the police had no suspect to match it to.
I pushed off the wall. Ahead, the man followed the woman.
And I followed the predator.
It hadn’t taken me long to find him. I pored over the reports from the other attacks and found security footage from the area. With a lot of time and patience, I’d found him. Sure, he wasbeing careful enough to evade the cops, but he couldn’t evade me.
Those of us who moved in the shadows were good at spotting others who did the same. And I had a good eye for spotting a bad guy.
I stuck to the shadows. I was going to take him down. He liked to hunt women. He felt strong and invincible.
I planned to give him some of his own medicine.
The woman looked up from her phone long enough to cross the street. Then, continuing her poor choices, she slipped into a small park to take a shortcut home.
Shaking my head, I watched the man pick up speed. Yeah, he scented blood in the water.
I scanned the park, noting a soccer field and a tennis court. There was also a small kids playground dotted with some trees. The woman disappeared into the trees and the man followed her.
Yes, I imagined he was feeling very excited.
By the time I entered the park, I heard the woman scream. I cleared the trees.
The man had grabbed her near the swings. Her bag was on the ground, the contents spilled out on the grass. He shoved her hard, bending her over the back of a park bench. He tore at her clothing, yanking her coat off her body. Terrified, she cried out. She tried to fight him, but he hit her in the face before ripping her shirt. The woman sobbed.
I stepped into view. “Let her go.”
The man’s head snapped up. He was middle-aged, short, had salt-and-pepper hair, and heavy jowls. His shirt stretched over his heavy gut.
Just a regular guy that you’d pass on the street and not even look twice at.
“Piss off,” he growled.
“Not tonight. Tonight, I came looking for you.”
He released the woman. She fell to the ground, in shock and sobbing hard.
