He used his thumb to tip my chin up, holding my gaze steadily. "Pay attention to your surroundings."
The warmth from his thumb spread along my skin, catching like wildfire and lighting my cheeks on fire. I swallowed. "Alright."
He stepped away, and as I got into the car, he closed the door for me, his expression still unusually serious for him. He was just nervous because the last time I'd left the house I'd gotten my nose smashed. I started the car and tried to reassure myself that things would be fine. As I left the property, I knew Benjamin would disable the alarms that went off when I passed the sensors.
I breathed out a sigh of relief when I was on the road. As I left, I tried to take note of my surroundings like Benjamin had asked, but there were only cars around me. The drive was uneventful, and I found myself relaxing more than I had in days. It wasn't that being with Benjamin was difficult—in fact, I was getting concerningly used to his company. But never being alone did tend to wear a person down, mentally. I let down my window so I could glide my hand on the wind, and I soaked in the cloudy spring day, drunk on clean, misty air.
As I made it into Duvall, a small satellite town on the outskirts of Seattle, I stopped at a red light with Sombr playing loudly over the speakers. A sports bike revved and then stopped to my left, and I glanced at the driver. He wore a bike helmet that shielded his face, and he met my look, leaning back on his bike and resting his hands on his thighs. He was still staring.My heart quickened, and I rolled my windows back up, suddenly paranoid. Surely, that wasn't one of them?
He looked forward again, and the light turned green. I exhaled slowly. This entire situation had me wound up so tightly, I was seeing enemies everywhere.
The boutique store was located on a charming main street of shops and businesses that lined either side. Sol and Sage used to be a cute, two-bedroom house tucked in-between the commercial buildings, and it still retained its charming exterior but had a parking lot and brick buildings on either side of it in the back. I pulled into the parking lot and found Micah already waiting for me in front of the metal industrial-style door that had replaced the residential rear entrance. Although he wasn't tall, he was stocky and tatted, and his thick brows tended to pull together in a perpetual scowl; I immediately felt safer when he waved to me in greeting. He wore his hair a little longer and combed back, and his scruff disappeared into neck tattoos that continued down his light brown arms. As usual, he had on a worn T-shirt that had seen better days, like his work boots. I parked, and he opened my door, already holding out his arms for a welcome embrace. I hugged him gratefully, so reassured by his familiarity, I nearly lost my composure.
"You look thin," he observed, patting my back and retreating a step to look me over. "What have you been up to, kid?"
I shrugged helplessly. "It's kind of a whole thing. I'm not supposed to get out of the car, though."
"Come on," he drawled, rolling his eyes. "No one messes with me."
This was true. He owned the cutest boutique for a hundred miles, but quite frankly, no one messed with Micah. Coming out in his thirties and transitioning openly in the military wasn't for the faint-hearted. "Alright, I'll help you bring in some soap. How are sales? I'm sorry it's taken me a while to restock."
"You apologize too much," he dismissed, going to the back of the car. "Sales are picking up. I think people get a hankering for honey products in the spring. I don't think they realize you harvest early summer and fall."
"The bees do work hard all spring," I said. "Warm weather is good for sales. Tessa has started helping me make the soap. She has a knack for clever scents. This is one of her new ones—honey, alyssum blossom." I opened a small box and took out a soap bar packaged in brown paper and bearing our apiary sticker.
Micah took it and sniffed it, immediately sighing and slumping back dramatically. "Fuck, that smells good."
"Right? It's my personal favorite right now." We hauled the eight boxes of soap into the boutique store, setting them in the back with the rest of the neatly organized stock. Sol and Sage had expanded recently, taking up two store spaces after its remodel, and it carried local consignment items, handmade gifts, and favorite luxury products. It was stuffed with goods, smelled like heaven, and was usually decorated for the season with plants and garlands. Micah and his daughter ran it with military-grade organization.
When we finished, Micah offered me tea, but I glanced at the back door reluctantly. "I can't. I really was supposed to stay in the car."
Micah narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I thought you misspoke when you said that earlier. Why would you have to stay in the car?"
I pushed the latch on the utility back door, shouldering it open. "I'm not sure it would sound rational if I tried to explain it."
Micah's dark eyes roved over me in concern as he followed me. A few splashes of cold rain plopped on my head as we exited, and Micah asked, "What do you need? Can I help?"
I shook my head, ducking as the rain began to intensify. "It's a temporary thing. Hopefully in a few weeks it'll…" My sentence petered out as a motorcycle revved into the parking lot and came to a stop next to my parked car. The rain fell in earnest, suddenly, like a veil falling between me and the masked stranger with his sights on me.
Micah stopped, staring at me and then at the man. "Someone you know?"
I backed up a step. "No, but… Micah, can we—can you lock the doors?"
Micah acted immediately, putting a protective arm around me and ushering me back toward the door. Two men stepped out from the alley between the main street buildings. Through the curtain of rain, they moved between us and the door. They both wore bandanas over the bottom half of their faces, and both were a similar height and build.
I pulled up short, and Micah tightened his arm around me. "Evie?"
"I'm so sorry," I choked. Another car entered the parking lot, and a fourth man exited with a baseball bat in hand. Fear leaped to life in my veins, skittering and then pounding like the hooves of a frightened doe. We backed away from the two men between us and the store, but the two behind us advanced, and I could barely draw a breath around my suffocating terror.
Micah rotated us so our backs were to the dumpster containers. "Evie, run."
"No," I gusted. "If I can just get to the car?—"
The two men to our right lunged for me, and Micah blocked their path, ramming his shoulder into the chest of one, which knocked the other off-balance. I had to make it to the car, but would Micah be alright? I couldn't just leave him here. I searched for a weapon, for something to at least keep them at arm's length, but there was only a stack of pallets to my rightand the empty parking lot to my left. The two men overpowered Micah almost immediately, kneeing him in the gut and shoving him to the ground. The two men to my left advanced, and the guy with the baseball grinned, twirling his weapon teasingly.
I backed up against the green dumpster, my heart pounding in my chest so hard, I could barely hear the roaring rain around us. Fear crippled my thoughts, and the hazy scene before me blurred together as my breathing reached a staccato, panicked rhythm. There was no way out of this.
Chapter Thirteen
