Nope, guess I heard him right after all.
Ariel stopped throwing chunks of bread at the ducks and turned to stare daggers at the man. “You get that they were filthy rapists and absolute scum of the earth, yes?”
He waved his hand blandly in her direction, easily blowing her words off. “Most men in power are, girl. It’s just the way the world works, unfortunately for those less fortunate souls born with a vagina between their legs.”
Oh, good fucking grief, he did not just say that to Ariel Kimber of all people.
“Is it the having a vagina itself that makes you think being a female that makes us less fortunate?”
I don’t buy her conversational tone for a second and if this man were half as clever as he thought he was he’d take one look at her and run for his life.
“You don’t think women in our culture are born less fortunate than the male witches are?” he asked her condescendingly. “We should talk about how you got that scar on your face.”
“Do you like scars?” she asked him in return and I didn’t for one second like the dead look that had washed through her pretty green eyes.
She was up to no good.
Again.
The man shrugged carelessly. “Scars don’t mean anything to me. Then again I don’t have any like yours to mark my body.”
Ariel moved faster than I’d ever seen her move before and I knew she’d used her magic to give her a little burst of speed. Her arm shot out and she slashed a sleek black blade across his face.
“Fuck,” he screamed as he leapt to his feet and lurched away from the bench Ariel was still sitting on. “You stupid bitch. What’s the matter with you?”
Ariel laughed darkly. “Well, I figured since you admired mine so much I could give you one similar to it. Now you won’t be able to hide your plain Jane face in plain sight anymore. You can’t remove scars made by that blade, she marks you for life. Little gift I got from one of my husbands. One of the crazier ones.”
“One of?” I asked with a laugh. “Shit, they’re all fucking nuts.”
She flashed me a wicked grin. “All of the men in my life are. And don’t you try to deny it.”
“You’re fucking crazy!” the man screamed and I sighed, over this game Ariel clearly wanted to play with her new friend.
“This isn’t crazy, mister,” Ariel drawled. “You haven’t seen crazy yet. This is mild but it’s the only way I think I might get any real information out of you. I tried to play nice and feed the stupid ducks with you but that wasn’t getting me anywhere. So I thought we’d try to play this way. You’re welcome to tell me the truth at any time and we can stop playing. Those are the rules and it’s really up to you how we proceed forward from here going forward.”
I was happy to hear there’d be no more sitting on the bench pretending to be fake friends bullshit. I couldn’t take any more of that, it was a complete waste of time and I was glad to hear we were finally done with it.
But that didn’t mean we could go around slicing people open at the park in broad daylight because that was also pretty fucking crazy.
That man glared at Ariel while pressing the palm of his hand to his cheek. It didn’t stop the blood from flowing down the side of his face.
“I’m not telling you anything, you fucking bitch. I don’t know who you think you are but you don’t get to attack me and then threaten me. You’re going to pay for that. Everyone you love is going to pay for that, mark my words.”
“Oooh,” Ariel mocked. “I’m shaking in my boots. Please. Better men than you have tried and I’m still standing here. If anyone’s a bitch here it’s you. But you’re welcome to give it your best shot and try.”
She held her hands out at the sides and shook her fingers at him in invitation.
“Not on your life, motherfucker,” Rain snarled as he stepped up behind the man. Rain wrapped his forearm around the man’s throat and lifted him up clean off of his feet.
The man struggled but he was no match for Rain’s brute strength.
Rain stared his daughter down while he choked the man out.
The man went limp and Rain tossed him aside as if he were a piece of garbage. Finn and Romero were right there to scoop him up.
“We’ll get him in the trunk,” Romero said to Rain, who was still focused on Ariel. “We need to get him out of here before people start showing up at the park to play with their kids or walk their dogs.”
“Don’t make an even bigger mess here, Rain,” Finn advised before he and Romero carried the man off between them.
