He scoffs, straightening in his seat, snapping his head away before answering, “Just looking at the menus, miss.”
Angel smiles, straightening to her much taller height than me. “Perfect. Enjoy your lunch, gentlemen.” She glances at me throwing out a wink before spinning and heading back to the table.
The creeps never once looked at me again after that. They ate and left without another word which I was grateful for.
I suppose it’s nice to have people looking out for you. Though it is foreign to me to say the least. It’s been a long time since I had anyone care about me the way Tequila and her friends do.
My shift is over right before the evening one starts and I contemplate heading to the gym and getting another session in, but the snow falls harder, and it’s probably best to head back to my apartment. It’s funny thinking how shy I was working out at their gym. The need to be powerful, and strong is greater than any vulnerability or worry of them watching me.
I pull my winter hat down as I step out onto the sidewalk. When I dare a glance to my right, the caution tape is still there, and it churns my stomach. What did this man do, I wonder. Or if it was simply the wrong place, wrong time situation.
A man appears in front of me, blocking my vision of the street. The guy from the diner towers over me, aiming a burning angry sensation through my skin.
Shit.
“I didn’t like how your friend talked to me.”
Say something. Tell this guy to leave you alone. Anything.
“Did you hear me?” he spits, eyes narrowing in a menacing manner.
I go to step around him, but he grabs my upper arm, and I freeze. A voice inside me screams to fight, but I’m no longer here on the sidewalk, I’m back in the warehouse, with that fuck on top of me.
“Little Rabbit.” His grin overtook his face, the vileness of his breath all over my skin, panting like an animal. The rhythmic thrusts. The way he groaned in my ear.
My eyes slam closed, trying to make the horrid memory disappear.
“Hey. I’m talking to you.”
My attention falls back into the present—back to the guy currently gripping my arm with enough force, surely, I’ll bruise.
I’m a coward and am I just going to let him handle me like this, treat me like I’m nothing and he’s everything? But in a way, he is more superior. Why? Because he’s Bigger. Stronger. Fouler.
I despise the way I shut down. I’m not this girl. This is not who I am. I fight, dammit. I’ve always been a fighter. But there’s a small flicker of light, threatening to burn out. The need to keep it going is so extreme I feel it down to my bones.
My brain screams and yells, but my body is paralyzed.
“Are you gonna fucking say—” The way he suddenly pauses has my eyes narrowing in confusion. But there’s an interruption. The sound of an object scraping against the cement ground.
I muster up the will to look, and my heart stutters. The snow is being scraped away against the ground in a line formation as the movement grows near.
Hush walks with an eerie calmness, his bat dragging alongside him. His eyes blank, unable to be read as he takes the cigarette from his full lips, distinguishing it in the ash tray stand closest to us. He only stops when he’s inches from the man still holding me in his grip as if he forgot he still held me captive.
Hush, appearing like he’s going to crush this guy into another realm, bleeds fire. “Foolish.” His soft yet deep voice is a mixture of harsh and husky.
The hand once gripping my arm, shooting pain through it, is gone and I stare at Hush who has my attacker’s arm twisted behind his back. His expression fierce and eyes deadly. The once blank emotion now a swirl of darkness.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hush asks, in such a dead, monotone voice. But God, there’s something in the way he speaks that can frighten the most dangerous person on earth.
The pulsing in his neck beats over the top of his sweatshirt as the guy struggles against the weight of Hush’s grip. The bat tightens against his throat restricting the asshole from speaking.
With Hush’s comforting presence next to me, I find my words. “He’s just another piece of scum who deserves whatever’s coming to him.”
Hush eyes me from the effortless hold he has on the guy and for the first time, he really looks at me, studying me. Can’t say I blame him for being curious. My sudden outburst was a shock to me too. Hatred drips out of me for people like this. For men likehim. “Little Rabbit.”
Hush looks away, the darkness that disappeared for only half a minute invades those piercing eyes of his once more. He releases the bat, and the man’s body falls to the ground as he gasps for air he had lost. His lungs begging for life. But as I stare down at him while he struggles to breathe, a ghost of a smile spreads across my face.
I glance up at Hush, who’s already looking at me in a way that’s questionable. We hold each other’s gazes before turning back to the guy who is now trying to find the strength to stand.
