She went to circle by him again, but once more, he blocked her path. Drunk or not, he was quick. Maybe if she answered his question . . .
“I ain’t with Ezekiel. We’re just friends.”
Dewey’s features tightened, and a scary hollowness darkened his eyes.
She took an awkward step back, her ankle gave, and she stumbled, falling hard into the sawdust.
Dewey’s big, rough hands gripped her shoulders, lifting her, holding her like a rag doll in the air. Unable to twist out of his grasp, she raised a hand to slap him in the face, but his lips curled into a hideous grin, and he flung her into the wall.
Her head struck the hard surface, blurring her vision. She slid down, nearly to the floor, but struggled to keep some of her balance. The last thing she wanted was to be on the ground with him standing over her. Honoree forced herself back up, working through the pain.
“You drunk bastard! Have you lost your mind? Don’t you dare manhandle me!” The blow caught her on the cheek, crushing her face into the wall.
“Shut up!”
Pain crawled across her jaw like fire. Dewey grabbed her wrist. She punched him in the chest, his arms, his chin, but he took each blow and wouldn’t let go.
One large hand took hold of her left arm, bending it a way it shouldn’t be bent. His other hand reached under her dress and pulled at her bloomers.
Honoree screamed, or she had intended to scream, but Dewey slugged her again, closed-fisted. Tiny stars filled the room. Sweat fell from his face onto hers.
“Shut up.” His voice vibrated with violence. Now he had a hand around her throat.
Gagging, coughing, unable to breathe, Honoree clawed at his forearms with her free hand. He needed to loosen his grip on her neck. She needed to do something to stop him from killing her.
The corner of his eye dripped blood. If she’d hurt him once, she could do it again. But how? Then she rammed her knee upward, striking him between his legs. His face twisted in agony, but he wouldn’t let go of her throat. And still, she couldn’t scream.
“Bitch. You fucking, loathsome bitch. You and your fancy man. If Ezekiel hadn’t come back, my brother would’ve gone along with my plan, listened to my ideas. Archie wouldn’t be treating me like shit, forcing me out of Chicago, if it weren’t for Ezekiel Bailey.”
He threw her to the floor, and she crawled away from him, heading toward the door and the hallway, but her leg and ankle, swollen like her throat, wouldn’t let her move as fast as she needed to. If she could make it to the stairwell, beat Dewey up the stairs, she could reach the storage room behind the bar. If she yelled, Crazy Pete would hear her.
Dewey grabbed her waist and shoved her to the floor. Rolling her onto her back, he pinned her to the sawdust. Straddling her, he put all his weight on her sore leg, and she cried out.
“Stop!” she croaked, unable to yell with a swollen throat.
“Why are you with him?” He was tearing at her garter and her panties. “You know what he is? Your boyfriend. The wannabe doctor. He ain’t nothin’. Ain’t nobody. Just another nigga just like me. Nothing special. Nothing special.”
Dewey wrapped a large palm and fat fingers around her neck and pawed her body with his other hand, his touch blinding her with disgust. She gagged, trying again to scream but with no sound coming out.
God, why couldn’t she make a sound, other than a grunt or a groan? Why take her voice? Pete was a flight of stairs away, but he didn’t know what was happening to her; otherwise he and his cane would knock Dewey to the ground.
“You fuck Ezekiel, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. You like it, too. Don’t lie. I know you do.”
His hand closed into a fist, and the blow blinded her, the pain anchored inside her head. His body covered hers, his weight holding her in place as she drowned in the sweat dripping from his face and his whiskey-soiled breath.
Oh God. He was trying to get inside her. She kicked her legs, frantic, thrashing, hitting him with her feet in his legs, stomach, wherever she could hurt him.
Tears soaked her cheeks. She lay sprawled on her back, her dress pulled up around her waist. The taste of blood and the pain in her legs didn’t matter. She couldn’t struggle; she could only wait for him to kill her.
Then the world shifted.
A loud crash and Dewey rolled off her, holding the side of his head, groaning in pain. Another blow hit him on the other side of his head, and he slumped forward.
Honoree tried to see what was going on—what or who had stopped Dewey? She crawled toward the nearest wall and pressed her back against the cold, hard surface.
“Who’s there?” She blinked twice, squeezing tears from her eyes, bringing the world into focus.
There was a shadow, a brown-skinned girl holding a long stick, a broken broom handle. Honoree blinked again. Bessie was standing over Dewey’s hunched body.
