My heart triphammers in my chest, banging so hard it’s not far off busting ribs. My ears ring as screeching tires and blaring horns fill the street.
In a daze, I jump out, slamming both hands on the roof, eyes jumping left and right, searching for her body...
A part of my brain is convinced she’s dead.
Everything inside me stills until I spot her darting between moving vehicles at full speed, bouncing off hoods.
Relief doesn’t last long. It hits like the burn of a vodka shot, then dies as more blasting horns and squealing tires fill the air, the drivers stamping their brakes before they run her over.
Each near miss damn near stops my heart, panic surging in my veins. It’s a foreign feeling. Bizarre. Infuriating.
I’ve never felt as raw and unnerved as I do right now, watching Hailey running away from me.
Traffic comes to a grinding halt and people either scramble out or roll their windows, yelling incomprehensibly. Almost everyone’s staying away, but one brave guy jumps in front of me, arms outstretched.
I barely fucking notice him, my world reduced to the frightened blonde desperate to put distance between us. She’s not checking the road’s safe. She’s not thinking. She runs straight ahead like a startled deer, disappearing into an alleyway.
“Leave her alone!” the guy booms, eyes narrowed into slits.
I don’t stop, winding my elbow back mid-run, the momentum only making my fist connect harder with his jaw. It sends him stumbling back, his hands flying to clutch his bleeding nose.
“Grab him!” someone else yells.
I should’ve snagged my gun from the glove box. One look at the steel would stop the bravest of men chasing after me.
Thundering steps echo in the dead-end alley as I round the corner. Hailey’s at the end, pressed against the wet, grimy brick wall, tears sliding down her porcelain cheeks.
I’m there before she can look for another way out. I grip her waist, one hand cradling her face to tilt her head my way. Her tears wet my fingertips, glistening under the flickering streetlights from the main street.
“Look at me, Hailey. You’re okay, I’m here.”
“Leave her alone!” a voice cries out behind.
The panicked haze clears now Hailey’s with me, and reality seeps in, letting me see the whole situation as a passive observer. I’m part of a scene straight from a thriller. A young girl—clearly scared—tucked and rolled out of a moving car and ran away from a man who came sprinting after her.
No wonder the crowd got the wrong idea. They don’t know the story. They don’t understand I’m not the villain.
I ignored thestop right there!andleave her alone!coming from all sides while I zigzagged around the cars. I ignored the scared, shocked faces whizzing past and the men trying to stop me.
It’s admirable, truly.
Nowadays, not many people have the guts to intervene, most stay on the sidelines turning a blind eye, pretending they can’t see something bad happening.
The thudding steps halt behind me and a heavy hand grips my shoulder, yanking me back. Another guy jumps toward Hailey, keeping a three-foot distance, his arms raised.
“Are you okay, miss?” he asks, full of caution. “Are you hurt?”
He’s too close.
He’s way too fucking close to my girl.
The noise from a nearby bar, the chatter of onlookers, the hum of running engines: all blurs into a dissonant background noise while my muscles wind up tighter.
“Get the fuck away from her,” I snap, jumping away from the guy gripping my shoulder.
He lunges at me, elbow cocked, but he’s too slow. I dodge, immediately driving my fist into his face. With a pained gasp, he folds like a house of cards, sputtering blood and spit onto the slick cobblestones.
It rained for four days, making the search for Jensen much harder on the cops, but that cleared up two days ago... why are the cobblestones wet?
