Wait, no. It’s not.
I tug my jacket tighter around me.
What am I doing? Even as I think that question, I continue walking. The mystery of Wes will be too much for me if I don’t figure out what’s going on. Sure, he made me promise just a few hours ago not to do stupid shitanymore, but that won’t be his problem anymore soon enough.
The area around the apartment starts off okay, but within a few blocks it gets more broken down with busted street lights and boarded up buildings. This… might’ve been a mistake. My feet are killing me. I’m freezing. I’m definitely making poor choices. With a final glance down at my map, I turn onto Maple. Not a soul is around, and I slow my pace and walk pressed close to the buildings.
Then I hear something across the street just ahead. A slight woman crawls out of an alleyway, her dress up around her waist and no underwear, stands, adjusts herself, then runs down the road toward me in high heels. Her face is distressed and her hair is messed, but she’s so fast. Whatever she’s running away from must be really awful.
And she looks young enough to be called a girl, not a woman.
Adrenaline spikes in my veins. Someone needs to help her. Why isn’t anyone helping? What if someone is chasing her? I stare at her departing form as she sprints past, panic coursing through me. Shit! Should I follow? But how can I help? I swallow thickly and step backwards onto a dark side street. I’m too chicken to follow. I can’t bring myself to help, and my heart skips a beat when I turn back to where she just came from.
I’m having a hard time understanding what I’m seeing.
At the edge of the alleyway, two men in head-to-toe black are standing in front of another man, who has his arm around the shoulders of what could be his younger sister, but I’m afraid is probably not. The men have black balaclavas covering their heads.
It’s Wes and Noah.
I’m sure of it. Wes is broader and Noah slightly taller. Ican hear snippets of the conversation between Noah and the man. Then the girl says the word eighteen, which surely can’t be her age. Poor girl must be freezing in a tiny skirt and short open jacket which reveals a cropped top.
Who was the other young woman running from? It can’t be Wes and Noah. They’re protectors, not predators. I get that I can’t know it for sure, but still, I do. They’re not the bad guys.
Also, the girl tucked under that man’s arm has the same terrified look on her face as the one who ran away.
Wes pulls out blue gloves from the pocket of his jacket and slips them on. Are those surgical gloves? Then he slips behind the man and grabs his arms, securing him and freeing the girl. She sprints out of the alley and pauses on the sidewalk. Noah approaches her from behind, says something in her ear, then hands her something—money, maybe?—before she books it past me in the same direction as the other girl went.
My jaw might as well be on the sidewalk.
“Bitch! Get back here!” the man screams, struggling in Wes’s grasp to no avail.
But the girl is long gone. I take a deep breath and let it out in relief. I knew it. I knew they were the good guys. They just saved two girls from whoever the fuck this guy is. This was what they were doing? Sneaking out to save people, like some kind of hot balaclava-masked super heroes?
I almost chuckle.
Then, Noah stalks back toward the man. Some words are lost under the man’s loud cursing, but I hear Noah clearly say, “You’re a rapist and a predator and a horrific excuse for human being.”
I gasp. Rapist? Predator? I mean, I don’t doubt it, given what I just witnessed, but Jesus.
The man opens his mouth to shout or argue, but then he sees Noah sliding on a pair of blue gloves of his own. Noah says more to him, but his voice is low, and I can’t make out the words. The other man is rambling and babbling, and with a dull ringing growing louder in my ears, I don’t understand what’s going on at all.
And then Noah starts stabbing.
I gasp and stumble backwards, squeezing my eyes shut and leaning against the building out of view. The bricks are cold and rough, and I try to manage the waves of panic, which have now returned.
Oh my god. What did I just witness?
I was just begging someone to save those girls, and then realized Wes and Noah were doing exactly that. But I didn’t have “watching the masked man I’m obsessed with hold a guy so his brother could stab him in an alleyway after they saved two girls” on my bingo card for tonight. And that’s something, because tonight’s bingo card had some wild squares.
I’m honestly not sure if I should run back to the apartment or to the cops or to my car.
Tears fill my eyes and run down my cheeks. My chest shudders, and I’m so, so cold. I have to get out of here. I stumble through the alleyway, which thankfully connects to another road away from Wes and Noah and the man, and then I blindly walk down a block this way, and another block that way, and I’m so far from my car and the apartment, plus the blisters on my feet have popped. I can’t take my shoes off because I’ll get frostbite, but I can’t walk any further, so I find a set of steps and sit.
I wait for Wes to find me.
Because I know he will.
And then he does.
