Page 143 of The Fire We Make

His eyes trailed the length of Joy’s body and the dress that had made her feel beautiful only a few minutes before now made her feel gross.

“Maybe I’ll see what my son was getting all those years first,” he said licking his lips.

Joy’s face grew hot and her ears began ringing. She’d be damned if she let another Chapman man take anything else from her. She’d be damned if she let any man take something from her she wasn’t willing to give.

Not her body.

Not her freedom.

And not Ace.

She turned her head as much as she could and saw a large diamond shaped on top of a pedestal within arms reach. She grabbed the statue and swung, hitting Julius across the head. The impact caused him to release her with a grunt and fall to the ground in front of her.

The force was enough to make him delirious and he could barely move but Joy didn’t stop. Her mind was gone as she sent blow after blow to the man’s face and body. After a while, she no longer saw Julius, but his son who’d terrorized her for years.

She saw Cleveland.

She saw her father.

She saw every man that ever benefited from her abuse and made her feel worthless.

She saw a man who would try to take away the sliver of happiness she found.

By the time she stopped, Julius’s face was unrecognizable and her hands were covered in blood.

Her chest heaved with labored breaths, her ears feeling like she was under water as the episode subsided but her anger remained.

“Rose…” His voice cut through the haze and made her whole body freeze.

Slowly, she looked up and found Ace standing at the entrance of the hallway, eyes wide but with something unreadable in them as they flicked from Joy to the battered man at her feet.

Joy’s whole body was arrested and she felt like a deer in headlights.

“Baby,” he whispered, taking a small step forward.

She opened her mouth to explain herself and plead her case. Her mind spun with how to talk herself out of this, to explain away the blood and fury covering her. Before she could, a commotion erupted at the front of the building as glass shattered, pierced by the unmistakable pop of bullets. Screams and sirens sounded as attendees scattered to get away and the security alarms informed them all too late of the intruders.

A ringing in Joy’s ears returned that had nothing to do with the siren sounding throughout the banquet hall as her senses sharpened and her eyes swiveled for any indication of what was going on.

With one final look, Ace jumped into action, pulling a pistol from beneath his suit jacket and letting off shots. He covered Joy, and through the tunnel of her focus, she heard him tell her to run, but she already had her gun out, sending returning fire as masked gunmen rounded the corner.

Jrue, Remy, and the twins found them and Ace pushed Joy and April behind him as the men made a wall of protection on their way to the exit.

When they rounded the corner though, there were even more gunmen blocking the front exit. A few politicians and their guests ran out the back and the intruders made no move to stop them.

“Joy! April! Go evacuate with everyone else,” Ace yelled, covering behind a pillar, peeking around to send a shot then getting back behind it.

“The hell we will,” April said defiantly. She crouched behind a wall, coming up briefly to let off shots of her own.

Ace let out an exasperated sigh. “This isn’t up for debate April. I don’t know why you and Joy are walking around here thinking you gon’ play Charlie’s Angels but we don’t have time for this. You both need to get out of here. That’s an order.”

At that, Joy smirked.

“I’m not leaving you,” Joy said, sending shots from where she was ducked behind a pillar diagonal to Ace.

There was no more time to argue as the symphony of gunfire got closer.

She could feel a second onslaught of an episode creep up on her. Lingering anger and a desire to protect the people who'd come to mean something to her, made her body switch quickly back into that mode before she could fully leave it.