Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
There they were.
Two men.
No, three.
One was further back, his shape indistinct against the shadows between buildings.
He was too far for details.
But close enough to matter.
Someone said something, but I didn’t catch the words. The tone, though, the tone had my spine straightening.
“Back up,” I said. Calm. Clear. Not loud, not hysterical. In control.
The nearest man laughed.
My stomach tightened. It wasn’t fear, per se. Not yet. It was that flinch that told me to prepare, to draw up my years of training, to calculate my best moves.
They kept approaching.
I couldn’t run.
Running brought out a prey drive in predatory men like this.
My choice was to stand my ground and wait for my damn ride-share.
Three minutes?
Something like that.
I widened my stance, my heel shifting on cracked pavement to balance my weight, my knees loose.
I felt my body settle into something old and familiar, something that lived deeper than my nerves.
A hand reached for my arm.
And I moved.
Fast.
Sharp.
Below up, pivot, strike.
Bone gave under impact.
A loud curse filled the quiet air as he stumbled back, hand clutching his nose, red blood sliding from between his fingers.
“Get the bitch,” he snarled as he tried to stem the flow of blood.
The second guy was bigger. He came in too high.
I ducked then drove my shoulder forward. I felt the jolt all the way through my spine.
My blood ignited, adrenaline burning hot and bright.
I’d spent countless hours training to get myself out of sticky situations.
But no amount of training could beat odds.
And three against one?
Those were not good odds.
But the third one… where the hell had he gone?
Even as I thought it, I heard a breath behind me.
Too close.
I twisted fast enough to avoid being grabbed, but fingers grabbed my shirt instead, pulling it tight.
I turned fast, making his weak grasp of the material loosen and eventually break.
No one was laughing now.
The silence was worse.
The second guy recovered faster than I expected.
He lunged.
I cocked and struck.
It landed right on his jaw, but the momentum carried me off balance. I stumbled back a step.
My heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk.
Dammit.
My pulse roared in my ears, thoughts compressing down to essentials.
I couldn’t panic.
It wasn’t over.
Not yet.
I just had to get my heel free.
The third guy made a grab for me again.
Screw the shoes.
I stepped out of my heels and lowered my center of gravity, then struck once, twice, three times.
The first guy, seemingly recovered from the busted nose, but fueled with real rage now, ran at me.
But there was movement right at my side that distracted me. I felt the way the air moved as movement sliced through it.
There wasn’t time to duck.
The hit landed; pain exploded from my lip and jaw upward until half my face seemed to feel the impact.
My eye watered, blurring my vision, but I was moving on instinct, striking out.
But somewhere behind the guy I was fending off, there was a crack, a curse, a loud thud.
Then a sound.
A growl.
Low, feral.
Another crack.
“Run,” a voice called.
The man in front of me short-circuited for a second, half turning away, then back.
He shoved me with everything in him, sending me falling backward, knocking over a metal trash can as I went down hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.
It was only from that position that I saw the first guy on the ground, bleeding once again—worse.
The big guy grabbed him under the arms and started to drag him.
My gaze tracked up his shirt, seeing the deep red blood staining it, gushing, it seemed, from his lip and nose.
A shadow fell over me a second before I saw legs in front of me.
“It’s me,” Harrison said even as my brain put the pieces together.
My gaze slipped up.
His shirt was askew.
A button had been ripped off.
His knuckles, though, looked bloody.
“Not mine,” he said, catching me looking.
“I could have handled it,” I insisted as he offered me his hand.
“I know,” he agreed, his hand closing over mine when I placed it there, then pulled me to my feet. “But I hate an unfair fight.”
As soon as I was on my feet, his hand went to my chin, gently turning it toward the light so he could assess the damage.
“I’ll live,” I said, shrugging it off.
But as the adrenaline faded, the pain settled in. Sharper, harder to ignore.
Harrison dropped down, and I was so focused on the top of his head for a second that I didn’t realize what he was doing until I felt his hand gently on the back of my calf, pulling up, as his other hand held my shoe in place.
I stepped in, and we repeated the process for the other.
It was right then that I noticed a car slowing, the driver craning his neck to look at us.
Harrison stiffened.
“It’s my ride-share,” I told him, taking in the make and model that matched what the app had supplied. Then, softening a bit, I asked, “Do you want a ride?”