“You’re telling us to pick on folks our own size, is that it?” he taunted. “And you’re offering, huh?”
I pressed my lips together as I tried to think of something to deescalate the situation, but my mind had gone unhelpfully blank. Telling them I was police would do nothing but rile them up. Of that, I was absolutely sure. I also felt like backing up would only make them want to chase me, so I made myself stand my ground.
“Maybe I didn’t see anything,” I decided to say after a long minute. “My mistake.” Giving them the option to keep their pride while rubbing my nose in it seemed like the best option, and nothing was going to be gained by me provoking them further, I thought. The cat was long gone now, and me getting beaten up wouldn’t help it.
“Oh yeah? You didn’t see anything?” The teenager grinned at me, clearly pleased. “What’d you come down here for, then?”
“I thought I heard something. My bad,” I tried. I badly wanted to back up, my every instinct telling me that this group had it out for me, but I forced myself to stay calm and in control.
“What did you hear, huh?” he said, clearly enjoying the game of it. We both knew I’d seen them kicking that cat, but he wanted me to pretend I hadn’t. And because there were seven of them and I was a reckless idiot who hadn’t phoned for back-up, I would play along.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I must have gotten it wrong.”
The lad closed the short distance between us, and I couldn’t help but lean back as he got up in my face. The stink of spirits and weed was even stronger when he was close, and I struggled not to grimace. He laughed at whatever he saw on my face and spat at my feet.
As near as he was, he practically filled my whole vision, and I got a close-up look at an odd-looking patch or badge stuck onto his dark jacket. I focused on it as my heart rabbitted in my chest, half expecting him to land a punch at any moment, and noted the striking design. It was scarlet red and showed the flammable warning symbol that you could often see on the back of cleaning chemicals or spray deodorants.
“C’mon, lads,” the lad said, dragging my full attention back to him as he spoke to the rest of the group who had mercifully stayed back while he toyed with me. “Places to be.”
He shouldered roughly past me, walking off towards the main road. The rest of the gang headed off after him, giving me ugly looks as they left and a couple of them ramming into my shoulder as they went by. Even amongst my tense fear, I noted that the rest of them were wearing the same patch, the flammable warning sign. What was it, a membership badge?
As their footsteps and casually cruel laughter receded, I forced myself to keep still and take steadying breaths until they were definitely gone. Then I staggered over to the nearest wall and sagged against it, my heart throwing itself at my ribcage like a beached fish.
I cursed myself for not thinking twice about what I was doing before I dumped myself in trouble and rubbed the acrid fear-sweat from my forehead and under my arms. With Stephen at my side, with our radios on our belts, I would’ve faced a group like that without any such nervousness. Alone and dressed in my running clothes, which showed exactly how lean I was and didn’t add any of the bulk of my police jacket, I needed to remember that I wasn’t invincible. I gave a weak laugh of relief after a moment, my heart beginning to settle back to a semi-normal rhythm, and pushed myself off the wall.
My legs had gone weak and stiff at the same time, tight with tension but unsteady with nerves, and I winced as I stretched them out. Moving out of the side road and emerging into the street made my chest loosen, particularly when I saw a couple walking together on the other side of the road and a family strolling with a pushchair further up the street. The sight of normal people, and the fact that the teenage gang was nowhere in sight, reassured me that I could fully let my guard down.
Still, I was buzzing with pent up fight-or-flight adrenaline, which I’d had to try so hard to keep under wraps when I was speaking to the boys, and it felt good to start running again. I went hard until the adrenaline ran out, slowing to a cool down jog as I got closer to Sam’s place. I’d definitely need a good long shower once I got there to get the sweat off my skin, and I felt like I’d probably collapse into bed soon after. Now that the buzz was wearing off, the stress of the confrontation was making me feel leaden. I was only glad that I wouldn’t have to try to explain a bruised-up face to Sam, nor see the pain and worry on her face if those teens had ended up jumping me.
I turned the incident over in my mind again and again as I closed the final stretch to Sam’s house, finding myself scanning my surroundings and looking into all the little alleys that led off from the main street. They couldn’t possibly have followed me all this way without me noticing, not all seven of them and with how hypervigilant I was currently feeling, but logic didn’t override the natural stress response that made me want to check over my shoulder.
So instead, I ran the encounter over in my head, recalling the teens' faces
