Twisting her ponytail into his fist, this jerk pulled her head so far back that she couldn’t swallow or scream. “Shut your pie-hole, slut!” he hissed into the side of her face.
“I’m not a… a…” A that.
“You’re all sluts. Every gawddamned one of you!” He was so close that his saliva speckled her cheek when he yelled. With a hard yank, he pulled her hair nearly out of her scalp. “Where’s the keys, bitch? You got ’em, I know you do. I seen you lock the place up. You the boss or something?”
“Keys?” she managed to gasp.
“Yeah, keys!” Bang, bang, bang! He kept slamming her face into the spongy, icy-cold grass. “Where are they?”
Oh, my God, He’s going to kill me! Ashley closed her eyes, ready to die. There was nothing she could say to make this guy understand that he’d never get inside that building. Once the front door locked, the only way in was to break the glass, and that would set off the alarm. The police station was only a block or two away. They’d be here in seconds.
“You heard me! The keys to the drugs. Oxy! That’s all I want!” His voice ramped higher with every desperate word and every slam her face took into the grass. Her poor nose was bleeding! “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen next. You and me are gonna march back in there, and you’re gonna unlock your safe or your cabinet or wherever you keep the shit, and you’re gonna give me everything I need! All of it! Understand?”
“Ah huh, sure,” was all she could manage to wheeze. By then she was deafened by the abuse, and too frightened at what he’d do next if she said anything else. Or when he found out she had no keys, that there were no drugs where she worked. Only at the clinic. Her entire body ached, and her poor scalp burned like fire. She was sure he’d already cut her neck, though she couldn’t feel any sting. If she were bleeding there, she didn’t know it. As thin as he was, he was still heavy and agitated and… and mean.
She lay there, out of breath and out of time, ready to die, when the ground vibrated under her chin. A fierce roar split the night. A growling string of vile curses followed. Oh, no. There were two! Another creep had just joined the first. She buried her face in the grass and cried.
But suddenly, the hefty weight straddling her was gone. Just poof! Gone! One second, he’d been mashing his putrid body into hers, rubbing his… his thing… against her butt. The next, he’d flown backward, as if some giant puppeteer had jerked his strings and sent him flying. His knife skittered across the sidewalk and landed in the gutter.
Gasping, Ashley climbed to her knees and braced one foot to the grass, ready to run for her life at this double threat. Until she caught sight of the magnificent predator now kneeling over her original attacker, exacting brutal vengeance. He wasn’t anything like the other guy. Not at all. He was huge, a monster in black from the cap covering his head to his size twenty boots. A growling, cursing monster that made her attacker look like a sniveling little boy. He’d pinned the guy to the sidewalk and was pummeling the kid with wicked, hard blows, from fists as big as sledgehammers. Blood and spit flew, but not his. Still his arm pistoned up and down, delivering bone-crunching, nose-breaking retribution for a woman he didn’t even know. Who does that?!
Ashley sucked in a long, deep breath that turned to frosted vapor when she blew out her fright. She was too weak to run. She could only stare. Half of her wanted to scream, “Hit him again!” But her other half cried out for mercy, “Stop! You’re killing him!”
This man was no savior, no Jesus Christ. No turn-the-other-cheek kind of hero. There was madness in the quick, efficient way he exacted punishment. He was bigger. Meaner. Heavier. He knew how to hurt her aggressor, now turned into a whimpering victim she couldn’t help feeling sorry for.
“Don’t!” Punch. Punch. Punch. “Ever!” Bam. Bam. Bam. “Touch this woman again!” the newly arrived, but much angrier man bellowed. “The next time I see you…” Punch. Bam. Punch. “…I will…” Punch. Punch. Punch. “…fuckin’ kill you!” He landed one last fist into the stupid, younger man’s bloodied, mashed-beyond-description, face. Those pretty, expensive teeth weren’t so straight nor so white now.
But promises like that were hard to unhear. Harder yet to unsee. Or believe. This man, this savior, this fierce stranger, meant to kill her aggressor? For her? Someone he didn’t know and would never see again? What was he going to do, camp on her doorstep and follow her around for the rest of her life to keep that promise?
“S-s-stop,” she begged, before he voided his promise to kill this kid by murdering him on her behalf.
The man in black lifted to his feet and turned to glare at her. He snapped, pointing a long, condemning finger at her. “You shouldn’t be out this late at night! Not alone!”
His words stung. His voice was more heated hiss than speech, full of invective so hot, it sounded like hate, not care or concern. Like a prize bull facing a matador, billows of white, frosty vapor snorted from his nostrils. He stood there flexing his fingers. She was sure blood dripped off the tips of his black gloves and sizzled when it hit the ground.
“I-I-I know, b-b-ut…” Ashley lost her voice in the wild, thrumming beat of her heart. She scurried backward, like a witless crab toward the busy street, with all its worthless illumination and cowardly passersby. Who was the aggressor now? Was she next? Would this guy hurt her, too?
His gloved palm came up and, “Stop!” he commanded, like he had the right
