I realized how difficult it must have been for him to do that. I bucked up then and put all my effort into properly completing the shift.
When Henry dropped me off that night, he squeezed my arm. “It’ll be fine. Just get your head together and come back as soon as you can, okay?”
I nodded. I felt numb inside.
When he drove away, I stared at the door and didn’t want to go inside. Didn’t want to go to my room and toss and turn for the remainder of the night in remembrance of how it had felt to have him there with me. It was all driving me out of my mind.
Releasing a heavy sigh, I stared up at the moon. It was full, creamy yellow and beautiful, but all I could think about was how he was faring and if he had healed by now.
I glanced back at the tree where he had once ravished me. In a moment of weakness, I pulled my phone out of my bag. I even called up his number with my heart pounding in my chest. But just before I could make the grave mistake of calling him, the sound of an approaching car attracted my attention. I turned around to see a glistening SUV pull up by our sidewalk. No way could Nichole be expecting a guest at this time. Especially since, she wasn’t even home now. She’d taken Jess with her to visit her parents for the night. Jess loved going there because her parents had a big German Shepherd that simply adored her.
Uneasily, I turned fully to watch to see who got out of the car. A shadow rounded the vehicle, but when he came into the light of the evening, my mood plummeted into hell.
“What are you doing here?” I spat at the slime that had come to pay a visit.
“Della-Ray,” he called out, a sick smile across his face. “You can’t possibly still be this mad at me.”
I couldn’t believe this. “You’re unbelievable. You can’t possibly still think you’re in any way still welcome in my life. What is wrong with you? Why do you keep showing up?”
His response was a dry, grating chuckle. “I heard you were done with Bone! So I was hoping I’d have a chance now.”
I glared at him, wondering how someone could be so dense. I didn’t have the capacity right now to handle any of this so I simply said to him, “Michael, please leave, otherwise I’m going to call the cops and this time around, I’m going to press charges against you.”
I turned around to leave, but he came at me and grabbed my arm. Anger like I’d never known roared up inside of me. This was the worst possible time for him to be trying something like this. I felt like I could kill him.
“Della-Ray, give me another chance,” he pleaded. “I’ll be good to you I promise … and your niece. We had something good between us.”
“Let me go!” I screamed, and pushed him away with all my might. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and it made me feel sick.
“Awww … come on baby girl,” he cajoled.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” I reached for my phone, dialed 911, and placed the phone to my ear, but he smacked it away from me. The phone fell to the grass. I didn’t panic, because I knew all I had to do was keep screaming, and one of my neighbors would come out and help me. In fact, Mr. Harper two doors down, who loved both me and Nichole, was also a hunter who owned a shotgun. I knew he was a mean shot. A few times, he brought us pieces of meat that he had hunted himself.
As I turned around, Michael grabbed me and pulled me into his arms.
The moment his mouth landed on mine, I roiled with the need to puke. I struck blows at him that seemed to hurt me a hundred times worse than it did him, but just when I was about to kick him in the nuts and send him reeling so I could scream my head off, he was suddenly dragged away from me.
It took me a while to comprehend what was happening as I fought to catch my breath, but when I did, I was struck with shock. I used the back of my hand to wipe my mouth as I watched Gage jam his fist into Michael’s face.
Michael went flying backwards.
Gage turned to me, his hair tousled from the wind, his face had healed quite nicely.
I stared at him as if he was in a dream I was having. An indescribably beautiful dream. In this dream I couldn’t speak, at least until Michael made a sound which made Gage turn back around to face him.