There’s a smell beneath this girl’s fingernails. A scent I noticed the moment I touched her.
It’s his scent. A smell of sweat and blood and fear. She fears him...
Why?
A flash of ideas rattles my tired mind, and all of them end in this man’s bloodshed. But it doesn’t have to be on the sticky floor of this fine establishment.
“I said you’re right.” I lift her small weight, and it pains me to pass her limp body to this sordid man.
He grips her harshly by the shoulders, her body curving unnaturally against him as he glares me down with his one good eye.
With a shake of his head, he drags her out of the club. Dozens of people dance and thrash into the unconscious girl being dragged out of the dingy little club.
And it’s like she doesn’t exist at all. No one sees the girl that most certainly is not okay.
No one... except for me.
Chapter 2
Christian
I follow him. Of course, I fucking follow him. I didn’t spend all night stalking this girl just to give her away to the first asshole who asked.
He’s dragging her by her hair now. Her legs stagger against the pebbled rock of the alleyway, but she can’t find her footing. Whimpers of pain follow him with every scrape of the road against her flesh. Her arms flail messily above her head, but she’s too out of it to make contact with his hold on her locks.
Thanks to me.
“You’re lucky I found you. That guy drugged you, you fucking slut. And you would have spread your legs for him even if he didn’t.” It’s then that he throws her down to the ground. A crinkling of cans catches her fall as she lands on three black trash bags next to a rusting dumpster.
I watch him from the shadows. As does a homeless man on the other side of the dumpster. Big, worn-out brown eyes watch the bastard as a clicking of metal tells us his belt is now undone.
He pauses and bends at the waist. And then flips her over, lifting her hips so her ass is high in the air for him. The thin black sundress wrinkles around her waist, exposing the smooth skin of her curves for him.
“You’re going to regret what you did this morning, baby,” he whispers with a nasty smile cutting up his dry lips. “I’m not going to be gentle with you anymore.”
There’s a silence in my chest where my heart demands to pound with the building magic and rage in my veins. The tips of my black shoes catch the shine of the yellow light overhead.
The homeless man’s eyes widen even more with every slow, prowling step. I take my time, waiting for this asshole to make his move.
And then he does: he pulls himself from his jeans, and only then do I burst from the inside out. The flapping scatter of bat wings is heard. It’s a flash of blurring colors, and then I stand on two feet once more.
Right. In. Front. Of. Him.
Long fingers snatch around a thick throat. Sharp nails cut into soft flesh. My muscles tense, and then his back hits the wall hard. Dust and broken bits of brick fly out from around the force of his body hitting stone.
“Hey, buddy,” I whisper with a curling smile tilting my lips.
My thoughts blaze like fire through my mind: both painful and blinding. Before I can process more than his gurgling gasps, my hand slips between his big body and mine. My fingers curl around flabby flesh.
“No. No, n—nnno,” he pleads as I twist hard against the pathetic thing he calls a cock.
How many times has he hurt her with something so piteous?
That single thought alone seals his unfortunate fate.
I rip it away from him. Blood sprays over my palm, and his screams are this annoying, high-pitched sound scratching across my already messy thoughts.
I have to shut him up.