The light flared on, and my eyes adjusted in a split second when I opened my lids, and I swung.
The bat hit with a solid thunk and the guy dressed all in black went down with his arm in the air.
I’d missed anything vital, but I followed it up with another swift swing at his head.
It hit him with a sickening tink, the aluminum bat ringing and he slumped hard to the floor.
Blood flowed to the floor in a fascinating rivulet from the wound on his head.
“Who are you?” I barked.
The guy blinked owlishly, his dark-brown eyes beautiful, despite the fact that he’d just broken into my home and was a criminal and all that jazz.
“Ma’am?” I heard distantly.
“Who are you?” I repeated. “Why are you breaking into my apartment?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
I’d obviously scrambled his brain.
I pulled my phone out of my waistband and then pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”
I stepped over the prone man who was taking over my doorway, then walked into the living room to see my door hanging wide open but nobody else in sight.
“Ma’am?” a quiet male voice said. “Are you okay?”
I blew out a breath, swung the bat almost absentmindedly, and said, “There’s a man in my apartment that broke in. I hit him in the head with a bat.”
“Is he alive?” the soft-spoken man asked.
“For now,” I admitted. “As long as he doesn’t attack me again.”
I heard clicking on the computer. “It shows that you’re at 3-3-3 Main Street, Apartment D. Is that correct?”
I walked toward the bedroom again, seeing the man now on his hands and knees trying to get up, but failing.
I pushed the big guy over with my foot and said, “Who are you? Why are you here?”
He fell to his side, clutched at his head, and groaned.
There was likely already an ambulance on the way, but he didn’t need to know that.
I propped the bat up against the wall, then pressed the phone once again to my ear to hear the emergency dispatch guy saying, “…bat. Hit him in the head. Sounds like the guy is down.”
Oh, he was.
“Ma’am,” I heard him say.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m… fuck!”
The guy caught me around the leg, wrapped his arm around my waist and tried to squeeze. But I hadn’t grown up being a pretty little ornament. My dad had taught me how to defend myself.
He had hold of me for all of about ten seconds before I reversed our positions, wrapped my legs around his throat and my arms around his torso.
I squeezed hard, feeling his hands go to my arm to try to peel them from his throat.
But I held on like a scrappy little junkyard dog.
“Tell me who you are and why you’re here,” I ordered again.
I didn’t know what was telling me that this man had a reason for being here, but I tended to trust my instincts.
The man still didn’t speak.
“Tell me who sent you and I’ll call you an ambulance,” I hissed, pissed as hell and living on adrenaline and rage. “Tell me!”
The guy dressed in black who was sent into my home to kill me or rob me started to cough. But there was one word in that cough that I understood. Too well.
And the comment he was able to squeeze out between labored breaths? That absolutely floored me.
Son of a bitch!
I kept squeezing, hoping for him to pass out before I let go. However, before he could pass out all the way, a police officer entered my line of sight.
I glanced up and practically beamed at Sunny, who was standing in the front doorway looking at the scene with surprise.
“You could come over here and help,” I suggested, slightly out of breath. “He’s bleeding all over me.”
CHAPTER 16
Netflix and chill leads to Disney plus children.
-Fact of life
BAIN
“What do you think?” my possible boss for the night shift asked.
“I like the crew,” I said. “I even like the hours. Everything seems a lot more laid back compared to the day shift. But I’m not sure whether or not I’d really enjoy doing the whole night shift thing.”
Marshall nodded his head in understanding. “I’ve done it all. From day shift to night shift, to shift work. It’s not my favorite at all, because honestly, I’d rather be at home sleeping and retired. However, it’s by far the easiest shift to deal with jobwise. You just can’t reproduce this atmosphere on the other shifts.”
He had a point.
The other shift had a lot of back-and-forth with bosses that were on shift, maintenance crews, checks and balances. It was honestly a little too much.
I liked this shift a lot. I liked the people. They didn’t have any clue who my parents were.
It was… refreshing.
“Yo,” I heard called. “McDempsey.”
I looked over toward where my name had been called to see a man holding up a phone. “You got a call.”