Page 12 of Looks That Kill

“Don’t get me started. Do you see these bruises on my neck and arms? Go back to sleep and hide in your little bubble. I have bigger fish to fry," she countered, with her body language conveying that there was no way I was going to talk her out of what she was about to do.

She continued to pound on each door. Several young couples and lonely men were answering a little perturbed by her constant badgering. It didn’t deter her and I watched quite impressed by her tenacious attitude. She was vexed and she wasn’t going to stand for it. This girl was fuming waiting for the right face to appear.

I had this morbid curiosity with my thoughts returning to what she might have done without me intervening on her behalf. She was not the type to despair. This was the fighting spirit of a warrior willing to let everybody hear her battle cry.

“This isn’t going to get us anywhere. It might make him run for the exit. I don’t know about you, but I would really like the opportunity to wring his scrawny little neck. She called me by accident, and I heard every sordid detail until my phone died. I’m not leaving here until I find her, but I can see I’m not the only one coming to save her,” I called out from the hallway to make her stop.

“There’s no telling what he’s doing to her right now. I cringe to think about what this will do to her after everything she has been through. She will never trust another man for as long as she lives. I can see her owning several cats and screaming at the neighbor kids to get off of her lawn," she replied still on a tirade spewing venom in everybody’s face that was unfortunate enough to open the door for her.

“What we need most of all is stealth. Quiet will keep him from learning that we are on to him. We have the element of surprise. It might not seem like much, but it means everything when you are sneaking up on an enemy,” I advised while my mind was jumping to conclusions.

“How can you possibly be so calm at a time like this?” She screeched in my face with little bits of spittle flying from her mouth.

“It’s all about compartmentalizing my emotions. Inside, I am screaming, but my training prevents me from lashing out. I’m saving that for the man that dares to put his hands on Constance,” I seethed with unrestrained rage bubbling to the surface.

“This requires a different kind of mediator with more than words. She did go willingly to his room. That shouldn’t be just cause for him to take what he wants without permission. I should’ve seen that she was in trouble. My radar must’ve been screwed up by drinking too much," she lamented with her fist slamming into the wall hard enough to break the plaster.

The dust choked me for a moment before the cloud dispersed. She was a force of nature. Bethany didn’t take things lying down including the possibility of being victimized. This really did set off a chain reaction that nobody saw coming.

The door down the hall came open. There was that moment of complete silence followed by the slow-motion movement of somebody coming out of the room. She looked terrified out of her mind and running was her only option. One of her high heels came off and she lost her balance in a panic to get away from the source of what was troubling her.

Constance slammed against the wall and bounced off it. She landed on her hands and knees when a young man, shirtless and determined, came out holding a knife. He looked like he ws out of his mind. He looked like a bruiser--somebody that was constantly pumping iron in the gym. For anybody else, he would be a formidable foe, but he was merely a footnote in my history.

The knife he was throwing back and forth from one hand to the other was my only concern. Stepping up in front of him by shielding Constance was my answer to the question of what I was going to do.

The one thing no amount of training prepared me for was seeing those deranged wild eyes looking back at me.

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