Page 75 of Since Day One

My body started to shake uncontrollably as I stared in absolute disbelief.

“No,” I whispered, unable to look away despite the terror that was coursing through me.

I felt a squeeze of my hand as I shook my head refusing to believe what was right in front of me.

Another tug of the hand, and I blinked and shook my head faster.

“Willow?” A muffled voice slipped through the haze and broke the dam. Every sound crashed back into my ears and every movement that had frozen in time resumed, slamming back into view around me.

“It’s him,” I whispered, unable to look away as Gunnar shifted beside me.

“What?” he said, and I whipped my head toward him.

“He’s here,” I gasped.

“He’s here,” I repeated as my breathing came in random spurts.

“Who’s here?” Gunnar asked, as I looked up at him, wide-eyed with panic.

“I can’t—I can’t breathe,” I gushed, pressing my hands to my chest and bending forward. Gunnar quickly wrapped me in his arms as Jesse and Ruger asked what was going on. I could hear them and Jett ask if I was okay, but I wasn’t. If he saw me, what would happen? Moreover, what was happening to that young girl with him? He’d been holding her hand and stroking it with his thumb. That wasn’t a father and daughter; no, I knew that look. The possessive one he’d given the young girl.

“Willow, what’s wrong?” Gunnar softly asked, looking down at me as I lifted my eyes to his.

“He’s here, Gunnar,” I managed to whisper, and suddenly his eyes turned red with hot rage. My gaze involuntarily slid toward the man I’d run from. “Alex is here.”

Jett, Ruger, and Jesse followed my line of sight and locked onto the blond-haired man standing with the young girl. Gunnar watched me for a moment longer before looking at him as well. His hands dropped from my arms as his body tensed up.

“Blond hair, blue suit?” Gunnar growled, his sights locked onto the man that now threw his arm around the young girl’s shoulders. I could only nod.

There was a visible shift in his posture. As if whatever demon he kept caged within his head had been set loose. Gunnar’s hands balled into fists, and he stalked forward like a monster after its prey. His boots thundered over the packed ground, spurs jingling.

“Gunnar!” I shouted too late—the gate had been unlocked, and there was no stopping the raging animal that had been unleashed. His movements were deliberate and primal, slamming unforgivingly through a crowd that, as they became aware of him, slowly backed away from his approach. You could almost smell the intense rage, all logic and reason having left as he wrapped one massive hand around Alex’s collar and slammed the other fist into his face.

An audible crunch silenced the entire crowd as bones connected, and something cracked as Alex was pummeled to the ground. Gunnar went with him, knelt over him, and began railing his knuckles against his face as the young girl screamed in horror, and several adults rushed Gunnar.

But I didn’t move.

Maybe that was wrong, but there was a part of me that felt intense satisfaction as though it were my fists delivering justice, watching Alex’s nose gush blood, staining his white teeth red. The justice that I’d been wanting for so long was now being served, and I didn’t have to move a muscle.

Not as Gunnar continued to pulverize Alex’s face with fist after fist.

Gunnar’s father dived over him and wrapped his burly arms around one of my protector’s biceps while Ruger and Jett grabbed his other arm, dragging Gunnar off of the groaning body on the ground. I hadn’t even noticed Ruger or Jett run after Gunnar. I hadn’t cared. I had wanted it to continue until he couldn’t touch another girl ever again.

“YOU PIECE OF SHIT! SHE WAS SEVENTEEN! A FUCKING CHILD!” Gunnar bellowed at Alex who writhed on the ground in pain, his arms over his head.

“HOW COULD YOU? GET UP SO I CAN SHOVE MY FIST SO FAR UP YOUR ASS YOU BLEED—“

“Gunnar!” his father shouted, doing everything he could to restrain a rage-filled Gunnar.

“I’LL BURN YOUR FUCKING DICK OFF YOU—“

“GUNNAR JOHNSON!” Jack shouted again, cutting him off once more as Gunnar managed to rip his arm out of Ruger and Jett’s grip.

Alex backpedaled across the ground and held up a hand, begging for mercy as Gunnar raised a fist. Ruger and Jett caught it again, and so, instead, Gunnar spat a massive wad of snot into his face, which was bloody and mangled from the beating.

“I don’t even know you, man,” Alex spluttered through a mouth full of blood.

“But I know you,“ Gunnar seethed, still straining against his human restraints.

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