Page 25 of Reclaiming Adelaide

It had my money, IDs, and clothes stuffed into a tiny carry on. This was all that I owned now.

My broken reflection hit me in the window as I squinted through it, but the bright lights inside contrasted the darkness outside, making it near impossible to see…

Until I found him running into the station and looking around with his hands clenched by his sides.

“Last call for Montreal.”

He turned his gaze this way, and I swore for a split second he saw me. Jake walked my way with determination in his step as I slunk into my seat, hoping he couldn’t see me. The bus doors screeched closed, and an unexpected exhale breezed past my teeth.

A man slipped into the seat next to me, his tight khakis forming around his thick muscular thighs. His hand rested on them, giving me a view of the silver ring overshadowing his middle finger.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Montreal.”

8

Isatinmycar, watching her pass cash to the homeless man by the door, when she bolted back inside the building and sent an icy glare my way.

Adelaide played with fire, but she was afraid of getting burned. Her wide, darkening gaze said as much when I’d wrapped my hands around her fragile throat. An act I still hadn’t come to terms with.

I jumped from my car, reluctant to leave it on the road in this part of town, and raced down the alleyway, making it to the thick metal door where the drug dealer stood.

“Got a meetin’?”

He put his hand on my chest as I reached for the handle. I grabbed his thumb and pulled it to the side with a sickening crack, eliciting a high-pitched scream from a man you’d never expect could utter such a noise.

The man bent at the knee as he recoiled from the agony his face mirrored.

“Where did she go?”

“I’m not tellin’ you.”

My stomach rocked as I pressed my fist into his chest and rushed him backward, slamming his back against the crumbling brick wall. My knee crashed into his groin, and a low, guttural cry erupted. I released my hold on his hand, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled his chest down into my knee, brutalizing the impact.

One. Two. Three times. My knee slammed into the hardness that made up his sternum and ribcage until he collapsed to the ground, holding his chest. I dropped onto him, straddling his hips with my thighs, and crossed my arms over his throat until my forearms pressed into his jugular, staunching blood flow to his brain.

If years of Krav Maga taught me anything, it was ‘brutality.’

The man’s eyelids fluttered, the whites of his eyes overpowering the color as they rolled into his skull. I held him a few seconds longer for good measure, then stood, wiping my hands of debris, and bolted through the door.

What the fuck was she doing here? Buying drugs? That wasn’t the Adelaide I knew. But then again, did Ireallyknow her at all?

The musty interior split off into two sections as I stepped inside. One going up and the other going down. If she was as smart as I thought, she wouldn’t run upstairs and risk cornering herself.

I took the stairs down, rushing around the corner to the left, where remnants of her phone lay broken on the floor.

So shewashere. But how was I going to find her now?

Dammit.

“Who the fuck are you?”

A man stepped out of a room as I turned. His three times too large Snoop Dogg t-shirt hung mid-thigh, covering up the chain that no doubt attached to his belt buckle and wallet.

“Mind your business.”

“This hallwayismy business.”

I picked up her phone and put it in my pocket.

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