Page 7 of Choose the Bears

“Where you off to, Imo?”

Imo was Mike’s nickname for me because he was too slack to say my entire name, not Phil’s. He didn’t really pay too much attention to me before this, so I couldn’t work out why he was using my nickname now.

Except I did.

Some deep down, instinctive part of me knew. Watching him stalk closer in the shadows, that sly smile took on a whole other meaning.

It feels like every woman’s mother has the talk with her at some time. Don’t wear this, do this, act like this, say this, lest you get hurt. She passed down the unspoken truce women formed with men. As long as we didn’t step out of line, we were safe.

Except that was never true.

Fight or flight were the terms used to explain people’s responses to a threat, but that had been expanded to ones thatseemed to represent the experience of being a woman. Freeze, which I did now, not sure what I was seeing or what was happening, and fawn.

That response was what explained why I said yes to driving Mike out here. It’s why I’d hoped to be out of our place before he came home. Avoid conflict, avoid fight, avoid any more threats to my mental health. I always walked free of every fight without a scratch on me physically.

But mentally?

I was tired, wrung out by my lack of options, of having to paddle as fast as I could just to keep my head above water, and now Phil was going to make himself my problem? My key slid between my knuckles, a trick I’d learned from a PE teacher when she earnestly tried to teach us girls self-defence. I think I was supposed to stab him in the eyes, or was it the groin, if he got too close? A faintly hysterical giggle built in my chest at my inability to decide.

“Home,” I replied finally, defiantly. “I’m going home. I’ll be back?—”

“You won’t be back.” His tone was so different that it made me peer into the darkness. The body shape was the same, but that venomous sneer? Surely that came from someone else.

“I will,” I said. “Sunday afternoon, right? Right, Phil?”

I was bargaining with some dickhead my boyfriend hung around with instead of running. My heart told me with every frantic beat:Get the fuck away from here and into your car before…My train of thought came to an abrupt stop.

“Whaddya doing, mate?”

Where the hell had these men come from, and why were they forming a wall between me and Phil? I didn’t have any answers, but I was strangely grateful. Each one of them was tall, massive, their broad shoulders blocking out the flickering fire beyond. This intervention from three good Samaritans meant I could’vemade a run for it, but instead, I just stopped and stared. The dark haired one asked the question in a tone just as dark as Phil’s, yet somehow I wasn’t scared. Perhaps because right now, my enemy’s enemy was my friend. Then the tallest one, a guy with reddish brown hair turned around and bent down to meet my eyes.

“Hey, I’m Kyle.” He offered me a hand the size of a dinner plate, but I just stared at it. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Where?” I squeaked.

“Away from this dickhead…” Relief, sweet relief washed through me, but still my heart beat frantically. “And to wherever you want to go. Take my hand if you want that.”

Grabbing one man’s hand to get away from another had to be stupid, and yet I found myself doing just that because I was out of all other options. Mine was tiny, gripped tight as his fingers closed down around my hand. Phil and the other guys’ voices started to rise, their shouts far louder than the music pumping through the campground, but Kyle whisked me away from all of that. Crouched down low, he hurried me away using moves I’d seen bodyguards use in movies. I didn’t take a full breath until I felt the cool metal of my car’s door under my fingers.

“You OK?” Kyle asked, his strange honey-coloured eyes staring into mine. “How we feeling here…?”

He was asking for my name I realised belatedly.

“Imogen.” That was blurted out. “I’m Imogen.”

“OK, we’re all good now, Imogen. You’re safe now.”

Safe, that was the word my mind baulked at, rearing inside my head like an untamed horse. I straightened up, forcing myself to take slower, more even breaths.

“Of course I’m safe.” I peered past his massive shoulder, saw the shadowy shapes there, but I couldn’t work out what was happening. The noises made clear I didn’t want to know. “Nothing happened.”

“Didn’t it?” He watched me so closely it was almost eerie. Men only seemed to fixate on you when they wanted something and I couldn’t work out what that was right now. “So that man wasn’t making a nuisance of himself?”

A no sat right on the tip of my tongue, ready to be said, but I didn’t. Instead, my hands slid down my arms, then my legs, something Kyle watched the entire time. No bruises, no sore spots, nothing to make me think Phil had overstepped a line, but… Why wasn’t that enough? Why did the lack of physical injury not placate me?

“He…” I fought to form a response, my mind unable to come up with anything. “He…”

“He’s sorted for now. Are you alright?”

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