Page 521 of Dark Love

“NO! Don’t hurt him.” Imogene flies across the room, landing on my back, pummeling me with her weak, little fists. “You can’t hurt her. I won’t let you hurt her. I won’t let you hurt me.”

And that ends us practicing for the day.

Payne scoots out from under me and squats down to Imogene’s eye level. “Immie Baby, Vex isn’t hurting me. You’re safe. You’re not with the monsteranymore.”

Like that’s going to be enough to talk down this woman. She’s not hurting me. She doesn’t have enough strength yet to do anything significant, but it is messing with my head to have a crazy woman screaming at me and hitting me with her bony fists.

“Immie, open your eyes. You aren’t in the pit. You’re safe.” Payne moves closer.

“Stop hurting her.”

Imogene’s cries are worse than any blow Payne could ever strike.

“Immie, It’s Payne. You’re safe here. He’s dead. That monster can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

She stops moving and almost falls off my back. Payne scoops her up into his arms. I slowly inch away.

Should I walk away and give them some privacy?

Sudden movements might set her off again.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I attacked you.”

That was a very poor attempt, but admirable considering her weakened state.

“I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Payne laughs. “You’d need a sledgehammer to hurt Vex. He’s built like a tank.”

Imogene couldn’t even pick up one, let alone swing it in a way that would hurt me, but we can pretend.

“Are you sure?” She stares at me.

“Positive. No harm done. But we can change that.”

“Huh?”

“Payne and I could teach you how to protect yourself.” After she puts a little muscle on her bones or else we’ll end up hurting her more than helping her.

She shakes her head at us. “Doesn’t work. I already took self-defense classes. Almost every woman living alone in Urbium takes them. They didn’t help.”

Payne grunts.

“What? You don’t think I can defend myself?”

“Vex wasn’t offering you a ‘self-defense’ class. He was offering to train you to fight. Those are two very different things.”

“Huh?” Her eyes move between the two of us like we’re speaking a foreign language.

“Self-defense classes teach you basic techniques to scare off an attacker. Vex taught me all the dirty tricks to survive a street fight.”

“Dirty tricks?”

“The dirtiest.” Payne nods.

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