Page 28 of Unwrapping Deviance

“Can you back up?” I snap, masking my terror behind an icy wall of annoyance. Still, I hear the damn tremor.

“What you think, Walton? Daughter?” their prepubescent sidekick chirps.

Walton, the one with the mustache and practically standing on my toes clicks his tongue. “Doubt it. Too old. Too pretty.”

“Back up!” I snarl again, louder, hoping someone passing by might come to help.

Junior’s sparkling eyes pivot back to me with the shine of a child at Christmas. “Holy, you think she’s ...withthem?”

I am not liking the way his beady, little graze is roaming over me, pausing at my breasts like he can almost taste them in his mouth.

My stomach heaves.

I barely manage to keep from throwing up all over that starched shirt when I fix Walton with cold, hard eyes.

“Are you deaf? I said, get away from me.”

I’m not dumb enough to put my hands on a cop, but someone is.

One second, Walton is pressing closer, invading my space. Breathing hotCheetosinto my face. The next, someone has grabbed him by the back of the shirt.

His feet actually lift off the pavement and he sails back almost three feet. Would have gone further if the blue Chevy parked next to the truck hadn’t stopped him.

He slams into the driver’s side door with a resounding crunch and thump that I feel crash through me, but I don’t see him hit the ground. My view is obscured by a wall of leather and rage.

My head jerks up and I blink at the man with the dark, wavy strands falling to broad shoulders.

Christian.

“Get the fuck away from her,” comes the low, snarling rumble from somewhere deep in the cavity of his chest.

I hear scuffling; Junior and Goatee have unholstered their guns. The barrels fixed level with Christian’s chest.

“Christian...” I gingerly take his arm, careful and slow in my movement. Never once looking away from the weapons aimed at us.

Christian doesn’t seem to give a shit. He moves to block me fully. Putting himself between me and the threat that has every nerve ending in my body screaming.

“You put your hands on an officer, MacAllister!” Walton sounds winded, but furious.

“Come near her again, I’ll do more than put my hands on you.”

It’s so sweet ... in a book. In a fictional world, this would be where I kick my feet and giggle. But the guns aren’t fictional. They’re real and so are the bullets and Christian will die if they shoot.

I tighten my hold on him, silently begging him to stop. To just apologize and get in the truck with me.

“You worthless piece of shit,” Walton spits with a personal venom I make a mental note to ask about later. If we live. “You and your trash brother should never have come back here.”

“You think that gives you the right to intimidate women? She has nothing to do with this. Stay away from her.”

I have so many questions, I can barely focus on my own breathing as it all crushes down on me. None of what they were saying made any sense. I know Daniel and Christian left the town. I know they left because something happened, but to have the town law enforcement personally attack you is something else, especially when they have guns aimed at you.

The stranger thing still is the fact that not a single pedestrian has stopped. Not one, not even the cluster of teenagers outside the juice bar seem to notice there’s a whole standoff happening eight feet away. They stand in a huddle, heads bent over their phones, showing each other something and chatting like this is totally normal.

Across the street, the couple feeding the birds are still smiling fondly at the feathered creatures and tossing seeds.

What the fuck is this place?

Were we in some weird freeze zone where no one can see or hear us? How is no one running for cover? Or recording the gross injustice taking place?

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