Page 170 of The Reluctant Hero

The crowd disappears, leaving me stumbling forward at the sudden lack of human shields. I flail for a moment and right myself to start running again. Cursing starts up behind me. They’ve hit the beginning of the crowd and are pushing their way through. I have minutes before they reach me.

I turn right to pass an alley and get on another street. Before I make it, someone grabs my forearm, using my momentum to spin me awkwardly into the shadowy alley between two buildings.

I lose my balance and fall heavily on my side in a heap. My air whooshes out of me painfully as my baton bounces off the ground and out of my hand. My instinct has me rolling to my back in the hopes I can get a lungful of air.

It gives the blurry figure in front of me time to straddle my waist and grip my neck in two hands to squeeze.

My body struggles to draw air in and fails. My hips instinctively buck to dislodge him but get nowhere. My focus gets sharp on the black Covid mask covering his face and the random, normal-looking baseball cap. I would have passed this guy without even thinking.

Black spots start dancing across my vision, and fear tries to take hold when my weak arms come up to break his hold. He’s so intent on strangling me that he’s shaking my neck, and my head hits the ground a few times. The violence being used against me stuns me for too long. Useless fear trying to take over.

Get mad!

It’s the only thing that’s going to save me. I’m weakened from Blake and the running. I have to get pissed off if I want out of this.

This asshole thinks I’m going to lay here and let him choke me to death. Where the fuck is my baton?

I let him go and his eyes crinkle up as if he’s smiling under the mask. My arms fall limp, and I try my best to relax. My body is still heaving, trying to get a breath. I shut my eyes and desperately search for the baton.

My scrabbling hands find some kind of trash on the left and the comforting feel of the baton on my right. The base of the hammer end settles in the crease between my thumb and forefinger. I grip it hard as dizziness tries to overtake me and blindly bring my arm up as hard as I can.

There’s the sound of something snapping as I hit his body and a short grunt before the hands disappear.

My eyes open, my vision blurrier than before. I see a blob of what I assume is a black mask and an uncovered face. Whatever is in my left hand gets slapped over his cheek, causing him to cry out in a breathless voice.

My body spasms, bringing my right arm up in a weaker hit to the same spot that makes him scramble to get away from me. His movements are uncoordinated enough he almost falls on his face. Whatever trash I hit him with got into his eye.

The way I contort to try to suck in air reminds me of a fish flopping around. The first lungful burns my throat and starts a coughing fit. It’s sweet and painful enough to motivate me to move again. My throat is scraped raw by the violence of it.

I roll to my knees, keeping a firm grip on the baton. My wavering path away from his hunched form takes me further into the alley. Something I don’t want.

“You stupid fucking cow!”

If I could speak at the moment, I would applaud him for not immediately falling into calling me a bitch. Then I would lay into his ass about strangling me.

I use a handy dumpster to force myself upright and swing around, still dizzy.

Dizzy enough that I think I’m seeing things when Jake appears over the guy’s shoulder.

He’s so busy clutching his ribs and bent over cursing he doesn’t seem to notice the sweetly smiling man staring at me. A single tap on his shoulder has him trying to spin around, but whatever pain he has in his ribs is making him wobbly. Jake helps by grabbing one bicep to finish the turn.

I stand in stunned silence as Jake grabs the front of his shirt and turns him to slam his body into the wall of a building. The tighter confines of the alley, along with the rows of dumpsters, make it easy to bounce my attacker from surface to surface.

The guy tries to defend himself, but every hit he lands on Jake’s sides or over his elbow to break his hold doesn’t seem to have an effect. Jake is totally focused on slamming him into every available surface. Then he lets him go to return the favor and tenderize his ribs. He’s relentless as the guy immediately tries to bend down to cover his torso. It takes only two vicious punches to the jaw to finish, sending him sprawling onto the trash-littered ground, unconscious.

As soon as he’s down, Jake spins to face me, his friendly smile in place. The effect is even more startling because I realize that smile never left his face the entire time he was beating the crap out of the guy.

He’s dressed in a pin-stripe suit that does him a lot of favors. The jacket is open, revealing a buttoned vest over a white shirt and deep purple tie that makes his eyes a brighter blue.He’s gone from cute boy next door to cutthroat businessman in the blink of an eye.

Unsure of how to react, I take a step to the side to ease my way out of the alley. I’m gasping for air desperately now, and the coughing has eased. But my head and neck hurt so badly, and it’s hard to focus. My grip tightens over the baton, slowly trying to bring it into a better position to defend myself. Too slowly.

In a blink, he strides up to me, and a gentle hand goes over my wrist, keeping the weapon down. His other arm wraps around me, jerking my chest into his as his hand goes to my ass and clenches hard enough I wince. It feels like he just clamped me against him and won’t ever let go. He turns us both as if we’re dancing and carefully backs me into the bricks of a building. The smooth way his body maneuvers mine is erotic to my confused senses.

“Hi,” he says softly, heated breaths panting over my face. The only sign he exerted himself a second ago.

All words desert me as the feeling of doom vanishes from my chest. The smile fades from his face and the expression I’ve seen quick flashes of takes over. His eyes seem to sharpen and become more intense. The only difference this time is that he looks less like a mad scientist and more like a serial killer who has his prey cornered. He takes in the swelling at my cheek, the split in my eyebrow, and the new necklace I’m sure is going to turn black and purple soon.

I’m not fighting him. Or putting up any kind of struggle as he fully presses his body to mine. My brain is screaming at me to run while my heart is sayinghey, it’s Jake! He isn’t hurt.He feels even better than he looks. I didn’t realize I was still that concerned for him until the feeling drops away.

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