Page 4 of Mountain Man's Valentine
“I’ve met girls like you before,” he says. “Girls that come to events like this, where it’s all guys. I know why you’re here. You’re acting all coy and shit, but you’re really here to meet a guy, right?”
“Actually, no,” I reply. I can feel my face getting hot. And red. And suddenly, I feel like a complete moron. “I can do something on my own without having it be about getting aguy, can’t I?”
“You can, but I know that’s not why you’re here,” he says. He takes another step toward me and peers down at me. He isn’t much taller than me, but heismuch bigger than me.
“Hey,” I say, putting my hands out. “I’m really sorry. You arereallymistaken. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea here.”
“Oh, you didn’t give me the wrong idea,” he replies. He puts his hands out to me and places them tentatively - butfirmly- on my shoulders.
I swallow thickly. I feel my eyes dart around us, searching for another one of those yellow vests somewhere, anywhere in the distance around us.
“We have to get back to the camp,” I try, my voice faltering. “It’s getting dark.”
I canfeelmy blood coursing through my veins, the adrenaline hitting my brain, the blood pumping through my head like the pounding of the tide against the shore.
I can feel my fight or flight response kicking in.
But I don’t know if I can run. I don’t know where I would runto.
“Come on,” he says, lifting his chin up and looking down at me with piercing eyes. But they’re hollow. They’re expressionless. Ican’tread him, but I know what he’s thinking. “You know why you’re really out here. No girl wants to be alone on Valentine’s Day.”
And I know I have to get thehellout of here. Any way that I can.
“No,” I say, shrugging his hands off my shoulder suddenly. “Idowant to be alone. So get your hands off of me.”
He laughs and his expression turns menacing, cold, colder than it was before. His eyes are now dull and hollow and looking down at me with a brewing sickness.
I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t even know where the hell I am.
I try to push past him, back toward where I think the camp might be. But I am disoriented. I am lost.
Shouldering past him, I check my compass. I look off into the distance. Maybe he got the idea. Maybe he will leave me the hell alone. The sky behind me is inky black, bleeding into the periphery of the sky around me and in front of me, off into the distance where the orange and red sky is starting to be covered by the black of nightfall. I check the compass again and turn to the right. This is north. This is the way.
And I think I’ve left him behind. I think he’s given up. I’m not worth the fight. He’ll move onto someone who’s actuallyinterestedin him. He isn’t a bad looking guy, not at all.
He didn’t have to try that with me. He can try it with someone else, someone whowantsit.
I don’t look back. I take a few steps forward.
That’s when I feel a hand on the back of my neck.
Through my coat, the heavy, thick down fabric and my hood. I feel the unmistakable pressure of a hand wrapping around the back of my throat, and then an arm wrapping around me and a hand coming down on my belly, and the tight grasping loss of control as I feel my body fall back against him.
And as I feel the sky above me fall away, I close my eyes.
