Page 93 of Follow the Rhythm
“What are you listening to?” he asked with a smarmy smile.
“Music.” I kept my voice as flat as possible.
“What kind of music? You seem super into it.” He stepped even closer and tried to look over my shoulder at my phone.
Normally, I would’ve ignored him, moved away, and just tried to get through the rest of the ride. But my patience snapped. I wasn’t in the fucking mood. I glared at him. “Get out of my space.”
He looked surprised. “Relax, I just want to talk to you.”
The other passengers in the train car shifted uncomfortably, but no one said anything. That was par for the course. Standing up to an Alpha could be a dangerous prospect.
“Idon’t want to talk toyou. I want to listen to my music and pretend like you don’t exist.”
His face hardened. “Frigid little bitch. I bet you’re a lousy fuck anyway.”
I laughed sarcastically. “Good thing you’ll never, ever find out.”
He grabbed my upper arm too hard. “Do you always run your mouth like this? I’ve got something that’ll shut you up.”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said, wrenching out of his grip.
“Get away from her,” a woman’s voice called from behind me. I turned and saw a woman who was wearing a crumpled suit and looked exhausted, but her face was set in a determined look.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” an older black woman said angrily from a seat right across the aisle from where I was standing. “How dare you put your hands on a woman?”
The Alpha’s jaw clenched, and he bared his teeth.
“Leave her alone,” a young woman said. She had bright blue hair and was almost as short as me.
An irrational happiness, completely inappropriate for the potentially dangerous situation, spread in my chest. I grinned at the Alpha. “I’ll only say it one more time. Get out of my space.”
He muttered under his breath but looked nervously around the train car. The first woman was recording him on her phone.
“Bitch,” he said, but he moved away, then got off at the next stop.
I let out a shaky breath as adrenaline left my body.
“You okay, honey?” the older black woman asked.
“Yeah. Thank you,” I said. I looked at the other two women. “Really. Thank you.”
“We gotta have each other’s backs,” the short, young woman said. “Maybe he’ll think twice next time.”
He wouldn’t, but the feeling of support buoyed me as I walked into the Echelon Records building.
“You’re late,” Ursula said when I walked in. She was sitting in a heavily cushioned chair, and there was a cane propped on the desk next to her. Otherwise, there was no sign she was recovering from a pelvis fracture.
“Aw, I missed you too,” I said.
She gave me a good-natured scowl. “Yeah, yeah, Tiny. Let’s get to work.”
We worked on the concept for a few hours. It was so wildly different from the Velvet Howl tour and surprisingly fun. Weargued about the merits of different shades of pink and played with lighting designs.
“What would you think about creating some illustrations of the girls?” Ursula asked after a couple of hours. “It would be fun to have some animated versions of their personas, even if we only use them in ancillary content.”
I immediately started picturing the style I’d use. It was an exciting idea. “You think they’d be up for that?”
“You can ask ‘em, we’ll be meeting with them next week. Bring some concepts.”
