Page 42 of The Genius
“I’m not far from you. Stay with Tristan… and keep talking to me.”
“Tristan needs medical attention,” I said, focusing on Storm’s image, and ignoring the large stranger who was now squatting down next to me, way too close.
“Hey, beautiful, looks like your protector isn’t doing too well. You need a new one?” he whispered, his alcohol breath making me wrinkle my nose.
My body stiffened and I leaned away from him, my focus still on Storm, who was talking.
“You said there were gunshots – that means the paramedics will be on their way. Don’t worry. Just stay with Tristan.”
The stranger next to me didn’t touch me but he was close enough for me to feel his warm breath on my skin. I closed my eyes to block him out.
“Three minutes, Shelly… Hold on, okay? Storm assured me.
Three minutes sounded like three decades. Tristan and I needed helpnow!
For a full minute I sat, counting seconds in my head, hearing drunken men make lewd comments about my curves and others telling them to shut up. A fight broke out, and one of the few men who had been protective of me limped away with a bloody nose and his hand to his jaw. I watched him leave with my heart in my throat, afraid that the men would attack me now.
“Storm,” I said, needing to hear that he was still there on the line.
I saw him move his lips before a loud siren made me look back toward the bar. As Storm had predicted, paramedics arrived on the scene, but they ran straight into the bar and didn’t see me or Tristan.
I kept counting the seconds, and when I got to one hundred and eighty seconds, Storm still hadn’t arrived. The man next to me was breathing into my ear, talking about all the ways he could make me a happy woman. The eight men standing close to us chimed in with unwelcome offers of their own.
“Your protector is dead. You’ll have to think about your future.” One of them laughed. “I’ve got my own boat and I could pop some kids into that belly of yours real fast.”
“We could make it easy for you to pick. Kiss each of us and have a little sample.”
“Careful,” one of them said when his friend stepped closer to me. “If you touch her without consent, they’ll kill you for it.”
“So what?” he said in a drunken slur. “Maybe the pretty woman is worth dying for. I reckon I could at least get a quickie in the alley before they take me out.”
The other men encouraged him with laughter and pats on the shoulder. They were old and unattractive men. I wanted to tell them that women cared about hygiene and that they should too, but the situation was already tense and I was afraid of provoking them.
“We’re landing, Shelly, be with you in ten seconds.” Storm assured me.
“Hurry!” I begged, my hands keeping pressure on Tristan’s wound, my head turned away from the man too close to me, and my heart racing from terror.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3I counted in my head before running footsteps were followed by a deep threatening voice giving a firm command. “Get away from her, right now!”
Marco stood between me and the group of men, his shoulders squared and his back straight. With a quick glance down at me and Tristan, he cursed, and pulled his black t-shirt off his ripped torso and handed it to me. “Put it on!” he ordered.
“I can’t. I’m putting pressure on Tristan’s wound. Where is Storm?”
“He’s finding a paramedic.” Marco narrowed his eyes at the man too close to me. “Get the fuck away from her.”
“I was protecting her,” the creepy guy defended himself. “I never touched her.”
With a large palm on my shoulder, Marco bent down over me. “I’m her protector now, so fuck off!”
As if I were a child, Marco helped me dress in his t-shirt while I shifted between using my left and right hand to keep pressure on Tristan’s bleeding.
It occurred to me that he could have just squatted down and taken over on Tristan. That would have freed my hands to put on the t-shirt, but for some reason he didn’t.
“The show is over. I said, fuck off,” Marco yelled at the last four men still remaining.
“Fuck you,” the drunken men mumbled back at him, but Marco was too pumped up with adrenaline to care about their numbers. “Why are you here?” he asked me in a blameful tone.
“Tristan and I had dinner,”
