Page 45 of Red Hunt

I didn’t know how long it lasted. Didn’t know what happened inside of me to make me go all crazy on the guy’s ass. But something broke loose at that moment. All these years I’d merely survived, all the years I’d cowered down, hoping without hope to not be seen, to not be used, just for once. Without power. And without a choice.

All this pent-up frustration about my own weakness, the unfairness of the situation, the hatred against these guys, unloaded at that exact moment.

Until someone pulled me off of the guy and carried me away. Sat me down on the bed of a truck and told me to stay put.

I heard sirens, watched first the sheriff’s car then the ambulance arrive. But nothing penetrated my shell. The sounds were muffled as if I was wearing earplugs, and thoughts and memories all swirled together, too fast to latch on to any one of them.

“Milli?” Suddenly there was Sheriff Travers, Richard next to me, then Belinda, dressed in all-back, no uniform.

“What happened?” Richard asked. I looked from him to Belinda and back and blinked slowly. Suddenly all the noises came back, and I felt a dull pain in my knee. Shit. I shook my head, and I surveyed the area. The ambulance filed out of the lot, and my gaze landed on the guy. He was on the ground, his arms behind his back.

I pointed at him. “That guy there dragged a woman between two trucks and was choking her.”

“Did you see him doing that?”

I nodded. “I was right there.” I pointed to where I’d been standing.

“And then what happened?”

Now if that wasn’t the million-dollar question. I stared at Richard and only realized I was wringing my hands when Belinda laid hers above mine. “Just tell him, Milli.”

I’d known Belinda from some self-defense classes Sharon made me take. She was one of the good ones, and Richard, as well. “I think I jumped him.”

Richard’s eyes widened and then barked with laughter. “You did what?”

I clasped my hands in my lap and answered through the lump in my throat. “I jumped him, I hit him, I might have scratched him, as well, so he would let go of her.” My chin quivered, and my shoulders slowly hunched over. What I did was irrational. I went completely berserk on a total stranger.

“Milli.” Richard captured my chin and raised my face until my eyes met his. “You did good. You saved that woman’s life. I’m proud of you.”

Then he smiled and winked. “I’ll notify you if I need your official statement. Are you okay so far?”

I nodded and noticed the fluttery feeling in my belly. I did good. I wasn’t the wimp I always thought I was. I was a fighter.

“I’ll take care of her; you take care of the scumbag,” Belinda said and with a nod and a squeeze, Richard turned around, and together with his deputy, hauled the man off the ground.

“Let’s get inside, get out of the sun. I knew those black clothes were a bad idea.” Belinda smiled.

It took me a couple of seconds before it clicked. Black clothes, same as me. Including a black cap, a similar one I’d lost somehow. “You?”

“Me…and you, apparently. What a coincidence, right?”

She helped me down from the truck bed, and I cried out when my feet hit the ground.

“Did you hurt yourself?” She looked worried, but I waved her off.

“I hurt my leg a couple of days ago, but I’m fine. Let’s get inside, out of the heat.”

25

MILLI

“Did you know who you just saved?” Belinda asked after we settled into a booth.

“No, should I?” Honestly, I couldn’t even recall what the woman, or the man for that matter, looked like. Hopefully, they didn’t need me to pick them out of a lineup, because I wasn’t sure if I could do that. Except her eyes. I would never forget her eyes.

“That was Sheriff Travers’s future sister-in-law.”

“Dorothy’s sister?”

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