Page 1 of Shockproof

Chapter 1

Slater

See, this is why they teach you toalwaysclear your fucking corners first.

Deep, low, groans of discomfort rattle my already unstable frame as I struggle to find my footing – both literally and figuratively.

I mean…it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been electrocuted.

Fuck, it’s not even the first time I’ve been electrocuted this year.

But I swear six ways to Sunday this shit better be the last.

I’m so fuckingdonewith battling electricity.

And I’m really fucking done with damn near losing to it.

Lifting my eyelids is the first action I successfully complete and strangely enough it occurs simultaneously with someone else falling to the ground beside me. Who he is or why we’re now floor buddies are two questions I want answers to, just not at this moment.

Not when I have to get my ass up and save my woman’s life.

Saving her is the only thing that matters.

It’s the only thing that’ll ever matter.

A faint voice I wish I didn’t recognize quickly inquires, “Are you alright, Arlette?!”

“Did you just punch that guy in the face?!” the love of my life squeaks back in total, impressed surprise.

Great.

Now, her ex is the hero, and I’m just the asshole who’s lying around on the job.

You know.

Just the shit this situation needed.

“Where did you learn to punch someone?!”

Punching someone isn’t hard.

Shecould punch someone if she tried.

Perhaps him.

Maybe she should practice on him.

I vote she practices on him.

“I know my way around the ring,” Seventeen confesses a little more clearly, indicating my senses are returning to a more stable condition.

The ring?

Doubtful.

I’ve got five hundred bucks and a bottle of unopened aged whiskey from a diplomat whose son I rescued last summer that says it was a lucky hit.

“How did I not know that?” Arley asks, voice seemingly moving closer to me.

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