Page 31 of The Pretty Savage

The anger that was simmering deep in my gut blazed through me, and before he could open his filthy mouth again, I pushed his hand away from my neck, surprising him momentarily, but it didn't take him long to regain his footing.

He stood tall, much taller than me, my neck craning as I looked up at him. "I'm not an orphan. I have?—"

"You have nobody," he bit out, slicing through my very soul with those words. You have nobody.

And I didn't.

I only had myself and I had to remember that.

I rushed at him, ready to fight even if he didn't want to, but I underestimated what a fucked-up state I was in and how much energy I would need to fight against someone like him.

He evaded my punches, and when my fist connected with his hard abs, his hand shot out, wrapping around my neck once more, and before I could try to push it away from me again, he had me in the air, slamming me shortly after to the floor, cutting off my oxygen.

My legs thrashed, hitting him from any angle I could get, but he wasn't letting go. The black spots started taking over, becoming bigger and bigger, and I had to know. "W-Who are you?" I struggled against him, but I needed to know.

"Can't you hear them?" He smiled, showing me two rows of perfect teeth, dripping venom with every word. His words registered in my mind, focusing on the wild crowd outside of the ring.

"Zylla, Zylla, Zylla, Zylla!" they all shouted, and my mind took a second too long to connect the dots.

"Y-You're?—"

"Adrian Zylla, Bambi," he murmured, crouching above me effortlessly, his hot breath washing over my ear. "And you've fucked with the wrong guy, schatz."

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…

The last thought as I looked into the darkness swirling in his eyes wasn't that I would most probably die. No, it was the knowledge that this man, this fucking monster in front of me, could destroy every wall, every barrier I worked so hard to create.

His hand lifted above my face, something akin to regret passing over his handsome features, and before I could move or do anything to evade the hit, his fist connected with my cheek, sending me into the pits of darkness that I welcomed with open arms.

12

VEGA

Snowflakes landed on my face as I stepped outside of the house my mom was renting for the past couple of months. My tongue darted out, catching them on its surface, just how Mama showed me the other day. A giggle almost slipped through my lips, swallowed by a loud gasp when I heard the crash of something coming from the backside of the house.

Mama told me to always stay in the house if she wasn't there, but I had to go out to catch the snow. It looked magical, the white snowflakes landing softly on the ground, creating a fairy tale out of our world. Mama was going to be angry, but I had to see the snow. I had to catch it.

But now that the shout of a man cracked through the night, I felt something squeezing around my heart, something my mama called fear.

I went down the porch, looking left and right to see if any of our neighbors were out, but no one was here. The house on the left side of ours was shrouded in darkness, and I knew Mrs. Jackson who lived on the right side of us went to sleep early at night. She told this to my mom when my mom asked her to watch over me one night because she had to work.

I took a deep breath, putting on my big girl pants, as my mom so often said, and started walking by the wall of our house, going toward the back, when my mom's loud, distressed scream made everything stop for a second, and then I ran.

I ran toward her, toward the area where she most probably was.

My mom was in danger.

She was all alone.

She said, she said… Something about help if anything like this happened. But I could help her. I was a big girl now. She also told me to stay inside, but I couldn’t leave her alone. She didn’t like being alone.

"Mama!" I yelled out just as I stopped at the clearing behind our house, seeing my mom on the floor with a huge man on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

"Mama?" The man on top of her asked, his face doing that funny thing like my mom's when she didn't understand something. "You stupid fucking bitch," he spat down at her, keeping his hands wrapped around her throat. "You were pregnant when you ran?"

My mom looked at me, while tears streamed down her face, her head shaking from side to side, as if she wanted to deny his words.

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