Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
A tall, nondescript white man shoves inside my apartment before I can speak, closing and locking the door behind him with a sickening click.
I reverse until my back hits a wall. My heart, which until this moment had been pounding with anticipation, immediately escalates into a more rapid, fearful rhythm.
“You—you’re in the wrong place,” I hear myself say. Stupidly. Passively. Unlike myself. I should be attacking this guy, shouting Get the fuck out of my house. Instead, my palms sweat. My feet and vocal cords refuse to work.
The guy tilts his head, looking me over with beady dark eyes. “You changed your hair.”
And immediately, I know who this is.
Except I don’t.
I’ve seen pictures of Marisol’s ex, Erik Schneider, and this man is not him. His hair is too light. He’s a little too gaunt. He doesn’t have the same charming, boyish face. This man’s eyes have a slight bulge over a receding chin.
“Wh-who are you?”
Something contemptuous flashes in his eyes, and I realize too late that this was the wrong question to ask.
He lunges forward. I land on the floor where my couch used to be, knocking the air out of my chest. I roll to one side, gasping, but he’s on top of me, grabbing my arms before I can breathe.
I open my mouth to scream, but only cough until finally I suck in a lungful of air and raise my knee into his groin.
He cries out, and I roll to the side, following some self-defense script I learned years ago. Or maybe I’m just improvising. I get to my feet, snatching my belt bag off the counter and plunging my hand through the zipper before he slams me into the wall.
“Get off me!” I screech over the music I’d put on for Drew.
I close my fingers around the little Taser, trying to locate the switch.
He grabs my arm and twists it painfully, and by the time I realize he’s forcing the device back toward me, it’s too late.
I kick out just before the electricity jolts into my side, and then it’s like my whole body is cramping up while being shot with lightning.
My eyes widen, my arms and legs go rigid, and it is the single most terrifying, helpless moment of my life as I drop to the floor.
My head cracks something on the way down, but I can’t tell if it’s that or the Taser that blurs my vision.
I lay there for seconds, maybe minutes, eventually pulling myself into a whimpering ball, afraid to move.
Until somewhere far away, I hear a phone ringing.
Lydia’s ringtone.
I close my eyes, slowly curling my fingers and toes to see how they respond.
My head now pounds in time with my heart, and there’s something warm and wet sliding down my cheek. I don’t know where the guy is. All I can hear is Lydia trying to reach me.
When I open my eyes and turn my head, I spot him by the door.
He seems distracted, peering through the peephole, so I push myself away, trying to get to the kitchen.
The phone stops ringing, and the music I put on earlier resumes, but the ringing starts up again almost immediately, and I keep moving toward it like a beacon.
I get behind the breakfast bar, nearly vomit as I pull myself to my knees, and reach up to where I left it.
“No, you don’t,” says a nasally voice. And then I’m peering up into the man’s empty face. My phone is in his hand, and he’s turning up the music—cranking it until the drum and bass pound from my Bluetooth speaker.
I think I hear something over it, faintly. A light thumping? It’s hard to tell with my head throbbing since I hit the floor.
The man comes around the counter into the kitchen, and my chest seizes as soon as there’s no structure between us. I back into the fridge as he reaches out, fighting nausea as his fingers caress my braids.
“P-please,” I whisper. “Whatever you want—”
But then the song transitions, and in the quiet, as the music fades, I hear the sound distinctly. Someone is knocking at my door.
“Hello?” I shout.
The man’s hand whips from my hair to my mouth—my throat.
I panic, flailing my arms, grabbing for anything.
My fingers wrap around the glass bottle by the sink, and I arc it through the air at his head.
But instead of smashing and knocking him out, it lands with a thud against his shoulder and falls out of my hand, shattering on the counter as my phone rings again.
“Caprice?” a man calls through my apartment door. His voice is deep with commanding concern, and when I hear him, I want to cry.
I push out with my arms and legs until I have just enough leverage to sink down and bite hard into this douchebag’s wrist. He shouts and lets go, and I urge my legs to get me past him.
But he grabs my shirt as I round the counter.
One of my barstools crashes to the ground as he yanks me against him, and I manage to scream.
“Drew!”
The knocking becomes a pounding—hard and clear now over the music—except my head is also pounding and I’m having trouble working my arms and legs.
The angular fucker is dragging me to one side, and I’m so dizzy now I can hardly keep my feet under me when I see him picking up a piece of broken glass on the counter.
My lips feel numb. “Please, no—”
And then several things happen at once.
There’s a loud bang somewhere in the room, followed by thunderous, powerful barking. Then a deep voice growls, “Go get him.”
I see a blur of golden fur as I fall to the floor, and then a man is screaming.
“Ahh! Get it off me!”
There are snarls and thrashing. The room feels like it’s underwater as I turn my head, but when I do, I see Rufus, his teeth tearing into my attacker’s arm while the man lies on the floor shrieking.
My gaze traces to the large figure holding the leash, and my heart swells when I swear I see a blurry Superman.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them it’s even better.
Drew stands over me, eyes burning into the man on the floor like all he has to do is take off his glasses to incinerate him.
But then he registers me looking at him, and his green eyes immediately soften.
“God, I was so—” He kneels, placing himself between me and the chaos of snarls and screams. “You’re safe now.”
“I . . .” My throat is tight. My head swims.
“Caprice! Oh my God, girl.”
I blink, registering for the first time that there are more people here. Gentle hands roll me over, touch my wrist, and I’m staring up into my neighbor Darius’s gentle eyes.
“Todd, is that ambulance on its way?”
“Five minutes,” his boyfriend responds from the hall.
Suddenly, thankfully, the too-loud music cuts off, and for a second all we hear are the bitten man’s wails.
“Hey, uh, maybe you should call him off before the cops get here?” Darius suggests.
Drew frowns, then utters a command, and Rufus, the best boy ever, releases his bite, returning obediently to his trainer’s side. The man moans on the floor. I hope Rufus bit him in the groin.
My phone rings again, and somehow the pulse in my head pounds harder. I try to sit up, but the room spins, and Darius stills me with one hand.
“Could someone just—tell her I’m okay?”
“I got it,” Drew says, rising and picking up the phone. “Hi, this is Drew Forbes.”
As he attempts to reassure my best friend, something cold and wet nudges my arm.
I pry my eyes open to find Rufus beside me, golden eyes dark with concern.
He issues a low whine and licks my hand as a group of voices moves toward us down the hall.
I reach up to stroke the softest part of his ears and whisper, “My hero.”
The next moment, a slew of first responders troop in, and we’re inundated with people and questions. Drew tucks Rufus into his crate where he’s safe before returning to my side and taking my hand.
“Hey guys,” Darius says, slipping further into nurse mode.
“Assault victim over here—multiple witnesses present, including myself. Laceration to the head and a likely concussion, possible broken ribs. Also pretty sure she was tased. Alleged perpetrator is over there with a dog bite, but that motherfucker can wait.”
There’s a lot of back and forth from there, between police, firefighters, and paramedics.
I doubt this many people have ever crammed into my apartment.
Someone takes my pulse. Blood pressure. Shines a light into my eyes, which is excruciating.
I’m asked questions. Drew answers others.
But he stays by my side the entire time.
The next thing I know, I’m on a gurney, covering my face to escape the awful glare of overhead lights as I’m wheeled toward the door.
“Wait—what about Rufus?” I ask.
“Don’t worry,” Darius says. “Todd and I will be collecting Rufus kisses until your girlfriend gets here.”
Drew squeezes my hand. “She’s on her way now.”
I let out a breath, fingers trembling in his as my adrenaline drops. As it slowly sinks in that I’m okay now. I’m safe. “Thank you, guys. For everything.”
“Don’t thank me.” Darius grins. “Nothing was going to keep this perfect ten of yours from getting in here. Or your pooch. When Todd and I saw what was going on, we mostly just called for help.”
My lids flutter closed again, a tear trickling from the corner of my eye as the whole ordeal flashes through my mind.
From the first terrifying moment after I opened the door, to the time it finally ended with Rufus and Drew barreling in.
I rest my throbbing head back on the gurney as I’m wheeled to the elevator, fingers entwined with Drew’s.
And I think maybe Kyle got something right after all. Maybe somehow he did protect me.