Lexi #2
The third man doesn't wait. He turns and runs, tearing down the aisle toward the parking lot, abandoning his friends without a backward glance.
Silence slams down over our corner of the market. The distant hum of the crowd continues, oblivious to the carnage, but the vendors nearby are frozen in terror. Isabela is backed up against her honey crates, a hand over her mouth.
The Prospect stands amid the wreckage. His chest heaves in slow, measured rhythms. His knuckles are split, bright red blood welling up against the tanned skin. He stares down at the unconscious man at his feet, his jaw working, the muscles in his neck cabled tight.
Slowly, deliberately, he turns his head and looks at me.
He waits.
I know that look. I’ve seen it on street corners and in alleyways. He expects the scream. He expects the revulsion. He expects me to shrink back against the side of my van, trembling like a frightened rabbit, terrified of the monster who just ripped two grown men apart with his bare hands.
He thinks his violence is a wall that keeps the world away.
I don’t move.
I stand in the dirt, my boots planted firmly where they were. I look at the unconscious bodies. I look at the knife in the dirt. Then, I look into those pitch-black eyes.
The undeniable click echoes through my hollow chest. Not a spark. Not a magical thunderbolt of destiny. A locking of steel gears. An iron vault door slamming shut, sealing me inside with him.
The world sharpens. Every grain of dust hanging in the sunbeam between us becomes hyper-visible. He stares at me. His eyes drop to my hands.
My hands hang loose at my sides. The fingers are perfectly, completely still.
I don’t shake.
His brow furrows. A tiny, nearly imperceptible twitch rocks his jawline.
He steps forward. Just one step. His heavy black combat boots crush the switchblade deeper into the dirt.
He towers over me. He’s a mountain of corded muscle and defensive rage, a caged animal daring me to poke my fingers through the bars.
"You're bleeding," I say. My voice is steady. It doesn't wobble. It doesn't crack.
The words hit him like a physical blow. He actually recoils a fraction of an inch, confusion warring with the flat, dead look in his eyes. He lifts his right hand, looking at his hands as if he has no idea they belong to him.
I turn my back on him. I walk the three steps to the makeshift counter at the edge of my van. I reach underneath, past the tire iron, and grab a clean white shop rag from a plastic bin.
When I turn back, he’s right behind me.
He moved silently. A ghost in boots. He’s so close I have to tilt my head back to look at his face. The heat radiating off his chest is blistering.
I hold the clean white cloth out to him.
He looks at the cloth. He looks at my face.
"Take it," I say, pushing it toward his chest.
He slowly raises his hand. His fingers wrap around the cotton fabric. Our fingers brush.
Fire. It sears across my skin where his calloused fingers graze mine, a jolt of pure voltage. The intensity of it nearly buckles my knees.
He jerks his hand back, clutching the rag. His chest expands, pulling in a ragged breath. He stares at the point of contact between us, then looks down at my hands again.
"You're not shaking," he says. His voice is a low, gravel-crushing rasp. It sounds rusty, as if he uses it only when strictly necessary.
"Neither are you," I fire back, meeting his stare.
It’s a lie. His hands have a fine, high-voltage tremor running through them. Adrenaline. Desperation. A boy fighting a man's war inside his own head.
He crushes the rag in his fist, ignoring the blood soaking into the white fabric. "They touched your things."
"They tore a two-hundred-dollar jacket and tried to grab my arm." I cross my arms over my chest, refusing to let him intimidate me with his sheer proximity. "I had it handled."
A harsh, humorless sound escapes his chest. A bark of a laugh. "He had eighty pounds on you. He would have broken your jaw."
"I was going to shatter his kneecap with a tire iron," I correct him smoothly. "But thanks for the assist. Saves me the trouble of hiding a body."
The dead void in his eyes shifts. A spark of genuine shock flickers in the blackness. He tilts his head again, assessing me. Scanning me. Searching for the lie. Searching for the bravado.
He finds nothing but solid granite. I grew up surviving. I don't bluff.
"Who are you?" he demands, the weight in the question hitting me squarely in the center of the chest. It doesn't sound like a polite inquiry. It sounds like a demand for coordinates.
"Lexi," I say.
"Lexi." He repeats the name. He tests the syllables in his mouth like he’s tasting blood. He likes it. I can see the violent approval lock into place behind his eyes.
"You got a name, Prospect?" I nod toward the rocker on his leather cut.
"Kevin." He doesn't break eye contact. He doesn't blink. He’s staring at me with the focused, terrifying intensity of a starving wolf deciding whether to bite or bow.
"Well, Kevin." I gesture to the two bodies littering my storefront. The kid with the broken ribs is groaning, trying to crawl away into the dust. The bearded man is still out cold. "You make a habit of wrecking local commerce, or is today a special occasion?"
He looks down at the bleeding men. Total apathy washes over his features. "They don't belong here. Neither do you."
"I have a permit."
"You have a van," he counters, his eyes snapping back to my 1982 Econoline. He looks at the rust spots. The worn tires. The road dust.
He hates it. I can see it instantly. He hates that my life has wheels. He hates that I can turn a key and disappear.
"I sell vintage gear and I move on," I tell him, the familiar script rolling off my tongue. The script that protects me. The script that keeps the garbage bag packed. "I don't stay."
Kevin steps closer. The toes of his boots tap the tips of mine. He invades my space, blotting out the market, the dust, the noise.
"You're parked in club territory," he says, his voice dropping low.
"I'm parked in a dirt lot."
"My dirt."
I laugh. I actually laugh, the sound sharp and genuine. "You're wearing a bottom rocker, kid. You don't own the dirt under your fingernails yet."
His jaw clamps so tight the muscles bunch under his ears. A terrifying violence flares in his eyes. I hit a nerve. A deep, raw, bleeding nerve. He operates on the need to prove he isn’t helpless. My dismissal just poured gasoline on the fire.
He leans down. His mouth hovers an inch from my ear. "You aren't going anywhere, Lexi."
He pulls back, holding my gaze for three excruciating seconds. The certainty in his eyes terrifies me.
He doesn't wait for my snarky comeback. He turns on his heel and stalks away, walking straight over the groaning man with the broken ribs. He vanishes into the thick crowd of tourists, a black leather phantom disappearing into the flannel sea.
I stand frozen in the dust.
My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I look at my van. I look at the mobile freedom I’ve worshipped for six years. I look at the rules I built to keep myself safe. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't stay.
I look down at my hands.
They’re shaking.
Violently. Uncontrollably.
The click echoes in my chest again. The steel door. The lock turning.
I look back at the spot in the crowd where he disappeared. The boy with the haunted eyes and the bloody knuckles. The boy who demanded a sacrifice.
My van suddenly feels like a cage. My freedom suddenly feels like exile.
I’ve spent my entire life cutting away every single desire that I couldn’t fold up and carry with me. I threw away my grandmother's quilt because it was too bulky. I threw away the idea of a porch swing. I threw away the concept of an address.
I stare at the crushed switchblade in the dirt.
And for the first time in six years, I desperately want a house.
I want a house with an address. I want an anchor. I want roots so deep they break the concrete.
I grab the studded leather jacket from the dirt. I shake the dust off it. The snap is broken, ruined by the man Kevin just put in a coma.
I hold the leather to my chest.
I'm not running.
The realization hits me with the force of a freight train. The nomadic van seller, the girl who never stays, has just hit a concrete wall going eighty miles an hour.
Let the club have their territory. Let the boy think he controls the dirt.
He doesn't know it yet. But he just bought a war he has no idea how to fight. Because if I’m staying, I’m taking up space. And I’m not a quiet tenant.
Isabela peeks around her honey crates, her face pale. "Lexi? Should I call the cops?"
I look at the unconscious man. I look at the blood on the dirt.
"No," I say, tossing the broken jacket onto the counter. "Don't call the cops. The Broken Halos handle their own messes. Let's see how long it takes the kid to come clean it up."
I lean against the rusted side of my van and cross my arms. I have this intense feeling that could burn the rest of my rules straight to the ground.
End of preview. Continue Reading Prospect’s Curvy Wanderer here.