Chapter 2 #2
Inside, the apartment is mostly dark, save for a small beam of light pointing at the wall in the far corner of the room. The blind on the window is crooked and bent, and it bumps unevenly against the window frame as the wind buffets it.
As my gaze sweeps across the room, it catches on a spray of broken glass, faintly reflecting the light creeping in through the broken blind.
Fear clutches at me.
This is very wrong.
I flick open my switchblade. My other hand plunges into my pocket to grab my phone.
I take another step inside the apartment, and that’s when I see her.
Half-hidden behind the couch, Ruby lies sprawled on the floor. Her hands are clutching her throat, and her chest rises and falls quickly as she gasps for breath.
“Ruby!” All thoughts of clearing the room—of searching for an intruder still inside—dissolve as I race across the room towards her. “Ruby!”
Crashing to my knees beside her, my gaze flicks across her body, searching for injuries. But it’s too dark to see clearly, so I have to turn on my phone’s flashlight to get a better look.
Ruby flinches against the bright light, and I say, “I’m sorry. I need to look at you. See where you’re—”
But the bruises on her face steal the rest of my words.
Finger-shaped bruises on her cheeks and jaw, like her face was roughly grabbed. There’s another rising bruise on her forehead, and blood trickles from a small cut that splits her right eyebrow.
As Ruby stares at me, the panic in her eyes shifts to cautious hope. “Micah?” she whispers. Her voice is weak. Raspy. Her hands flutter down from her throat. “What…”
“It’s okay,” I start. But as I get my first look at the violent marks on her neck, I feel anything but.
It’s impossible to mistake what the marks are from. And the realization fills me with white-hot rage.
Someone choked her.
They hit her. Held her down. Choked her. And if I hadn’t gotten here when I had...
Tearing my gaze from Ruby, I scan the living room again. It looks empty, save for us. But there’s still a hallway with rooms attached to it. Closets. Any number of places her attacker could be hiding. “Where did he go?” I demand, my voice sharp with urgency. “The man who did this. Where did he go?”
I need to search. But that means leaving Ruby on her own, which I’m loath to do. Especially not knowing if she’s hurt anywhere else, or how many people could still be in here, intent on hurting her again.
Against one man, or even two or three, I’ve no doubt I could take them on and win. It wouldn't even matter if they were armed, since I’ve had plenty of experience disarming an armed attacker bare-handed. But fighting them off means leaving Ruby vulnerable.
Ruby draws in another shuddering gasp. She looks up at me with eyes shiny with tears. “He… he ran. When you…” Her gaze shifts to the apartment doorway, and her brow creases. “Did you…”
“I kicked in the door. I had to. I heard you yell. I thought… shit. What happened? Who did this to you?”
Tears leak from her eyes and streak down the sides of her face. She swallows, then winces. “I don’t know. He had… he had a mask. He…” Her voice cracks. “He knocked me down. Hit me. Then…”
More tears spill free, dampening her hair.
Rage ignites an inferno inside me.
A man put his hands on her. Tried to kill her. And there I was, taking my time coming upstairs, hesitating in the hallway…
Guilt punches me hard in the chest. “Shit,” I mutter. “Dammit.”
“He ran,” Ruby whispers. Her gaze searches mine. “When you… were hitting the door. I think… he was afraid of being caught. So he went out the window to the fire escape.”
I glance at the window again. And yes, now that Ruby’s mentioned it, the blind looks like one might if a person in a hurry tried to shove past it. A piece of shit monster who would attack a sweet, innocent woman like Ruby.
“I don’t know… how he got in here.” Ruby sucks in another shuddering breath. “The door was locked. The lights—”
“Was he alone?” I interrupt. “Did you see anyone else? Hear them?”
She shakes her head. “No. Just him.”
I know I need to look for myself. I have to be sure.
But first, I look Ruby up and down again. Her clothes are rumpled, but thankfully all in one piece. She doesn’t appear to be bleeding or have any obvious broken bones, although without a full examination, it’s impossible to know for certain.
“I have to check the apartment,” I tell her. Before I think about it, I brush a tear from her cheek. “I’ll be quick. Just stay right—”
“No. Don’t.” Her voice breaks at the end. One small hand grabs my sleeve. “Please. Don’t leave me.”
Ah, shit. I don’t want to.
What I want to do is pick Ruby up and carry her far, far away from here. Far enough away that all of this becomes a nightmare she can wake up from instead of being her terrifying reality.
The protectiveness I feel for her is overwhelming. There’s barely room for anything else.
“Hey, what’s going on in here?” At the sound of a new voice, my head jerks towards the hallway, where a tall man with shaggy hair and horn-rimmed glasses is standing.
He’s peering into Ruby’s apartment with an expression of deep concern.
“What happened? I heard the pounding.” His gaze shoots over to Ruby, and his features jolt with shock. “Shit! What happened?”
He starts to come into the apartment, and I bark, “Stay back. Call 911. Tell them there was an intruder. That he attacked a woman. We need an ambulance.”
“Ruby?” An older, white-haired woman joins the shaggy-haired man. She looks inside the apartment and gasps. “Ruby! Oh, lovey, are you hurt?”
“Stay outside,” I order. These people are making me itchy. They’re unknown variables who seem harmless, but until I get a better handle on things…
“I’m just going to check the apartment real quick,” I assure Ruby. The fear that flashes across her face makes me feel horrible. Like I’ve failed her again. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
Ruby pinches her lips together, as if she’s trying to physically hold her words in. Her chin wobbles. Then she gives me the tiniest nod. “You’ll be right back?” she whispers. “You promise?”
The urge to pull her into my arms is almost impossible to resist. But instead, I settle for stroking her cheek. “I promise.”