Page 18 of Guarded by the Gargoyle (Hidden Hollow #3)

16

WILLOW

“ C arlo? What are you doing here?” I demanded, taking a step back from him.

“Just came to say hi and see how you’re doing, babe,” he said. As he spoke, his smile broadened and his eyes narrowed.

From years of studying his face and reading his moods for my own self-preservation, I knew what that smile meant. It meant he was feeling cruel—like a cat that enjoys playing with a helpless mouse and I was the mouse.

“I’m just fine,” I said briskly, lifting my chin, trying to be businesslike. “So thanks for stopping by but I have to clean up and get the shop open now.”

But of course it wasn’t that easy to get rid of my ex.

“I don’t understand why I let you go, you know that?” he asked, ignoring everything I’d said and coming closer. “I remember what a great fuck you were.”

“I’m not your wife anymore,” I reminded him tightly. “Where’s Josh?” I asked, hoping that maybe his partner could rein him in.

Carlo shrugged.

“He’s back at the PD, doing paperwork. He doesn’t even know I’m here—he thinks I went out for a coffee.” He smirked at me. “But then I thought of something hotter and sweeter.”

Suddenly, he was on me, his meaty hands biting into my upper arms as he pushed me against the wall.

“Hey! Let me go!” I gasped, twisting and struggling.

“Don’t think so, babe. See, I think you tricked me somehow.” He glared down at me, his black eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I think you or your Pop-pop put some kind of witchy spell on me to make me forget you. Why else would I let a fine piece of ass like you get away from me?”

I began to feel panicked which was bad because panic makes my brain go numb—especially when it comes to my ex.

Psychologists say there are three responses to trauma and danger—flight, fight, or freeze. Being near Carlo made me freeze.

During our marriage, running from him never helped—he just caught me and hurt me more. And the few times I’d tried to fight back he had nearly killed me—it enraged him when I refused his advances in any way.

I wanted to push him off me as he dragged me to the floor, but my body didn’t seem to be my own. I could feel my mind floating away, going someplace safe where no one could hurt me and what happened to my body didn’t matter.

Assholes who don’t understand always ask rape victims why they didn’t fight more—why they didn’t shout or hit or bite. It’s because some of them can’t—some of them freeze. It’s not something you choose—it’s what your body does to survive.

It was what my body was doing now.

I could feel Carlo fumbling roughly between my legs but it seemed like something that was happening to someone else, far, far away. I tried to fight the cloudy unreality that was closing in around me but I couldn’t shout or scream—I could only whisper.

“Go away,” I said in a soft, barely there voice. “Go away—I hate you!”

I wanted to shout it but I couldn’t manage more than a murmur.

Carlo heard it though. He stopped fumbling for a minute and grabbed me by the neck. Squeezing hard, he glared into my face.

“Hey, you bitch!” he snarled. “You don’t talk to me like that! You’re mine —I fucking own you. And don’t fucking forget it!”

I started coughing and choking. His hands were big so even one-handed, his grip on my throat was tight. I began to feel like I couldn’t breathe.

“Please!” I gasped out as he cut off my air supply. “Can’t…don’t…”

“Oh, does that hurt?” The cruel smile appeared on his face again as he squeezed even tighter. “ Good . Maybe you’ll learn a lesson about mouthing off, babe.”

Just as the world was going gray and I was sure he would choke me to death, he took his hand away again. But I barely had time to catch my breath before he reached between my legs and pinched me hard, on my inner thigh.

Pinches were one of Carlo’s favorite little cruelties. He used to wait until I was almost asleep at night and then pinch me hard on the breast or my ass—whatever vulnerable place he could reach. Then he would laugh when I cried out and say I was making too much of it—that he was just “kidding around.”

I was often covered with bruises from all his “kidding.”

But the pinch did one good thing for me that even the choking couldn’t do—it woke me up. It cut through the protective cloud that was forming around me and gave me strength. I gasped in a breath and suddenly, I found that I could move again.

“No!” I shouted in his face and this time my voice really was a shout, not a whisper. I shoved at his chest as hard as I could and Carlo was so surprised he fell over with his dick still in his hand.

All I could think was thank the Goddess he hadn’t gotten it in me! I wasn’t on birth control and I never wanted to feel him inside me again.

I managed to get on my feet, scrambling up on shaky legs.

“Get out of my shop!” I said, my voice trembling but firm. I pointed at the front door. “You’re not my husband and you don’t own me. Go now or I’m calling for help.”

Carlo sneered at me.

“Who you gonna call, babe? You know nobody at the PD is going to listen to you. I already told them what a crazy cunt you are and how they can’t believe anything you say. Besides, what’s wrong with a husband taking his rights?”

“We’re not married and you never had any right to me,” I snapped. “I’m not just a body for you to use and abuse whenever you feel like it. I’m a person and I never want to see you again, you abusive asshole!”

I knew at once that I had said the wrong thing.

Carlo’s handsome face went ugly with rage as he stood up and reached for me.

“You little bitch,” he growled. “You’re going to fucking pay for your nasty words! Go ahead and try to call for help—nobody’s going to hear you. And even if they did, nobody cares.”

That might have been true in the past, but now I thought there was someone who might hear me…someone who might care.

“Kael!” I shouted, taking a step back from my ex as he made a grab for me. I narrowly avoided his grasping hand. “Kael, help me! I need you!”

I didn’t know if shouting for the big gargoyle would help or not. If it didn’t, I was going to run, lock myself in the bathroom, and make another door to Hidden Hollow. But I had to evade Carlo first.

“Who the fuck is ‘Kael?’” he snarled at me. “You been cheating on me, you little whore?”

I was about to tell him that even if I had been with another man, it couldn’t possibly be cheating because we were divorced, when a ripping sound split the air.

Carlo and I both jerked our heads around to see where the noise was coming from. As we watched a blood-red, vertical fissure began to appear about three feet to my right. It started at least two feet above my head and tore downwards in a jagged line. It was like someone had taken a knife and was cutting the fabric of reality as we watched.

It only took a moment for the vertical rip in reality to be drawn—or cut or whatever.

And then a huge form came through it.