Page 41 of Walking in Darkness

A vague, fuzzy innuendo that he needed me.

Her laughter was a scoff. “What, you think you’ve got somethin’ to offer me? Get the hell out of here, you clueless bitch, before your luck runs out and you end up right here next to us.”

Terror flared in the other’s green eyes when she looked up at me and saw the color of mine, and she whirled, looking around as if she were searching for someone else.

Pax had been here.

I knew it. Could feel it stronger than ever. The pull that tugged and compelled.

I felt torn, fractured by the instinct to stay and help, and the need to go.

Hurry.

“I’ll be back,” I promised again, pain leaching out with the words before I moved deeper into the darkness that reigned along the side of the dingy building.

The sensation grew with each step.

As danger echoed and chaos thrashed.

Pax.

He was near. I could feel his severity. The sharp cut of his aura.

Keeping my footsteps light, I hurried in its direction, trying to orient myself to the bedlam that flashed through the dense, hazy air.

Hostility and malevolence.

Then I stumbled when I saw the outline of someone up ahead in the distance.

A dark silhouette that rippled with a twisted sort of violence. Everything about him was sullied. No goodness to be found in the slick of immorality that dripped like sludge from his being.

“No one plays with my girls unless they pay for it,” I heard him say, his voice a sadistic taunt as he took a step forward and disappeared on the other side of a large industrial dumpster that blocked the sidewalk. “You should have thought twice before you came sniffing around here.”

There was the echo of more footsteps that grew closer, and I could feel the swell of aggression rise in the atmosphere.

My senses keened as I listened through the muddle to try to discern what was happening.

Men were surrounding him.

Circling him.

Hunting him.

Sucking in a breath, I crept forward as I pulled the gun from my pocket while I kept myself concealed against the wall. My heart pounded so loudly I was afraid they could hear the beat of it.

My own terror gripped me, thundering through my veins in a surge of adrenaline.

The gun shook between my quivering hands.

I hated that I couldn’t see. That I felt blinded. Unprepared.

“Think right here is exactly where I’m supposed to be.” Pax’s voice was carved in animosity.

Menacing laughter rolled from one of the men. “Seems someone is looking for death.”

“Nah, I’m just looking for some pathetic fucks who think controlling women actually makes them something special.”

The second he said it, mayhem broke out. A rushing of feet and a pummeling of flesh.