PIPER

The man with the broken tooth starts to squeeze. My throat closes up. The world begins to blacken at the edges like someone is holding a match to one corner of my vision.

So this is how it ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Then, as suddenly as he appeared, the pressure is gone.

A deeper snarl joins the fray. I swear I'm hearing the voice of God.

"Am I interrupting something?"

When I manage to pry my eyes open, I'm positive I'm right. This man is a god, alright-and I'm ready to convert.

The stranger angles his body to shield me from my attacker. All I can see is the thick swell of his biceps and the broad set of his shoulders.

"Who the hell are you?" My attacker sneers. "Her boyfriend?"

"I'm the man who will separate your hands from your arms if you touch her again. Do you understand?"

The guardian who attacked me suddenly doesn't look so scary. As he stands up from where the god threw him to the ground, I see him stumble. He's drunk. I probably could have tipped him over with a good shove to the chest.

But I didn't.

I didn't do anything.

Shame washes over me in a hot wave. I'm surprised the rain on my skin doesn't evaporate in the sudden heat of it.

The drunk gives me one last look. His glassy eyes narrow in distaste before he hunches against the rain and scampers away down the alley. He rounds the corner and disappears.

Relief knocks me back against the brick. I press a hand to my chest and inhale shakily. "Oh my... Holy hell."

"Are you hurt?"

I look up and realize my rescuer is facing me now. His dark hair is short but curly, plastered to his head by the rain. Black-ink tattoos slip out of the ends of his rolled-up shirt sleeves to wrap around his wrists. Sixty seconds ago, I would have been afraid to run into him in this dark alleyway alone. Now, I've never felt safer in my whole godforsaken life.

Our eyes meet, and I inhale sharply. Even in the dark, his blue eyes are luminous. Bright and clear...

And pinned on me.

I swallow down the surge of conflicting emotions rising up in me and shake my head. "No. No, I'm okay. He didn't-You got here just in time. Nothing happened." I roll my shoulders. "Maybe once the adrenaline wears off, I'll be a little sore. But otherwise, I'm perfectly-"

"Stupid," the man growls.

"Excuse me?" I blink at him, a frown working between my brows.

"You are stupid." He repeats the words slowly. "You shouldn't be wandering down dark alleys in the middle of the night if you can't defend yourself."

It takes me a few seconds to process what he's saying. And how he's saying it. Like I've personally offended him.

"It's not the middle of the night. It's just after eight. The storm is making it darker than it would be if-"

"You didn't even check to see if anyone was around," he continues, ignoring me. "Your head was down and you don't have a weapon. If you'd spent half a fucking second observing your surroundings, you would've seen that asshole waiting at the mouth of the alley. Fuck knows he wasn't being sneaky about it."

The shame I was already fighting back redoubles and charges at me again. Tears burn in my eyes.

"It was raining too hard to see anything!"

"I saw him from across the street," he scoffs.

I look into his inhumanly blue eyes again and snort. "No wonder. What are you, a werewolf or something? Normal human eyes don't look like that."

His annoyance with me is interrupted for the barest of seconds with something like amusement. Then his full mouth turns down into a grimace. "Get your bike and go."

"Good idea. There are a lot of assholes wandering around tonight, apparently."

"And I won't always be there to save you from them." He turns around and walks away.

Just like that, I'm alone again.

In the dark. Soaking wet. Shaking with a chill that goes far beyond skin deep, and burning up with a single question on my mind.

What the hell just happened?

3

PIPER

My hands are still shaking as I reach for another slice of stuffed crust pizza. I'm showered, in clean pajamas, and eating the frozen pizza I promised myself, but mentally, I'm still in that alley with that man's vodka breath rolling over me in nauseating waves.

"Piper!"

My name being shrieked through the tinny speakers of my phone makes me jump. A dribble of grease drops from my pizza onto my flannel pajama pants.

"Damn it, Noelle. You made me spill."

"Good! Put down the pizza and pick up your phone," my best friend retorts. "You should be calling the police, not stuffing your face."

I drop the pizza on a chipped ceramic plate and wipe my fingers on a paper towel. "I'm not stuffing my face. And what would I even tell the police?"

"That you were attacked by a deranged parent outside of your job! I'd say that's a good starting point."

"It sounds simple when you say it like that, but..."

The beast of the man who rescued me floats in my mind's eye. There was nothing simple about him. He saved me and called me an idiot in the same breath.

Not exactly a knight in shining armor.

"What did you say?" Noelle makes a growly sound in sheer frustration. "Move your camera. What's the point of video chatting if I can't see your face?"

"Ashley has been on a black screen this entire chat," I point out. "You're not yelling at her."

"Ashley also wasn't assaulted tonight, so your situations aren't exactly comparable. Reveal yourself. Now."

I'm a grown woman. I don't take orders from anyone, not even one of my two best friends. Then again, Noelle is scary. If I don't do what she says now, I know she'll show up on my doorstep right as I'm getting ready for bed.

I sigh and grab my phone, giving her an are-you-happy-now grin.

"You're pale," she observes without missing a beat. "And is that a bruise on your jaw?"

"No," says Ash, "that's pizza sauce."

"Thanks for finally chiming in, Ashley." I roll my eyes and wipe the sauce off with my forearm. "I'm fine, okay? The guy was drunk and upset. He lost his kid this week. I don't need to make it worse."

Noelle's eyes bug out like they're about to pop. "Who cares about his week? What about you, Piper?! The guy choked you!"

"He tried," I correct. "He didn't get that far."

"Only because some giant came along and shoved him away," Ashley reminds us.

"He wasn't a giant."

"I distinctly remember the word 'giant' being thrown around."

"Giant biceps, I think," Noelle says. "She said he was a big guy with giant biceps."

"They were proportional to the rest of him," I mutter.

Noelle claps her hands like an elementary school teacher trying to get the class's attention. "Regardless, the fact remains that you need to file a report. He could come back and try again some other time."

I hear the man's deep voice like he's whispering the words in my ear. I won't always be there to save you.

Some masochistic part of me is disappointed. Maybe another attack wouldn't be so bad if he came back to intervene again.

"Fuck the cops," Ashley blurts out. "Buy a gun. I can get you one on the cheap."

"A gun? Piper isn't getting-she doesn't need a gun!"

Black Screen Ashley is unmoved. "What is a police report going to do if that guy comes back? Piper needs to be able to protect herself."

"Not with a gun," Noelle argues. She shakes her head. "If I could see your face, I'd be able to tell if you're joking. What is with the two of you trying to hide tonight?"

Suddenly, Ashley's screen goes white and then she's there. Her dyed-black hair is tucked behind her ears and her eyebrows are as thin as they were in high school, which is to say, almost nonexistent. She raises them and stares at her camera like it's a personal challenge. It takes me a second to understand why.

"Ash," I breathe, covering my mouth, "is that a bruise, or...?"

She presses tenderly at the horrifying black ring around her right eye and gives a humorless chuckle. "Well, it isn't pizza sauce."

Noelle has gone eerily silent. Her nostrils are flared.

"What happened?" I ask, even though I already know.

Ashley has been in an on-again, off-again relationship with her abusive drug dealer for years. Apparently, they're on again. Or they were. I don't know what they'll be after he's punched her fucking lights out.

Before Ashley can even answer, Noelle shakes her head. "I'll kill him. I swear to God I will."

"What happened to filing a police report?" Ashley taunts. "Suddenly, you're Ms. Vigilante."

It's Noelle's turn to be unmoved. "Jason already has several warrants out for his arrest, I'm sure. If the police were going to do anything about him, they would've done it several infractions ago. I might as well take matters into my own hands."

Ashley snorts. "Your boyfriend works for the FBI. You do realize that, right? He's probably recording this conversation right now. Everything you say can and will be held against you."

"He's just an accountant for the FBI, right?" I butt in. "He's not, like, an actual agent."

I've met Wayne plenty of times, but his job is kind of a blur. He has a soft chin, a receding hairline, and a vapid smile. He isn't what television has taught me to think of as someone who works for the FBI.

"He's a forensic accountant," Noelle agrees. "Which is sort of like an agent, but he specializes in white collar crimes. He also is not recording my conversations, so no one needs to know that I'm planning to kill Jason and plant his head on a spike in my front yard."

Ashley gives us a weak smile. "It's fine. I went there to end things and... well, they're ended now. I won't be seeing him again."

I try to toss a dubious look at Noelle, but video chatting doesn't really facilitate body language. I doubt Ashley will ever be truly done with Jason. Mostly because I doubt she will ever be truly clean. She's a third-generation addict and still in deep, despite her latest trip to rehab.

"If you need anything-" I start.

"No," she snaps. "This is why I left my camera off. This is about you, Piper. You had a traumatic experience. A black eye is just another day for me."

Noelle practically screams in frustration. "What is wrong with the two of you? Press charges. Both of you! None of this is normal. This is ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous is you acting like you have any idea what this is like," Ashley says.

There's a beat of uncomfortable silence.

"What does that mean?" Noelle asks finally.

I cover my eyes. "C'mon, you two. Can we not do this?"

I'm the peacemaker. I've always played that role, for my friends and everyone else. Noelle is the boss lady and Ashley is the wild card. The two of them butt heads more often than not, and I'm not in the right headspace to properly referee them tonight.

"No, let's do it," Ashley sniffs, bending closer to her camera. "Noelle sits in a cushy office and lives in a fancy loft apartment with her boyfriend and wants to act like she knows what it's like for us."

Noelle rolls her eyes. "Spare me the melodrama. It's not like we're from different sides of the tracks, okay? We grew up in the same apartment complex, for God's sake. But while you were out getting fucked-up with Jason and Mychal and Elijah and I-can't-even-remember-who-else, I got scholarships and went to college and made something of myself. You don't get to be mad at me for that."

"Are you saying I haven't made something of myself?" Ashley snaps. "Are you saying-"

"Stop!" I yell loudly enough that Mrs. Shaban next door is probably going to knock on our shared wall to tell me to keep it down.

Thankfully, it works. I feel both of their eyes flit to me.

"Can I tell you how this is going to go?" I ask. "Because I already know. Ashley is going to accuse Noelle of never really liking her-"

"Of course I like you!" Noelle interrupts.

"And Noelle is going to accuse Ashley of thinking she is stuck-up-"

"She is sometimes." Ashley shrugs unapologetically.

"Then you're both going to cry," I finish. "Then, when you're cried out, you'll apologize and make nice and we'll end the conversation laughing like normal. So how about we skip the drama and go to the laughing? I've had a long day."

They both look like kids who just lost their favorite toy, but I can tell they know I'm right. Noelle is the first to admit it.

"Fine," she huffs. "We're too old for this shit anyway."

"Stop telling Piper and me how to live our lives and we'll be fine," Ashley retorts. "But you know I love you, Ellie Bellie."

Noelle's eyes go watery, even though she's always hated that nickname. "I love you, too, Smashley."

"Great," I conclude. "Now that that's settled, I still have to prep for work tomorrow."

"You're kidding, right?" Noelle drawls. "You need to decompress and handle your personal business. You think you're fine now, but the body keeps the score, girl. You're going to be a mess the moment you try to relax."

Part of me is terrified Noelle is right, but I really don't have time to process this trauma. Besides, I have a lifetime of it built up inside of me somewhere. I've managed that okay.

So far.

I shake my head. "Not kidding, no. The gears of CPS stop for no woman. I have a meeting first thing tomorrow morning about a permanent placement for an abandoned baby. Honestly, it might be a bright spot in my week. Giving a kid a home versus snatching them out of it; could be a nice change of pace."

"Or you could take the day off and get some bottomless mimosas with me," Ashley offers, wagging her brows.

"I thought you were sober."

"I am! California sober," she says a bit defensively. "Weed and alcohol are fine. It's all about moderation."

I watch Noelle zip her lips closed in an effort to keep all of her unsolicited advice inside. We both know moderation is not Ashley's strong suit. Doing the exact opposite of what we advise is one of her strengths, though. Most of the time, it's better to stay quiet and let her figure it out on her own.

I give her a thin smile. "Raincheck on the brunch. I have a case file to review."

I hang up to a mini-chorus of well wishes and encouragement. But too quickly, the oppressing silence of my apartment settles over me like a cobweb. No matter how hard I try to fight off the discomfort, I can't seem to shake the tingle of wrongness in my skin.

It was easy to shove my attack into a dark corner of my mind when I had Noelle and Ashley to talk to. Now, it's front and center. The same ninety-second interaction plays on an endless loop in my brain.

Along with the blue-eyed beast who came to my rescue.

That's a little harder to forget.