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I maybe got up six more steps before I felt hands slam into me, sending me flying forward.
My stomach dropped out even as I threw out my arms, instinctively trying to break my fall, but I hadn’t been quick enough to factor in the upright terrain, making my palms slam down on the edge of the steps instead of the tread.
My weight fell downward, my elbows crashing onto the unyielding steps as my chest and stomach hit other edges, stealing my breath, making it impossible to scream even as one built up inside.
I lost my glasses in the fall as well, hearing them click down a few steps before landing. Likely broken.
A wicked laugh escaped my attacker as he closed the space between us even as I tried to push up, tried to crawl away.
It was no use, though.
He was already standing over me, already coming down on me, his knees on either side of my body, his hands reaching out for me, one grabbing a handful of my hair, the other closing around my throat.
“You’re gonna tell me where the pills are,” he told me.
“I don’t know where they are,” I insisted, barely recognizing my own voice when it was so choked with fear.
“We’ll see what you have to say after some… persuasion,” he said, and something in his voice had my stomach sloshing around, making me sure I was going to be sick.
Then, before my imagination could run wild with potential ways he might try topersuademe like he’d done to Kylo, the hand on my throat moved, going down to grab a hold of the waistband of my shorts.
No.
No.
This couldn’t be happening.
In a public place.
With Alaric just a flight or so away.
The sound built up inside of me, a balloon that kept expanding until the pressure had to release, and a scream started to escape me.
“Shut the fuck up!” the guy snarled, the hand full of my hair, yanking back, then slamming forward, my cheek cracking against the step, making pain scream through my skull, ten, twenty times more acute than the headache that had already been screaming behind my eyes.
“Ow,” I cried out, eyes glistening, then tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Yeah, you’re gonna be hurting,” he said, his forearm pressing against the back of my neck, the pressure crushing my face against the step as his hand went back to my waistband, yanking hard at the material.
But it was just then as the pain and hopelessness overtook me, sure that there was no way to avoid the evil intentions this guy had, I heard it.
A door opening and closing above us.
Footsteps running down toward us.
The man stood suddenly, the pressure releasing.
“This isn’t over,” he declared as he turned and ran in the direction we’d both come from.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you okay?” a voice called, making me realize I’d just been lying there, face on the dirty, cold cement step.
“He ran down,” I said, seeing a man in a black and white security uniform. “Tall, bald,” I added, wiping at my eyes as I sat up.
He didn’t pause to ask more questions, just took off at a dead-run, his adrenaline likely surging.
The door above opened and closed again, then there were more footsteps as I cradled my face in my hands.
“Siana!” Alaric’s voice called, an edge to it I’d never heard before. Frantic.
