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Aurnia and I were on a tipping point, a knife’s edge. A big man was holding her in place. Between him and me were more than enough people to take me down. I’d go down swinging, but I’d go down.
I addressed the man behind her. “Aurnia has broken the terms of her probation. She needs to come with me. Now.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t let her go.
Out of the corner of my eye the figures in the living room seemed to move toward me like one giant beast.
I gritted my teeth. I had one more card up my sleeve.
“Perhaps I need to make a call to your probation officer.”
The man flinched. The fingers came away from her one by one. I turned my attention back to Aurnia as my heart beat louder in my chest.
“Aurnia,” I said, nodding encouragingly, fighting the urge to run in there and grab her.
The way she looked at me made me think that I’d asked her to tightrope across the Grand Canyon. Her first step was so uncertain that I feared she was already high on something. Her frightened eyes went momentarily to the men lining the hallway on either side.
“Aurnia.”
Her eyes returned to mine. I held her gaze, trying to keep her steady when she was not. When she was finally within reach, I wanted to grab ahold of her, to snatch her into my arms, to bury my face in her hair. I wanted to take her away, far away. I wanted to never let her go.
I kept my arms, muscles twitching from restraint, firmly at my sides. I let her walk stiffly past me through the opened door out into the night and kept my attention hyper focused on the throng of dangerous men that were shifting slowly toward me.
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” I forced myself to say as I closed the door.
When I turned around on the front steps and found Aurnia just a few feet away, staring up at me, my heart broke. I wasn’t quite sure if it broke for her.
Or whether it broke for me.
