Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Regardless, I wouldn’t be dissuaded. I’d find a way to make the best of it, and it was only August. Still plenty of time to discover where the heart of the arts lay in Whispersaw County.
As the event came to an end, I volunteered to help the café host stack up chairs on the tabletops before heading out. I’d had to park in a lot about a block away, since there hadn’t been any available street parking. Chatting with others at the event, I learned that was because of a nearby bowling alley, which was surely a far greater attraction on a Saturday night.
Considering the rest of the shops had let out sooner than the café, the streets were fairly empty in this part of downtown. I found an alley between two buildings that seemed to act as a shortcut to where I’d parked my car. Not much light made it into the alley, but given how few people were out and that I was in downtown Wyachet, not Atlanta, I talked myself out of what might have been my usual fear, figuring I could curb the anxieties that would otherwise accompany me along through my shortcut.
As I went on my way, a wisp of wind rushed through the alley, nipping at my cheeks as I tucked my hands in my jacket pockets. For not even being September yet, nights were already getting much cooler.
Gravel scattered across the asphalt crushed beneath my feet as I made my way through the darkness toward the shaft of orange light on the other side of the buildings. A sound behind me caught my attention, something that could have been nothing more than a squirrel. But I checked anyway for the sort of serial killer that lingered in the back of my thoughts.
A guy in a hoodie was a few yards back, his head tucked low as he walked at a fairly quick pace, though not seeming interested in me as much as getting on his own way. Probably just going to his car, I assured myself as he started to pass me.
I sighed, relieved, once he was a little ahead of me, but he swung back around, pulling a hand from his pocket. What bit of light made it into the alley glinted off the blade he held, stopping me in my tracks. My anxiety swelled, my thoughts spinning too quickly for me to think straight.
He shouted at me, but I couldn’t even make out what he said, so I put my arms up, mimicking a response that would have at least seemed appropriate. Or at least give him no reason to fucking stab me with that blade, which, by the way, he kept poking toward me, making me think that was entirely possible.
He shouted again, and I made out the word wallet.
Fuck, fuck. In an instant, beads of sweat collected on my forehead.
“I’m getting it. I’m getting it,” I told him, hoping he’d stop jabbing toward me with the blade so recklessly that he might cut me by accident.
I retrieved the wallet, trembling, working to calm myself enough to make it out of this alive, but of course, in my clumsiness, I fumbled and dropped it on the ground.
“The hell? Fucking get it.”
I dropped to my knees, feeling around the darkness for it, worried the guy would lose his patience and stab me while I was down. Once I felt the pleather casing, I grabbed it and made my way back to my feet, ready to surrender it to my attacker. But as soon as I looked up, he was gone like some kind of fucking ghost that had vanished into thin air.
Surely, that wasn’t possible.
My brain was in survival mode, unable to piece reality together the way it normally would have. But a few more sounds captured my attention, and I turned to see him a few yards away, on his back, in the shaft of light.
Another guy was on top of him, throwing punches. Once…twice…a third time.
My attacker’s hoodie was pulled back, revealing his face. He was young, maybe in his twenties, and as I got closer to the fight—really, not so much a fight as an assault by the man on his knees, going at his face like a punching bag—I saw my rescuer’s face too.
No. It couldn’t be.
My mind was fucking with me, as it had been after that guy had pulled the knife on me.
But another drop of his fist revealed the same face as before. It was unmistakably Kyle Forsythe.
I was so stunned, it took me a moment to realize the guy he was still hammering with punches lay limp, not fighting back. I searched around and saw the knife a few feet away, out of my attacker’s grasp.
“You can stop now.”
Kyle kept drilling, forcing some blood from the guy’s nose and mouth.