Page 102 of Almost Ours

I go after them, every stride driving the image of Ruby further into my head. The closer I get to the man at the back the more furious I become because I can see blood beneath his nose, dark across his mouth and chin, and I know Ruby did that to him while she was fighting to get away.

Fighting not to be raped.

Fighting not to be hurt.

Fighting for her life.

He hears me gaining on him and looks back, terror flashing across his face before he veers off the path towards the grass, but he is limping too badly to get far. I catch the back of his jacket and yank him towards me, momentum spinning him around so hard that he nearly falls, and he lashes out with one arm. His fist glances past my cheek and mine lands clean across his mouth, the impact jarring through my knuckles as his head snaps backwards and blood sprays across the front of his jacket.

“What the fuck?” he shouts, staggering away from me.

I grab him before he can turn and run again, both fists bunching in the front of his jacket as I drive him backwards until his shoulders slam into the trunk of a tree, making sure to smack him hard enough he’s the one who will bruise. “Which one of you touched her?”

His eyes widen, but he doesn’t answer, and something about the fear in his face only makes me angrier because Ruby must have looked frightened too and that clearly didn’t stop him.

I shove him harder against the bark, my forearm pressing across his chest while he claws at my wrists and tries to wrench free. “The girl you attacked,” I spit. “Which one of you put your fucking hands on her?”

“Get off me!”

He swings again and catches me across the jaw, but I feel nothing. I hit him back, driving my fist into the side of his face hard enough that his knees buckle beneath him. I keep hold of his jacket and drag him upright. “You pathetic, low-life piece of shit.”

“Look, man!” The scumbag strangles out. “Those girls wanted it. They led us there.”

“Shut your mouth!”

I hear Cam crashing into the second man, both of them swear and stumble across the grass.

The man in front of me tries to shove me away, getting one hand flat against my chest, but I knock it aside and hit him again, this time across the mouth, skin splitting over my knuckles as his head turns with the force of it.

They wanted it?

They fucking wanted it?

That’s this piece of shit’s story?

He spits blood onto the grass and tries to turn his face away from me. “I’m telling you, mate, they were both up for it until that psycho bitch started kicking off.”

My grip tightens so hard the fabric bunches into my palms. “That psycho bitch is called Ruby. And you don’t get to speak about her.” I drive my fist into his ribs and feel him fold around the impact, dragging in a broken breath as I keep one hand twisted into his jacket to stop him dropping completely. There is something viciously satisfying about the way his body gives under mine, and I hate that part of myself almost as much as I need it right now.

“I barely touched her!”

That is the wrong fucking thing to say.

My fist catches him across the mouth again and pain finally starts to register in my hand, sharp and hot through the split skin over my knuckles. “You barely touched her?” I repeat, dragging him closer until we’re almost chest to chest. “She was covered in marks.”

He flinches when I raise my hand again, the prick understands fear just fine when it’s him who is being attacked.

“Stay the fuck down!” Cam shouts, followed by a loud thud of knuckles meeting flesh.

Sirens pierce the air and the man stops fighting, looking towards the path, finally realising he’s fucked.

“You hear that?” I taunt, shoving him back against the tree when he tries to twist away. “That’s for you.”

“Mate, come on. It was a little game that got out of hand. Can’t you forget it and let me go?”

I laugh once, bitter and disbelieving. “Not nice when someone decides you’re not going anywhere, is it?”

His face twists. “You don’t know what happened.”