Page 98 of Almost Ours

“Mind your own business,” the first one spits.

“She’s my mate,” the other adds, even though the girl immediately shakes her head again.

I take another step forward, making sure they can see that I’m not leaving. “She just said she wants to go home.”

“Will you fuck off?” the first man snarls, his hand tightening around her arm. “We told you she doesn’t need help.”

The girl tries to duck beneath his other arm, but he moves with her and cuts her off, while the second man turns towards me with this horrible smile and starts stalking over.

I force myself to look at him while I still can, taking in the dark brown hair, blue eyes, stubble, black jacket and jeans, because if this gets worse I’m remembering his fucking face.

“Have you come to join us?” He slurs, closing the distance between us. “You want in on the fun?”

“No fucking way!” I scream.

“Will you keep it down?” He reaches me and grabs my arm before I can step back, but instinct takes over and I twist hard against his thumb the way I was taught, wrenching myself free with enough force that he stumbles backwards. A ridiculous little burst of pride shoots through me before he catches himself and comes straight back towards me, making it very clear that whatever confidence I got from breaking his grip was wildly premature.

“Don’t be a bitch,” he hisses, converging on me. “Four is a party.”

Before I can open my mouth, he lunges, both arms wrapping around my chest and pinning my back against his chest before he drives me into the tree. My cheek smashes against the trunk hard enough that pain bursts through the whole side of my face and my vision swims. For one harrowing, horrible stretch of time everything becomes sound—the scrape of bark against my skin, his breath right beside my ear, the girl crying somewhere behind us, the other man shouting something I can’t make out.

No.

No, this cannot be another thing that happens to me.

I don’t know whether the thought makes me angry or whether my body is simply doing what it was trained to do, but I stop thinking altogether and stamp my heel down onto his foot as hard as I can. He swears and his hold loosens, which gives me room to slam my elbow backwards into him, then again when he tries to tighten his arms, until his body curls slightly behind mine and I manage to wrench myself sideways.

My head goes back with the movement and connects with his face, hard enough that pain bursts through my skull, but he finally lets go and stumbles away from me with both hands flying upwards.

I don’t get to see where I’ve hit him because the other man is coming straight towards me.

“Run!” I shout at the girl. “He’s no longer got you!”

But she is frozen in place, like a deer in headlights, frozen through her terror.

The first man is shouting about teaching me a lesson and when he gets to me he swings one arm so wildly I throw both forearms up over my face. His fist crashes into them instead, sending pain shooting towards my elbows, but all I can think is that Mum paid a fortune for those self-defence classes and I’m finally getting her money’s worth, because before he can draw his arm back I punch him straight in the nose.

His head jerks backwards and both his hands fly to his face, blood appearing between his fingers. I bring my knee up between his legs, getting him straight in the bollocks.

He folds with a strangled noise, dropping forwards while I scramble backwards, putting distance between us and trying desperately to get air into my lungs. My hands are shaking violently, my cheek is throbbing and there’s pain running through both arms, but they aren’t touching me anymore and neither of them is standing between the girl and the path.

“Run!” I scream at her again. “Come on, fucking run!”

She doesn’t move, only stares at me with huge, wet eyes while her whole body trembles, so I grab her wrist and pull her away from the tree before either of them has time to get back on their feet.

“We have to go!” I urge.

Her trainers drag through the grass and for the first few steps I’m doing most of the work, hauling her with me while she trips over herself and crashes into my shoulder, then she catches her balance and starts moving under her own steam. I keep hold of her wrist anyway, too scared she’ll freeze again if I let go, and drag her towards the narrow opening between the bushes that leads back to the main path.

“Come on,” I pant. “Keep moving.”

Branches scrape against my arms as we squeeze through the cut-through, one catching in my ponytail, yanking my head backwards, but I tear myself free and keep going.

Behind us, one of the men starts shouting, his voice sending a rush of fear through me, followed by the crack of something underfoot and a string of swearing that tells me at least one of them is moving again.

I don’t turn around.

I don’t want to know how close they are.