Why You Shouldn't Antagonize Bad Guys
“Yo! Sexy mama!”
I ignore the voice. Catcalling is just a fact of reality and best ignored. Besides, I just didn’t want to deal with it. Not with the mood I was in. Most people walking around me are still bundled into winter coats. But I’d been born and raised in the Midwest, where winters were harsher than they were here.
So, with the temps hovering between 45 and 50, I’d ditched my winter coat in favor of a comfortable sweater. But as the voice calls out again, I am reminded why wearing a winter coat can also be a blessing. Creeps have a harder time identifying if you’re a woman or not.
Turning my music up, I scowl at the ground. Yesterday, the governor ordered all SUNY campuses to complete the rest of the semester online and the dorms were being shut down. Some students are being granted permission to stay due to ’hardship’. I, however, don’t qualify for that. Which means I somehow need to find somewhere else to live in less than a week. It doesn’t matter to the powers that be that the only reason I still lived in the dorms in the first place, despite being several years older than most of my dorm-mates, is because I can’t afford to live anywhere else.
New York’s cost of living is stupidly expensive, and I was only here until I graduated. But as it is looking, this might force me to move back to Wisconsin. All the way back into my parents’ house, even. It is about the last thing I want to do. I’d literally prefer to live on the streets. Though that isn’t really an option.
A hand grips my upper arm, yanking me to a stop and right out of my gloomy thoughts. Rather than reacting smartly, reacting defensively, I lamely try to yank my arm out of the grip. I’m spun around to face a man who just looks mean. And judging by the emotions I can read coming from him, he isn’t just mean looking. Uh-oh.
“I was talking to you,” the man snarls into my face.
“And I was ignoring you, douchenozzle. Take a fucking hint.” Oh, great way to be Max. Antagonize the asshole.
His face floods with red, his anger practically sparking off him in a kaleidoscope of color only I can see. A soft snick sounds, and I look around to see the man has a friend and this friend just pulled a wicked-looking knife.
“Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker.” The words escape my mouth of their own accord and I follow it up with another useless yank on my arm. “Let me go.”
One of them laughs. It’s never good when they laugh. Another hard yank and the fabric of my sleeve rips free and I stumble back. The man holding the knife is there to catch me, his arm clamping me tight against his chest. I can feel something poking into my ass and I try really hard not to think about it. Panic was bubbling inside of me like a thick yellow sickness.
The man who originally grabbed me moves in, getting all up into my breathing space and gripping my jaw with his fingers. “I think someone needs to teach you some manners.”
My brain finally engages, and I reach up to grip the wrist of the man holding me, pushing desperately against his mind. Hoping against hope, I can nudge him away from what he wants to do. It’s part of my...talents.Though I don’t use it often, mostly because I feel it is rude. But also because pushing too hard leaves me feeling like I’ve shotgunned six beers in a row, all woozy and disoriented.
Unfortunately, he either has his own powers shielding him, or I waited too long to do this. Sometimes, if a person has truly made up their minds, it doesn’t matter how hard I pushed, I would never change it. The telltale weakness sweeps through me, causing my knees to buckle, leaving me to sag in my captor’s grip.
I feel their excitement grow, knowing it’s because they think they have won. And they are right, aren’t they? They drag me off the path and deeper into the shadows as I feel the cold press of metal against my skin.
Suddenly, they are both gone and I drop like a stone. Blinding hot pain shoots through my arm before my head cracks against the ground. It dazes me, and my stomach roils and threatens to revolt as my vision blurs and goes grey around the edges.
“Woah, hey. Are you okay?” I hear a voice speaking above me. Opening my eyes, I struggle to blink away the blurriness as I try to push up. The world spins and I collapse with a groan. There are two faces swimming above me, and I struggle to bring them into focus.
“Hot damn. You guys are fucking hot,” I slur before the world goes black.
