Page 1 of Fighting for Scarlett

CHAPTER ONE

January 7th

10:59 P.M.

Something snapped Scarlett Madden awake.

Bolting upright, she scanned her dark bedroom.

Nothing moved amongst the shadows, and as much as she strained her ears, she couldn’t hear anything either.

A dream?

That didn't seem to be particularly likely. Sure, her childhood had been rough, but it wasn’t abusive per se, and working for the world-renowned Prey Security she’d seen a lot, but her job was mostly lab work. Nightmares had never been a problem for her, and she doubted she’d randomly had one.

Couldn’t remember one anyway.

She’d just been asleep and now she was awake, and the feeling in her gut said something was off.

While she was a romantic when it came to matters of the heart, in all other aspects of her life, she was every bit the logical, sensible, practical scientist. If she felt like something was wrong, she was going to make sure she was prepared if she was right.

If she wasn’t, then, no harm no foul.

Inching her way closer to the side of her bed where her cell phone was sitting on her nightstand, she tried not to make any noise. She’d grab the phone, then send out a text while she snuck over to her walk-in closet where her weapon was locked in its box.

Positive she was overreacting, Scarlett tamped down on the fear that was rolling around in her stomach. No one was in her house, maybe something had bumped into the window, and that had woken her up. Or it could be the neighbors, they had been known to have huge fights in the middle of the night. She’d had to call the cops a couple of times because she’d been worried one of them was going to wind up in the hospital. Or it could have been a car hitting something in the street. A couple of weeks ago, someone had knocked down all the garbage bins driving drunk.

Or the whole thing was just her imagination.

This was going to turn out to be nothing, and the other women on her team were going to tease her about it for the rest of their lives.

Still, better to be teased than dead.

Just as she reached a trembling hand out to scoop up her cell phone, she heard it.

Footsteps.

Definitely not her imagination.

Someone really was inside her house.

Trying to pretend she wasn’t panicking was completely off the table now. Scrambling, she grabbed the phone and darted across the room and into her closet. Of course, it was the first place any intruder was going to look for her, but all she had to do was text one of her colleagues at Prey, grab her weapon, and then she could hunker down and defend herself till backup arrived.

Defend herself.

She’d never once in her life been in a position where she had to defend herself.

As a kid, she’d had to be mentally prepared for the psychological warfare her family loved to play, but she’d defied them and refused to join the military, instead choosing to fight evil with her brain. Sure, she knew how to shoot and had been taught almost as soon as she could walk. And she knew plenty of self-defense moves, too.

But knowing them and practicing them in a gym wasn’t at all the same as actually having to use them in real life to protect herself.

Just as she reached up on tiptoes to grab the gun lock box, Scarlett heard the door to her bedroom ease open.

They were so close.

She only had seconds to do something before she wound up just another statistic.

If her parents could see her now, they’d be appalled. They had always accused her of being too weak, too soft, of not having what it took to be a warrior. While she would have sworn that their narrowmindedness could no longer affect her it seemed she was wrong. Seconds away from death—if she was lucky a quick death, if not, it would be rape and death—and she was worrying about the fact that as far as her family was concerned, she was nothing but a great big disappointment.

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