Page 79 of Pirate

Pirate shot his gun.

It was like a race’s starter pistol in her brain. Her legs filled with lead, Sophia bolted to her feet and started running.

Sophia wasnota runner. Jasmine often joked that there were only two things in life Sophia would run for: donuts and a clearance sale. She wasn’t wrong. There was a reason Jasmine and she were pro-zombie when the apocalypse came—because neither of them had a desire to run for the rest of their lives! Sophia didn’t train or go to the gym. Hell, the most exercise she’d gotten recently was the continuous and constant sex with Pirate. Technically, that could be considered a cardio workout. But it certainly didn’t make her a marathon runner.

Adrenaline certainly helped. She probably made it further on fear alone than she would have if she just woke up one day and started running.

A stitch immediately pinched at her side. She was trying to talk herself into continuing upward when headlights creased the bridge.

Sophia threw her hand up to block the sudden light. Her feet skidded to a halt and then slid out from under her from the slickness of rain on pavement. She went down hard, jarringher shoulder and elbow. Rain pummeled her face as she tried to catch her breath and focus on her surroundings.

Regaining her feet, she heard a car door open. Looking up, Sophia’s jaw almost dropped. “Fletcher?!”

Her ex was half-in and half-out of his expensive sports car. She had no idea the model type, nor did she care. Fletcher used to talk all the time about This Sports Car or That Sports Car, but it just went in one ear and out the other. Though she could afford ten of them, she did not understand the point of buying an expensive car just because it was expensive. A cheap car got her from Point A to Point B just as effectively as an expensive car.

“Sophia?” Fletcher called back. He had his hand up to his eyes as if to block the rain so he could see better.

She didn’t care if Ted Bundy had just gotten out of that car. She needed help.Pirateneeded help. He was facing who knew how many assailants at the bottom of the bridge—and poor Pumpkin! Who knew if he was even still alive?

Sophia rushed to Fletcher. “I need your phone! Call nine-one-one! There’s been an accident and I…”

Her voice trailed off. Like a chess master suddenly realizing the trap his opponent had set, everything came to focus in perfect clarity. It was so stupid, so simple. And yet, pure Fletcher.

Back in high school, Fletcher used to have two lackeys. They were also jocks who played every sport Fletcher did, but never had any real talent. It was lucky if their asses ever got off of the bench during a game. Any time someone said something derogatory behind Fletcher’s back or a boy liked the same girl as Fletcher, that person would somehow find themselves locked in an enclosed space with those two lackeys. Because Fletcher was incapable of doing his own dirty work.

Though there was no proof, there’d been rumors about Fletcher setting others up to take the fall for his actions. Copyingoff of a test or cheating on a bigger exam. Fletcher was always working some angle.

As Sophia’s feet landed just out of arm’s reach to Fletcher in present time, her mind fell back into the past. She recalled Fletcher getting pissed off that Sophia had dumped him. Did he honestly expect that she would date him and allow him to sleep with other girls? To be the head of his little harem? Of all things to remember just then, Sophia recalled how pissed Fletcher had gotten that she was going to her senior prom with someone else.Aftershe caught him cheating on her. Then how her prom date had ended up in a severe car accident the night of prom and it was later discovered that his brakes had been cut.

Had that been Fletcher? It had to have been. Why hadn’t she put it together until now?

What had Pirate called her recent glitches in the Matrix? Nuisance crimes? That wasexactlywhat Fletcher’s MO was, only he wasn’t the culprit. He always had lackeys or friends, in the loosest sense of the word, doing the jobs for him.

Soof courseFletcher had had alibis for the little things happening to her around town or the nights her Boot Mover had broken into her apartment.Of course, because Fletcher was incapable of taking responsibility for his own actions. And, when he did get in trouble, his daddy always bailed him out.

The man was thirty years old with the exact same habits he’d had at thirteen. Joining the Army hadn’t humbled him in the slightest, hadn’t taught him any life lessons or helped to make him a better person or man.

It was Fletcher. It had all been Fletcher.

He turned his evil glint on her. As she stopped running, he took a step forward. Momentum took her right to him.

Sirens whirled in the background. Her ears perked up at the sound just as Fletcher closed his hand around her wrist. Sophia tried to pull away, but he did have one thing going for him. Hisego to have the perfect body drove him to the gym daily and he had muscle she did not. He pulled her effortlessly towards his car.

Sophia screamed, trying to claw at his skin, his eyes, anything… She planted her feet and locked her knees but only ended up being dragged behind him.

Flashes of red and blue lights rose up on the bridge.

Fletcher turned as if noticing the cops for the first time. He increased his pull on her. Sophia doubled her efforts to break away. She even pulled on his hair like they were in a cat fight at a bar.

Finally, her nail collided with his eyeball. Fletcher roared out in pain, releasing her arm to put a hand over his eye.

Sophia turned and started running back down the bridge. Between the choices of gunmen and Pirate or Fletcher Montague, she’d choose the option that had Pirate in it any day.

Fletcher took her down to the wet pavement. Sophia’s chin scraped along the rough hardness. She cried out in pain. Fletcher’s weight pinned her down. He was so heavy, she was barely able to take an inhale of much-needed oxygen.

Suddenly his weight was gone. Sophia struggled to get to her knees. Two deputies in uniform were wrestling to take Fletcher down. Though he was under them, he was kicking and punching them to keep them from cuffing his wrists.

Sophia stood up and turned, her back to the rail of the bridge. She hadn’t realized she’d gotten so close to the edge of the road.

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