Page 12 of Piece By Piece

“Don’t close your eyes, Aliena. Just keep talking to me until I’m there. Can you tell me more about the person that robbed you?”

“He was hooded. It was too dark to see anything. Um, he has a mean right hook though,” she mumbles, and I don’t like that wobbly sound at all. It doesn’t suit Aliena. She’s loud, and cheery, and obnoxious, most of the time, but she’s not weak and unsure.

Jesus Christ, and did she say he hit her? My hand tightens around my phone and my blood starts boiling, images of Aliena being jumped on her way home. The thought of that taunting, pretty face with even a single bruise make me want to snap.

I’m absolutely killing Mattheo for letting her walk home. And I hope she’s ready for a lecture about how stupid she was to go out alone and unprotected this late. She lives a twenty-minute drive away. By foot and in those ridiculous heels she insists on wearing everywhere, it would take her forever. What was she thinking?

I can hear her take in a choppy breath and realize I stopped talking. “Where did he touch you? What hurts?” I ask even though I sure as fuck don’t want to hear the answer to that.

“Just my face. Just one punch. Nothing new, I don’t know why I’m feeling so bad.” I’m too busy worrying about how slurred her words are to stumble over the nothing-new part. That only registers when I’m in my car, racing down the street way over the speed limit.

I’m sure there are better things to ask or talk about now. Still, it bothers me too much to drop so I promt, “Nothing new?” It takes a second until eventually, I get a reply in the form of a crashing sound and a thud that reminds me waytoo much of a body hitting the ground. My heart misses a beat. “Aliena? Hey, what happened? Are you okay?”

There’s no reply. I accelerate my car further, scanning the sides of the road as best as I can in my search for that stupid booth.

“Aliena? Come on, answer me,” I urge her. “I’m almost there. I’ll be with you in a second and then we’ll get that pretty head of yours checked at the hospital, okay? You’re gonna be okay. I’ll pick you up in a sec. Can you hear me? Just make a sound so I know you’re still there.”

It’s useless for me to keep talking, and I know it. But the thought of her passing out in that creepy old booth makes me feel sick with worry and I don’t know what else to do. She said she didn’t hit her head. She shouldn’t have passed out, for fuck’s sake.

Finally, after excruciating minutes, I see the tall frame of the telephone booth and my car screeches to a halt. I don’t bother to turn it off, letting the lights give me a better view as I run for it but a movement to the right of it catches my eye and I nearly trip over my feet when I recognize what I’m looking at.

“Hey! Get your hands off her!” I yell at the strange lady dragging my friend away by her armpits.

At my words, the stranger’s head snaps up and she drops my friend, letting her head fall to the ground as she shies away from me, looking terrified. She fiddles with something in the waistband of her pants and finally pulls out a small gun, pointing it at me. I slow down.

“Don’t come any closer! Get away from us!” the woman yells. It’s just now that I see that she must be even younger than me. In her late teens, at most. The weapon is trembling in her hand.

“Listen, that’s my friend you’re dragging over the ground. I’m asking you again to step away and put that gun down, please. I won’t hurt you.”

The girl looks unsure but shakes her head, lifting her chin a little. “No, I won’t let you take her! Not without proof. I live over there and I heard her call for help. That’s what I’m doing,” she tells me. I relax a little further. At least she’s no danger to Aliena, and I respect her for coming outside in the dead of night after hearing someone call for help. Alone, at that.

“Okay, I’m glad you wanted to help. I can show you that she called me from the booth, okay? I can show you the number,” I say, carefully holding my phone out more. It’s still in my hand from when I tried talking to Aliena.

The girl nods and I carefully walk closer, showing her the strange number at the top of my calls list. With a relieved sigh, her shoulders drop and she lowers the gun. “Thank god, I had no idea what I was doing. Can you take her to the hospital, please?” she asks, looking even younger now.

“Of course. And thanks for looking out for her.” I’m glad she wasn’t ready to hand a passed-out woman to just some shirtless man that randomly showed up on this abandoned street. I must look like a maniac. In my hurry to get to Aliena, I completely forgot about throwing on a shirt.

My eyes drop to the girl on the ground and every bit of relief I briefly felt vanishes as I crouch down at her side, cradling her head and thin shoulders. “Aliena, baby? Can you hear me?” I ask quietly, weirdly aware of the stranger observing us from behind me. It’s unsettling to have my back turned to an armed person. Not that I think the girl will attack me.

I curse under my breath at the feel of my friend’s icy skin and wrap her up in my arms to lift her up. Her head rolls against my naked chest and when I look down, something fierce grabs ahold of me. My stomach is in knots and chills have spread over my skin at the subzero temperature and yet, my chest feels warm.

I shove that realization to the side and turn back to my car without wasting any more time. “Have a good night,” I tell the girl as I start striding away with long steps. The first thing I do inside the car is turn up the heat. Then I get a good look at her split lip, instantly wishing I hadn’t looked at all.

I can’t believe she was attacked and injured. I also can’t believe she called me, of all people. Especially after how much of a dick I was earlier.

I turn on my car and start racing again, heading to the hospital. “I’m so sorry this happened. You’re safe now. We’re almost at the hospital where they’ll take good care of you,” I promise her uselessly.

At least I take a bit of comfort in the fact that her face looks fine other than the split lip, though I don’t like that she passed out in that tight booth and how the girl later let her head drop. Still, my best guess is that she passed out from adrenaline or a mixture of different factors. I’m sure she’ll be okay.

She’ll be fine.

Chapter 8

Sebastian

Last August

“Dude, stop speeding just because you can afford the fine. I don’t know about the others, but I’m too pretty to die and we’re not even in a hurry. Slow the fuck down,” Mattheo whines from the backseat, earning himself another one of those laughs from Aliena.

---