Page 8 of Protected

I’m curling up on my side and trying to relax when the bed shifts. Someone has climbed onto the top bunk.

I stick out my head to see that it’s Deck.

He eyes me as he unhooks his belt and holsters.

“I’m sure Logan didn’t mean you have to attach yourself to me every single minute,” I tell him. “It will be fine for you to sleep over there somewhere.” I gesture toward the other side of the showroom where more of the men are settled.

Deck doesn’t answer. He also doesn’t move.

With a loud sigh, I pull myself back into my bunk.

It doesn’t matter. He can sleep up there if he wants. Even if he snores, I’m so tired it probably won’t bother me. Logan told him to look out for me, and that’s what he’s doing.

He doesn’t care that I don’t really want him to.

I wake up in the middle of the night.

Hal and I figured out how to tell the general time by the night sky, but I have no view of it when I open my eyes. It takes me longer than it should to remember where I am and what I’m doing in a real bed with real covers.

By the time I figure it out, I’m also conscious of one other thing.

I really need to pee.

Getting up at this time of night wouldn’t be my first option. I don’t want to wake anyone else. I don’t want to go outside alone. I don’t want anyone to notice me. Maybe I won’t have to. After all, it might be close to morning, in which case I’d only have a little while to wait.

So I lie in place for several minutes until I can’t think of anything except peeing. Then I finally crawl out of my bed, careful not to make any noise.

Deck is asleep in the top bunk. I know because I squint through the dark to see. His big body is stretched out on top of the covers. He’s still wearing all his clothes except his shoes and his belt. And his breathing is slow and even.

I turn away, tiptoeing through the closely positioned furniture and avoiding the area where the others are sleeping.

I go out one of the exits—it used to be a door but is now just an opening—and duck behind an overturned van to crouch and pee.

It only takes a minute.

Toilet paper is a luxury I’ve long since lost, so I do my normal shake-off before I pull up my leggings.

I step out from around the van and run smack into Pete.

I know it’s Pete because of the smell, even before I jerk backward. I did bring my pistol with me—I’m not entirelywithout sense—but I’m so surprised it takes me too long to move it into position.

He’s on me before I can react at all. He obviously followed me because he’s not surprised like I am. He was lying in wait.

He takes the pistol from my hand and tosses it aside, and then he grabs me and turns me around, pushing my face against the back hatch of the van.

I’m too shocked to scream. To do anything. He yanks the waistband of my leggings and pulls so hard he rips them. He holds me in place by one hand on the back of my neck as he mutters, “Time for you to learn what a real man feels like.”

It’s sickening. Horrifying. Everything inside me is screaming to fight—lash out, get away—but I’m trapped in a weird, terrified trance. And I can’t do anything.

Except wonder if this is really happening because it’s all so sudden and surreal.

I know—I know, Iknow—what to expect now. But what happens next isn’t that.

I sense a rush of motion. Maybe running feet on pavement. Then Pete is suddenly jerked away from me. When I whirl around, I see why.

It’s Deck. He’s pulled Pete off me and thrown him several feet away.Thrownhim. The greasy man has landed in a messy heap on the cracked pavement of the old parking lot.

I have the sense to make a dash for my gun as Deck goes after Pete again, hauling him up by the front of his shirt only so he can land a powerful punch.

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