Page 2 of His Witness To Protect

On taking her second step, her leg jerked nervously, and she accidentally kicked the metal bucket sitting just beside the door. It clattered against the wall with a resoundingclangthat made Brie freeze. The man whipped around immediately and froze.

Her blood ran cold as she looked into his emotionless, dark eyes and got a good look at his face. He had a thin white scar running from his left eye down to his lip and an extraordinarily large nose in addition to flat, emotionless, cold, black eyes. Inaddition to his pale complexion, all those features worked together to give him a grotesque appearance that made Brie’s mouth dry up.

For a few moments, neither of them moved—apparently shocked by the presence of the other.

The man recovered first. From seemingly nowhere, he whipped out a gun Brie had not noticed before and jumped to his feet, his half-sewn gunshot wound showing a gaping hole in his thigh.

Brie screamed and turned away with only one thought in her head —“Run!”

Instinctively, she dodged and hit her head against the door frame as the first pop sounded from the gun behind her and the bullet buried itself in the door above her head. This was accompanied by the man swearing, “Fucking bitch,” as he made to go after her.

She needed no further motivation. Brie ran.

Head bent low and half-blind with pain, she swerved and ran through the dark backroom, hoping to God that she didn’t miss her footing as she went.

She could hear the man stumbling behind her, apparently slowed down by the wound in his thigh. Her hands shot out in the inky darkness, trying to find balance, until she suddenly burst into the front office, gasping for breath. She slammed and locked the door behind her. Brie continued running just as she heard the man crash into it from behind her.

Wild-eyed, she ran through the building’s doors onto the deserted street, hoping to either run into a police officer on patrol or make it to the police station a few blocks away. She’d never cared much for law enforcement before, but on this night, she desperately wished there were more officers around.

Brie ran and stumbled, half-crazed with fear and adrenaline, until she got to the street intersection, looking back every few minutes for any signs of her pursuer.

This part of the street was busy now. There were a few cars around and a few pedestrians walking. Almost crying with relief, her head throbbed from when she’d hit it earlier. She realized the police station was close now, and she half walked, half ran across the street, and staggered the rest of the way until she got to the police station.

She stumbled through the doors of the police station and fainted.

CHAPTER THREE

When Brie came to, the first thing she noticed was that the bed was harder than hers. Confused, she opened her eyes to the bright-white light of the hospital room. The light made her eyes hurt, and she closed them immediately.

Slowly, she opened them again and took in the scene around her. Her head pulsed steadily, beating a staccato behind her eyes. A police officer was sitting on the chair next to her bed. He was watching her intently, concern lining the edges of his face. He looked to be in his early twenties.

He realized she had awoken and jumped to his feet and placed a hand on her head, carefully caressing it. Brie winced as his cold hand touched the hard bump on her head, and she opened her mouth as if to pour out every detail of the chilling memories of the night before that flashed before her eyes, but she couldn’t say a thing. She was still in shock and took a wild guess that the police officer brought her here after she had barely managed to get through the front door of the station.

“Are you okay?” the police officer asked as Brie stared at him wide-eyed.

His voice had a tone of comfort to it, but Brie still found it hard to say anything. She finally managed to mutter, “Fine,” and the police officer smiled at her. He walked out of the room to get a nurse, and she was discharged almost immediately with an icepack to her head.

On getting to the car, he turned to face her.

“Do you remember anything that happened last night?”

Brie paused for a minute before answering, “A little. I remember being at the shelter, being chased by a strange man.”

She shuddered and continued, “He had a gun and a wound in his thigh.”

The police officer nodded and herded her into the car.

She was taken to the police station and mustered the courage to speak, leaving out no detail when describing the horrific night she had managed to make it out of alive. She gave her detailed statement, and the officers in the station murmured when she mentioned the snake tattoo she had seen on the suspect’s neck. If Brie’s story was as true as she said it was, this case would need to have the backing of the FBI.

The FBI was immediately alerted, and Brie was assigned a bodyguard, who she cozied up to quite easily. He was a regular at the library she worked at, and he made her feel less anxious about the nightmare she had just experienced. She still went back to the shelter that evening to be sure that the animals were all safe and to replace the locks.

She quivered as she walked into the storage room, where she could still picture the bald, shirtless man kneeling and sewing up a bloody hole in his thigh. She felt lightheaded and went back to refill all the animals’ bowls with enough food to last them for the weekend because she knew she might not come back to the shelter soon—at least until Rachel was back.

The next day, Brie felt nervous as she was called back to the police station to meet with the FBI agent assigned to the case. She shook her legs impatiently in the interrogation room, staringat the empty seat in front of her. A few minutes later, a tall, brown-haired man walked in and stood midway between the door and the empty seat he was approaching, obviously surprised.

He stared down at the young lady, eyebrows high.

“Good morning,” she said when she noticed he was staring at her.

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