Page 21 of Guarded By Atlas

Atlas would never hurt anyone.

Well, he nearly choked a man to death, but that’s because said man had a knife pressed against my throat. For the second time. It could be argued that the first was a case of mistaken identity, but this time around, he knew fully well whose throat it was he was dangerously close to slicing. Of course Atlas would take offense to that.

He looks up, and when his eyes lock with mine, I consider calling my parents for help. I never ask them for anything, but for the first time since moving out to live on my own, I want to call them so they can get Atlas the best lawyer money can buy before these people send him to jail.

“Miss Hale,” the officer speaks, his voice pulling my eyes from Atlas and back to him. “Tell me what happened after the man pressed the knife to your throat.”

“He…” My voice trails off when I realize there’s surveillance in the hallway. “The camera in the hall must have caught it. You can’t arrest Atlas when you see why he did what he did.”

“I need to take your statement,” the cop says patiently. “What happened?”

Right.

“He grabbed me and forced me to pull my keys from my purse and unlock the door,” I say, recalling how I hadn’t made a sound, frozen in place, worried that even the slightest move would startle the man into making a mistake and hurting me. Then I realized how dumb my though process was. The man was dragging me into my apartment where hardly anyone would hear me once the door was closed. “He said he was going to make me pay for associating with the Reb–”

My mouth clams shut, unsure how much I am supposed to reveal to the cop. “We’re well aware of the troubles between the Steel Rebels and the Chrome Vipers.”

Right.

“Okay, so, uh, he was angry that I was associating with the Rebels and said he’d make me pay.” A delusional thought that would have made me laugh if the man hadn’t been threatening to hurt me. “I knew he was going to kill me, and I didn’t want to go quietly, so I’d screamed, hoping the neighbors would hear me and before he could shut the door. Atlas heard and…stopped him.”

“We know by his jacket he’s a Rebel. Is he a neighbor?”

“No, he’s a…um… We’re close,” I finish lamely, unsure of how to label our relationship when I don’t understand it myself. One second the man was pushing me away and creating space between us, and the next, he was a vicious wolf, tearing at the man who tried to hurt me. “You can’t arrest Atlas. He was only trying to protect me.”

“It looks like he did more than that.”

“He was trying to protect me,” I say again, more firmly this time. “When he walked in, there was a man with a knife to my throat threatening to take the life of a person he cares about. If he’d hesitated even for a moment, this would be a different kind of investigation.”

The cop nods, noting something down before looking up to meet my eyes. “Alright then, Miss Hale, we’ll call you to the station to record your statement again.”

“He’s not under arrest, is he?

The cop turns around to his colleague, and they exchange a look. “We’ll investigate the incident and keep you updated on the case.”

He asks a few more questions, and it feels like hours before everyone finally clears out of my apartment, taking with them my assailant and his weapon. It all feels surprisingly anticlimactic. Atlas and I find ourselves staring at each other from across the room, and despite the urge to go to him and lean into his warmth, I keep my distance.

“Are you okay?” he asks, taking a step forward, but stops when I wrap my arms protectively around myself.

“I’m fine,” I say, inching closer to the sofa and lowering myself down to it. “How’s your hand? If it hurts I can—”

“It doesn’t.”

The air is awkwardly painful, but there’s no ignoring the elephant in the room. “What do you want from me, Atlas?”

“Nothing, I just want you—”

“If you did, then you wouldn’t have left.” I wince at the hurt that flashes in his expression before he carefully pulls it back. It’s not that I blame him for not being here with me when I was attacked, but it stings that he created the distance between us in the first place.

“I’m sorry—”

“Why?”

“I thought it was the best thing to do, Marie,” he says, those moss green eyes locking on mine when he speaks. “For Christ’s sake, you’re young, with a whole lot of life ahead of you. Selfishly, I want to tie you to me, lock you away from the world so that no other man dares look your way. Hell, I wanted to tear that man into pieces, and I would have if you hadn’t stopped me. Doesn’t it scare you that I wouldn’t regret it if I killed him or anyone else who dared touch you?” His eyes flash. “At twenty-four, I don’t imagine you want to spend your weekends at home watching TV or reading some boring book or walking around town with an obsessed lover who doesn’t trust other men around you.”

“I… You…”

He laughs. “Even the thought of it terrifies you, doesn’t it? You can look at me.”

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