Page 132 of Through the Flames
Even strangers laughed, the way you laugh at a dirty joke you don’t fully understand but don’t want to question. Their laughter swallowed me whole.
My chest squeezed so tight I thought I might splinter.
I was seventeen again, hearing the hiss of lockers slamming as I walked past, catching the words ‘freak’ and ‘whore’ slip like venom into the air. I was seventeen again, standing in the girl’s bathroom while someone wrote “OPEN FOR BUSINESS” on the stall in Sharpie.
Their laughter cracked the silence.
One of them stepped closer, blocking the light from the window. His shoulder brushed mine as if daring me. Another drifted behind me, boxing me in.
“Feisty,” one murmured. “Thought college would’ve cured you of your bad attitude.”
The air thickened. My chest squeezed. I dug my nails into my palms until they ached, but it didn’t stop the panic rising like bile.
Not again. Not here.
I tried to form the words, tried to summon some sharp retort, but my throat was as dry as desert sand. My body remembered it all too well: the stares, the whispers,
and the heat of humiliation crawling under my skin, making me want to tear it off.
The waitress behind the counter didn’t move to help. The men at the bar just watched. No one said a single fucking word. My humiliation was their entertainment, the same as it had always been.
The diner tilted. The voices blurred.
“Look at her,” one sneered. “Still easy.”
My vision went spotty.
And then—
The wall shook.
Hunter.
He was suddenly there, pulling one of them away from me as if he were made of cardboard. Stetson’s body hit the wall with a crack, with Hunter’s arm across his chest, pinning him like an insect.
Another one of them tried to grab Hunter — stupid, really — and he twisted his arm up behind his back until he screamed.
The third froze, wide-eyed, like a deer in headlights.
Hunter’s voice was a snarl, raw and inhuman. “Say her name again. I dare you.”
The entire diner had gone silent. The scraping of cutlery against plates ceased, and the waitress froze mid-pour, causing coffee to spill over the edge of a mug.
Stetson choked under Hunter’s arm. “We—we were just joking—”
Hunter pressed harder. The boy’s face turned red, veins bulging in his neck.
I should have been horrified. Yet, the most I could claim was being frozen in shock. Underneath it, deep down, something dark and secret thrilled at it. The monster was on my side.
Still, he couldn’t. Not here. Not in front of everyone. If he snapped, if he unleashed the violence threatening to boil over, he might end up killing them.
“Hunter.”
My voice cracked. He didn’t move, didn’t even fucking blink.
“Hunter!” I yelled louder this time. His arm felt hot and solid as steel under my palm as I dug my fingers into it. “Please.”
Finally, he looked at me.
