Flower Ch. 04

Somehow, my body wasn't entirely frozen from shock and I wasn't completely overwhelmed by fear. Somehow his angry words about upper-class and riches started that inexplicable anger inside of me, that heated my blood and loosened my tight muscles. He had me locked to the floor by the weight of his body, pressing my arms painfully to the floor with his hard knees, but I wasn't going to just lie there and let him do any of the things he was telling me he'd do.

When he crawled down my body and started tearing at my clothes, I reached out with my freed left hand to find something that could help me escape. A quick sweep gave me a block of wood, a yoga aid of some sort, that I gripped tightly and as he turned his efforts to unbuttoning his own clothes, I managed to sneak my right hand up to grip my weapon more securely with both hands. I screamed as I hit him on the head, putting all of my strength into that one effort. When he fell away from me I quickly crawled away, stood up and started running. I made it out of the room, out through the reception area and out the, thankfully, unlocked door.

I stumbled out onto the sidewalk, straight into the arms of a dark shadow.

"Out of the ashes, into the fire" was the last thing I thought before my head started spinning. "Nooo, I have to get away..." was the words that accompanied me into darkness as my mind gave up its fight to keep me conscious.

* * * * *

I heard a noise and turned around just in time to see a woman running quickly out through a door, just a few steps down the street. With just one look I was able to take in her torn clothes, her shoeless feet, her frantic movements and the fear that was shining out her eyes. Without conscious thought I took the few steps I needed to be able to catch her before she ran straight out into the traffic. I then quickly turned around to see what she was running from, preparing to stop whoever or whatever it was.

A blonde, obviously angry man came out the door and I lifted my head up to stare at him, just as the woman I was holding fainted. I grabbed her under the arms to keep her upright and continued staring at the man who had stopped abruptly as he saw me; sometimes wearing a uniform did come in handy.

"I suggest you stop right there," I told him, using my most commanding voice "and I'll talk to you in just a few minutes."

I lifted the woman up and carried her to my car, glad that it was parked just a few cars away. I stared over my shoulder at the man, making sure he didn't do anything foolish, like run away or throw himself at me. Part of me almost wished he would try something, so the anger that was flowing through me would get some sort of outlet, but the smarter and slightly less violent part of me was still in control. My first priority was to protect the woman, my second to find out what had happened, my third to make sure it didn't happen again.

As I eased the woman gently into the passenger seat of my car, I realized I recognized her. She was the woman I had rescued just a few weeks ago, and in almost exactly the same place as today; what were the odds of that happening? I had thought more than once about the way I had treated her, regretting that I had snapped at her, that my previous experiences had made me assume things about her that I had no way of knowing if they were true or not. It was just as she had said, I didn't know her well enough to judge her one way or the other.

I made sure she was sitting up, secured the seatbelt, closed the door and went back to talk to the man, my anger swimming strongly just under a not much calmer surface after I had carefully catalogued her torn clothes. If there was one thing I hated more than anything, then it was abusive men. I couldn't stand men that mistreated women in any way, shape or form.

I took a few deep breaths as I jogged back; I had to get my anger under control.

"She attacked me," the man called out to me as I was still a few steps away "she came on to me, and when I told her I wasn't interested she got aggressive."

"And you tore her clothes off as a way of protecting yourself?" I couldn't help saying.

"She tore her own clothes off, and then she ran out screaming for help!" he answered, his answers sounding well-rehearsed or almost as if he was reading a script.

I wondered how many times he had been caught with his hand in the jam pot, how many times he had had to defend himself against women's claims that he had molested them. He sounded well-versed in the art of deflecting police attention, and that made me even angrier.

"She's the wife of one of the more prominent men of this town," he continued, now with a cocky smile on his face "and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want me to spread my story about how she couldn't get what she wanted from her rich husband, so she tried to get it from me instead."

I started counting down from one hundred, managing my anger as I had been taught to do, many years ago now. This sleazy scumbag wasn't going to make me lose my temper. I gritted my teeth against the angry words that were hanging on the tip of my tongue. I loosened my hands that kept wanting to go into tight fists.

"You're saying she came on to you?" I said, my voice surprisingly calm and steady "Where are her clothes, her shoes and her purse then? No woman would leave her home without shoes and a purse, would she?"

"They're in here, where she attacked me..." the man said, smiling victoriously.

We walked into a sunny reception area, where I could read about the activities and classes the place had to offer, thinking that the treatment the man in front of me had just been giving the woman probably wasn't openly advertised.

With expert eyes I took in the scene of the lunch room in front of me. Her purse was standing in the corner of the big L-shaped sofa, her shoes were lying a few steps away on the open floor, a strange square wooden block a few feet further away. There were just a few signs of some sort of struggle, a corner of the soft rug by the sofa was folded, the sofa table was standing slightly off-center and a coffee mug had spilled its contents on the table. There were no obvious signs to either prove or disprove the man's story.

I thought about my options, my angrier side telling me to get the man down to the station, to make sure he was locked up and out of the way, my more mature side telling me that getting the woman safely away from there probably would be the best way of protecting her. I quickly decided that getting the unconscious woman to hospital was more important than letting my anger out on the man in front of me. I walked into the room and collected the woman's purse and shoes, before I turned to the man again.

"I'm going to need to know your name and the name of the woman," I told him "and I'm going to have to ask you to not leave town in the next few days."

"My name is Josh Walden and her name is Rose Bannister, of the famous Bannister family" he told me with a smirk "and you don't have to worry about me leaving town, not in the next few weeks at least..."

I managed to cover the shock that his revelation gave me, that was Rose Bannister? I turned away and walked out of the room when his next comment made me stop and turn back.

"I hope you'll make sure she'll be punished for what she has done to me!" he said, his words distinctly smug, pleased and malicious at the same time.

I wiped the smile from his face with one swift blow from my right fist. Sometimes loosing you temper was just what was called for in a situation like this.