A bleary consultation of my wallet showed that I need not wait until morning to hate the state of my wallet—I detested it right now just fine. As it turned out, it was a good thing my would-be suitor had paid for my third drink. Paying for my first two had left me with almost nothing to my name—certainly not enough to pay for a cab home. Fortunately, I had chosen a bar only a ten minute walk from home. Eminently doable. Even when drunk.

I should have known better. I was only two blocks away when someone slapped a heavy, calloused hand over my mouth while an arm snaked around my waist and bodily dragged me into an alleyway.

“Now now,” a deep voice rumbled in my ear as I futilely tried to scream. “Wouldn’t want anyone interrupting, would we?”

Something slammed into my gut hard, knocking the air out of my lungs. The hand covering my mouth left, but all I could manage before some sort of fabric was crammed in my mouth was a pathetic whimper far short of the cry for help I was trying for. I stumbled and tripped as the person holding me in place shoved me forward, leaving me to painfully land on my hands and knees to avoid my face being smashed. My purse had no such luck, slamming into the ground and sending my things scattering across the dirty alley.

“Man, this is the best you could get?” another masculine voice above me said as I tried to scramble away only to find myself unable to as someone grabbed my waist. “You know I prefer white meat ‘steada this shit.”

“First of ‘em to leave alone,” the first voice replied. “‘Sides, all that matters is what’s under here.”

My heart stopped when I felt my skirt being shoved up. I redoubled my efforts to escape, but even if the man holding me hadn’t far outclassed me in strength, my proximity to the ground made it hard to get enough traction to get away.

“Y’know, you should be thanking us.” My underwear was yanked down. Nonononono—! “The reason you birds turn to each other is because you don’t know what it’s like to be fucked by—”

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The man trailed off into a wet gurgle, and I heard a dull thump behind me while a human head hit the ground in front of me.

I stared through it, past it—unseeing and unable to process.

“What the fu—?!”

Another gurgle, then I fell forward as the arms that had been holding me tightly in place abruptly went slack—forward and onto the human head.

I screamed, the cloth still in my mouth muffling my horrified outcry, as I immediately scrambled away. My front was warm and wet, my hands sticky and tacky. Blood. Blood on me, blood on them, from them, human head, and I— I— I—! Cloth scraping over my tongue, catching on my teeth. I could breathe, but too much, nononononono!

Gentle words, warm words—the good warm, not the sticky, tacky, wet—in my ears. I realized I was shivering, and I huddled into the jacket over me. When…? A dull whoop-whoop caught my ears, together with blue and red that made my eyes ache. Police stood over me, their mouths moving in time with sounds that made no sense.

The lady from the bar was with them, blood in her long, blond hair and her jacket gone.

“—ubo, are you even listening?” one of the men irately grunted.

“For god’s sake, she’s in shock,” the lady from the bar insisted, equally irate, but it wasn’t me she was glaring at as she shivered.

Her jacket was on me, I realized. She had given up her warmth for me. And she was cuffed. Why was she cuffed? Why was her blouse covered in blood?

“And I need a statement. Now, Miss Kubo, did you get a good look at the cape who saved you? Can you describe her?

Her. They thought the lady from the bar had murdered the men who…

“Okay that’s enough,” the cop holding her cuffs said, starting to drag her away. “We’ll sort this out back at the—”

“He was huge,” I blurted, drawing them to a halt. Four sets of eyes looked my way, one of them dead and unseeing on the— No. No, I had to—! “Tossed them around like it was nothing.”

“I see. Is there anything else you can tell us about… him?”

“Was gone too quick.” I couldn’t cobble together a proper lie on the fly when I didn’t know all the pieces, but I knew one piece. My eyes flicked to the lady from the bar. “She came after. Helped me.”

The policemen had more questions for me after, but even if they hadn’t uncuffed her, I could hear the change in their tone. They believed me. I was too tired and couldn’t muster up any halfway intelligent answers, so they thankfully let the matter go. But they insisted on an ambulance and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I was one word away from trying to make a run for it when the lady from the bar took my hand. “I’ll ride with you, Alexia,” she assured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Alexia. Alexia Kubo. The name on my fake ID. Correcting her didn’t seem wise in front of two policemen.

I held onto her tightly.