Keeper(10)

I let out the breath I was holding. You’re just stressed. An aftereffect from the test this morning. A figment of your imagination.

The voice of reason was back, soothing me with exactly what I wanted to hear, but the feeling coiling in my gut was hard to ignore. Just seeing things, the voice whispered.

“Am I?” I grumbled, shaking my head.

Trying to ignore the uneasiness that wrapped around me, I turned my attention back to my phone. I had barely swiped my finger across the screen when loud shouting and the clanging of trash bins startled me so much I dropped my phone with a smack on the concrete sidewalk.

Hissing under my breath, I scooped the phone off the pavement, praying to the Goddess of Expensive Cellular Products that the screen wasn’t busted. Thankfully, it wasn’t. The noise was coming from the tiny alleyway in between one of the antique shops and Auntie Marmalade’s House of Fritters.

I turned to see what all the commotion was about and caught a flash of white as a body went flying up against one of the brick walls. I gasped and rushed over for a closer look. I glanced around, but no one else seemed to notice what was happening.

At the end of the alley, there was a group of guys shuffling around, throwing punches and cursing loudly. I watched the majority form a lose circle around a single fighter wearing a leather jacket and dark gray t-shirt. Three against one. They were circling around the boy in gray, taunting and jeering. It reminded me of how a house cat toys with its prey before consuming it.

The boy in gray took off his jacket and tossed it behind him. He stood with his back to me, his body rigid and tense. What’s he doing? Why doesn’t he run?

Before I had time to question it further, the boy launched himself into the fray with a battle-like cry that reverberated off the brick walls. In less than a second, he punched his nearest opponent in the chin, sending him flying backward into the chain-link fence that blocked off the back entrance of the alley. Then he turned and jabbed a second boy in the stomach before delivering a quick blow to the boy’s face. The boy shrieked as blood poured from his nose.

I couldn’t move from my spot on the sidewalk. I was glued to the fight, watching as the boy in gray whirled around, his movements lithe and graceful. He was outnumbered, but far from outmatched. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the fight. His laughter contrasted jarringly with the shouts of the other boys.

The fight continued, the other boys refusing to back down, though it seemed they were no match for the boy in gray—despite their advantage in number. Suddenly, two of the larger boys grabbed the boy in gray from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. He struggled but was unable to pull free. The last boy, tall with stringy blond hair, the apparent leader of the group, grabbed something off the ground: a piece of silver that glinted slightly in the dim light. It looked like a sharp piece of metal, a fragment from a broken pipe.

My stomach did a somersault, and my feet were already moving by the time my brain decided to catch up. “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey!”

The boys at the end of the alley all turned to look at me, their faces a mixture of shock and confusion. “Shit,” I said. Now what, Styles?

It was just enough of a diversion, though, and the boy in gray took advantage of it, throwing his body weight backward and slamming his captors into the brick wall behind them. The blond boy lunged forward, swiping the piece of metal through the air, but his arm was easily deflected by the boy in gray. The two began to grapple, the silver of the pipe slicing through the air.

“Shit!” I said again. I took a step forward, though I had no idea what I planned to do.

Half my mind was already supplying me with visions of the murder I was surely about to witness, and the other half was screaming at me to stop staring like an idiot and call the cops.

I had one foot poised to take another step when the back door to Auntie Marmalade’s opened and Auntie Marmalade herself came pouring out yelling like a banshee and swinging her rolling pin as if it were a baseball bat.

The three boys, the leader with the pipe and his two minions, scattered like ants, running in all directions. Two of the male servers who worked for Auntie Marmalade—they looked more like bouncers, really—took off after them.

The boy in gray, however, was standing still amid the chaos staring right at me. He took a step forward and when his face hit a patch of sunlight, I let out small gasp. I recognized him.

The boy in gray was Ty, the guy I had met two nights ago at the comic book shop.

I stood there staring at him, not knowing whether I should wave like we were old pals or pretend I didn’t have a clue who he was. He was taller than I remembered, and I couldn’t help but admire his broad shoulders and the way his tangled, almost too-long black hair was sticking to his forehead and curling around his ears and the nape of his neck.

He didn’t break my gaze, but one corner of his mouth quirked up into a grin. The smile lasted only a second and was replaced with a furrowed brow, but it still made my heart do a little jig.

With a small inclination of his head, the boy walked right past Auntie Marmalade, still brandishing her rolling pin, and stalked over to the fence at the end of the alley. Without a single look back, he hopped over the chain link and headed toward the opposite road.

I blinked

What just happened? Why did Auntie Marmalade let him pass? Did she know him?

“Are you all right, ma’am?” One of the servers was standing at my elbow looking concerned.