Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(8)

“Better the evil I know?” she responded with a smirk. The look and the tone of her voice didn’t match her eyes, though—there was fear there. It was entirely possible I was a bit too blunt, but that shit was also true.

“Something like that, but you don’t know me, either.” I smirked right back.

“You’re my hero,” she said but seemed to immediately regret the words. She looked away from me, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed.

She had a beautiful neck—long and pale. I could see the outline of her carotid artery as it pulsed just under her skin. Her heart rate was still a little higher than normal, and I wondered if I was the cause of her current fear. I tried to put her at ease, at least as much as she could be at ease in the dark street with a guy she didn’t know minutes after she was attacked.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I told her. She nodded but didn’t look up. “I’m just going to make sure you get home safely, okay?”

“Okay,” she said flatly.

I wondered if she was going to go into shock or something. I definitely needed to get her behind a locked door as quickly as possible so she could relax again. I hoped, since she was walking, she wouldn’t have too far to go.

“Where do you live?”

“Just around the corner,” she replied as she collected the last few items from the pavement and added them to the collection in the monster-bag. “A few blocks to the left. You don’t have to go out of your way—”

“I know the area,” I interrupted. “I’m walking you home.”

I wasn’t asking anymore, and she didn’t try to fight it. I picked up my gym bag, and she picked up her purse. I thought about putting a shirt on, but then I remembered I had dropped it back at Feet First. Considering Yolanda’s comment about how it smelled, maybe that was for the best. Besides, I was still warm from the exertion, and it wasn’t more than a ten-minute walk home.

I grabbed a couple of the other items that had been hanging out near my feet—packets of salad dressing, a tube of lipstick, and something else round—shit, a f*cking tampon—and handed them to her without meeting her eyes. She took them quickly, mumbled a thank you, and shoved them into the huge, practically overflowing handbag.

She stood up and looked at me, and her eyes got big again.

“You got hurt!” she said as she lifted her fingers up toward my temple and then pulled away without touching me.

I reached up and felt the little cut above my eye and snickered.

“They didn’t touch me,” I assured her. “That was from work.”

“Work?”

“Yeah, I’m a fighter.”

She paused and her eyebrows screwed together.

“A what?”

“A fighter,” I repeated. “You know—two guys in a cage beating the shit out of each other.”

“In a cage?” she asked with disbelief.

“Yep.” I stated it simply and without making a grandiose noise out of the final consonant because that would just sound stupid.

“For real?”

“Yeah, for real.” I laughed.

“I thought that was just on TV.”

“We all have to start somewhere,” I muttered.

“Sorry,” she said. She wrapped the strap of her bag around her neck and shoulder.

“What for?”

“I didn’t mean to be…insulting.”

“I’m not insulted.”

“Oh…well, okay then.” She ran her teeth over her bottom lip and looked down the dark street. I was pretty sure she shuddered a little.

“Let’s get you home,” I commanded as I started walking.

She nodded, and I walked next to her as she headed off in the same direction I usually walked home anyway. She kept her fingers wrapped around the strap of the huge bag and continued to stare at the ground as she walked.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“Do what?” Her eyes met mine for a moment.

“Look at the ground,” I said. “You aren’t paying attention to your surroundings, so it makes you an easier target.”

“Oh,” she responded. At first she looked right back to the ground again, but then she seemed to process what I had said and held her head a little higher.

“Where are you from?”

“What makes you think I’m not from here?”

“You aren’t from the city,” I stated.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes,” I snickered. “Girls from around here know better than to walk alone, except the hookers, but that doesn’t seem your style.”

She glared at me out of the corner of her eye.

“I’m from Maine,” she said with a tone that told me I had just about reached my question quota.

“You’re a long ways from home,” I said. “How long have you lived here?”

“Two weeks,” she answered. “I’m going to school here.”

“You got a name?” I asked.

“Of course I have a name,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “It’s Tria. Tria Lynn. You?”

“Liam Teague,” I told her, and I held out my hand. She took it, shaking it briefly before she nearly tripped over her own feet on the flat ground. “I hope you don’t chew gum.”