Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
But the distraction was just what the men needed. One of them swung at him. His fist connected with Crow’s face, making him let go of the first guy’s hand. Before he could do much to defend himself, the biggest of the three tried to tackle him. His arm went around Crow’s waist, body slamming into him. They stumbled into the shelves, food packages falling to the floor.
The commotion was enough to send people running their direction. Two male store workers and another guy went straight for Crow, pulling him off the other guy. He was fighting like crazy to get away from them, snarling and growling. One of the thugs went to hit him again, but I threw myself between them.
“No. Stop.”
“Get the fuck out of the way.”
“Fuck you,” I replied. No way was I going to let them hit Crow again. There were how many of them there?
“Listen,” the first guy said, cradling his arm, “you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. This piece of shit is—” He stopped when two police officers came running.
“What’s going on here?” one of them asked—Officer Paulson, per his badge.
“This motherfucker tried to break my hand!” The guy held up his swollen limb.
The men who held Crow let him go. I was surprised he didn’t speak then, but he didn’t try to walk away either.
“They started it,” I said. “They approached him, angry that he’s here. Crow was only shopping. He pushed Crow, who grabbed him in self-defense.”
“That’s not… We didn’t…” the men stumbled over their words.
One of the men who’d held Crow back said, “He don’t belong here, but they were the ones that tackled him.”
“He does too belong here,” I snapped. Jesus Christ. What was wrong with people?
The other officer—Dirk—said, “You can’t keep outta trouble, can you? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Crow didn’t speak, but I felt the blast of heat shoot off him.
Officer Paulson sighed. “Billy, the three of you are always causing trouble. You never leave him alone. You don’t think we know what happened here?”
“He almost broke my fuckin’ hand!” the guy I guessed was Billy hollered.
“You know there are cameras here. Are you going to make us go watch the video?” Paulson asked, and this was the strangest engagement with the police I had ever seen. Was this what happened in small towns?
Officer Dirk shot Crow an angry look before turning to the others. “You know he’s not going to press charges, but the three of you are all on probation. I’m sure if you all get this mess cleaned up, we can all walk away from this without anyone getting into trouble.” He was trying to protect Billy and his friends, even knowing they’d pushed Crow first, and hell, maybe they were just being lazy too, not wanting to fill out the paperwork.
“Stay the fuck on your mountain, freak.” Billy spat at Crow’s feet. He tried to lunge again, but the officers stepped in front of him.
Dirk crossed his arms. “You don’t want to do that.” Then he turned to Crow. “Don’t think we did this to protect you. We just don’t need any more negative attention in Tranquility. Why don’t you go up that mountain where you belong?”
“He has the same right to be here as anyone else,” I defended. Crow shot me a seething look, and I took a step back on reflex.
“Dirk,” Paulson said, warning in his voice, surprisingly, maybe because he too believed Crow had the right to stay here if he wanted.
Dirk held up his hands and chuckled. “I’m only trying to help.”
No, he wasn’t. He was being a dick. They were clearly a good cop/bad cop duo, and Dirk was the asshole.
Crow didn’t respond to anyone, sending me another angry glare before walking away.
“What’s your name?” Officer Dirk asked.
“Cyrus Evans.” I stood taller. If he was trying to intimidate me, that wasn’t going to happen. I’d been on the streets, around drug dealers and other really bad people. The only thing he could do that I hadn’t had done to me was hurt me in legal ways, but like everything in my life, I would come back from that too…or I wouldn’t, and that was something I was willing to accept as well.
“You’re new in Tranquility?” He quirked a brow.
“You know I am,” I countered.
He gave me a fake grin in return. “Welcome. We’re happy to have you.”
I bet he was.
Paulson said, “Could you write down your information for me? And we’ll be in touch if we need anything.”
I took the notepad from him, wrote down my name, cell number, and address, before grabbing Crow’s cart and pushing it to mine. The workers cleaned up, the officers talking to each other while I took all the items from Crow’s cart and put them in mine.
This kind of thing had apparently happened before, so Crow would likely come down and buy what he needed another day or go somewhere else to get it, but I damn sure was going to try and make it so he didn’t have to do that.