Play The Part (Player Next Door Book 3)

82 | She-Wolf

Welp, this is kind of a big one. Let's call it... savage *pun intended*...

Chapter 82: She-Wolf

I screamed, but the sound didn't come out.

Those seconds replayed in my head like slow motion. Like a horror movie, nightmare in slow motion when everything good in the world breaks.

I felt like a stone had dropped to the pit of my stomach.

Luke staggered but didn't go down, jaw clenched.

She lunged at his hand, trying to get a hold of his phone.

He pulled it back just out of reach, his other arm shooting forward to catch her wrist mid-swipe.

For a second, I was caught between the steps and the rail of his front porch, before I franticly managed to stumble towards the edge. Austin looked around, trying to see what had gotten me this way.

I tore myself free of the porch and ran, the boards shuddering beneath my feet as I hit the clearing.

My mind kept replaying the seconds before she came: how glorious he looked in the setting sun, how happy, how peaceful. Unaware of the shadow bearing down on him.

That image clung to me even as it shattered, replaced by the blur of a masked figure rushing at his back, the golf club raised to strike.

My legs burned as I pushed harder, grass whipping against my shins, the sun flashing in my eyes.

She hit him near his knee.

His knee.

The rage built up inside of me, rage that I didn't realize had been bottling up inside of me. Flight, fight or freeze. I'm a freeze kind of gal.

But my natural instinct to freeze suddenly unlocked.

It morphed into fight.

I leaped onto the she-wolf, arms wrapping myself around her to pull her away and strangle her at the same time. She fell back on me, and we both landed with a painful thud on the ground. She punched me and I kicked at her, feeling her pull at my hair.. I leapt back on her, beating her face with my fists as we wrestled.

She punched me again and I felt a dizziness in my head and pain in my face.

I yelled out, finding a rage that I hadn't quite known was ever inside of me, pouring out of me.

"Let me go!" she screamed out, her voice raw with desperation, "Give me the keys!"

She crawled towards Luke, trying to get his keys.

The golf club lay abandoned in the grass, catching a glint of the fading light.

I snatched it up, the cold metal steady in my hands as I swung it high above my head.

Before I could strike, a grip closed around my waist, lifting me back in one swift motion. I was wrenched away, the club still raised in my arm, rage burning too hot to let go.

I twisted free, my feet slamming into the grass with a heavy thud. Without thinking, I swung the club at the figure behind me, only to see Austin duck at the last second, his head dropping just out of reach of the blow.

"Austin?!" I exclaimed, betrayed that he would stop me.

"Not on your hands," he told me.

In that instant, the she-wolf lunged at Luke again, clawing for the keys to the red truck.

With a sharp twist, Luke turned her momentum against her, forcing her off balance. She hissed through the mask, clawing at him with her free hand, but Luke shifted his weight, driving his shoulder into her and with one shove, he sent her sprawling, where she face-planted onto muddy grass.