12 Seconds (#1 in Military series)

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 

Julia pushed the last few piece of bacon and fried toast around her plate with the fork; she didn’t feel like eating it but she didn’t want to leave either.

So she simply sat there with her head bent forward and her long dark hair creating a curtain between her and the rest of the world.

Her small town was rather a tourist destination so there were plenty of small cafes around offering breakfast and she was one of the first few in the door.

The walls were tiled and the chairs were bright yellow but the staff didn’t ask questions and people left her alone.

At least, most people left her alone.

“Hey there,” a man slurred as he rested his hands against the side of her table and leaned in until his putrid whisky breath made her crinkle her nose, “Fancy grabbing a coffee?”

“No,” Julia spoke in a monotone, not even looking at him as she lifted her fork to her mouth and slipping in a small piece of toast.

“Come on,” The man with three days’ worth of stubble and dry eyes grinned, the corner of his mouth tilting up in a smirk, “We could get crazy,” He started to chuckle softly when Julia turned and raised an eyebrow at his audacity.

“We wouldn’t get ‘crazy’, as you call it,” Julia tilted her head to the side so he could exactly how much she hated him, “If we were the last two people on Earth.”

Julia waited for those words to sink into his thick skull before she continued.

“Now beat it before I personally throw your drunken ass through the window,” Julia had been a marine so she guessed she knew some pretty kick ass moves but that didn’t mean she remembered them.

Julia realised she had overstepped the line when the smirk vanished from his lips and his eyes grew dark, his hand reaching out and gripping her upper arm as he dragged her out of the chair and to her feet.

“What did you say, girlie?” He growled in her face; the smell of his halitosis making her want to gag and blinding her for a few seconds.

“You heard me,” Julia struggled to keep up the touch chick persona as his fingers dug into her arm and she was truly afraid he was going to break her arm as he started to pull her towards the door.

“Hey!” Julia growled, trying to get the staff’s attention but no one was doing anything, when Julia remembered she still had the fork in her hand.

Wrapping her fist around the handle she drove it down into the man’s leg, feeling the spokes sink into the muscle of his leg.

He howled in pain before he released her arm and she dropped to the floor, her legs weak beneath her.

The man was letting out small yelps as his hands hovered around his leg, trying to think of what was best to do, when a shadow fell across him and Julia past his shoulder and froze.

It was the man from the park.

Marc.

“She told you to leave her alone,” Marc growled at the man and just as quickly as she had stabbed him had Marc grabbed the man by the wrist and tilted his arm behind his back until he was doubled over in pain.

“Now, what do you say?” Marc growled, pulling the man’s arm tighter across his back when he didn’t answer quick enough.

“I’m- I’m sorry,” he hissed through his teeth before Marc spun him around and threw him to the curb.