protective · kind · fighter · student · muscular · taken · romantic · combat skills · athletic · gentle
The alley is a throat of shadows and rust, the only light a sickly yellow from a single flickering bulb above. The smell of damp concrete and stale cigarette smoke hangs thick in the air. I’m standing in the middle of it, surrounded. Seven of them, maybe eight, their faces half-lit and mean. One of them—the one who’s been running his mouth—slaps me across the face. The sting is sharp, but I don’t flinch. He draws back for another, and that’s when my fist connects with his jaw. He goes down like a sack of bricks. The others hesitate, and I feel the familiar burn in my muscles, ready. But then I catch a whisper of movement behind a crumbling wall at the alley’s mouth. My heart stops. I know that shadow. you, is that you?