Exposed : My Mountain Man Protector(27)

Angelo responded by spitting in Blake’s face.



Blake punched him in the chest again, got up, and then kicked him in the same place, his boot connecting with cotton shirt once and then over and over again, sending Angelo’s body sprawling one way and then the next. With each blow, Blake’s face only grew more livid. He didn’t stop kicking until Angelo’s sputtering, trembling form had finally fallen still.



I gaped at Blake, still shocked, frozen in disbelief.



“Is he…?” I asked.



Blake shook his head.



“He’s unconscious, not dead.” He kicked the still form once more. “Though he deserves to be.”



I looked away from the oozing monstrosity that was now Angelo’s face.



“What are we going to do?”



“Call the police. This will be enough evidence now. He tried to attack both of us, not to mention he actually blew up your car. But while we’re waiting we should tie him up or restrain him somehow. We don’t have any rope, do we?”



I shook my head. “No. Sorry.”



Blake nodded.



I scanned the plaza storefronts, my gaze stopping on Clark’s Pharmacy & Market.



“Let me check in Clark’s,” I said.



Then, with a glance at Angelo, I asked, “You don’t mind guarding him until I’m back?”



“Sure,” Blake said.



He sat down on the ground before Angelo’s still form, waving to a petrified old lady who was pushing her grocery cart by.



I paused, suddenly noticing just how much of a scene we were making. We were in a parking lot—albeit at the edge—in the middle of the day with a burned-out car in front of us and a bloodied, unconscious man behind us.



“Though I think you should give me your phone so I can call the police,” Blake said. “Otherwise, someone may just go ahead and call them on us.”

Glancing at the old lady who had now stopped at her car to stare at us, I nodded and handed my phone over.



“There’s no password.”



Blake nodded, his gaze already on the little screen.



“Good luck.”



With one last worried look back, I hurried to Clark’s. Inside, I rushed past shoppers angling carts every which way and employees who fled as they sensed my approach, not stopping until I got to the housewares section. There, at the end of the aisle, tucked in the corner as the long shot it was, was the rope.



As soon as I was halfway to the cash registers, holding the thick scratchy thing, I realized we had no way to cut it and then raced back to housewares and grabbed the first pair of scissors I saw.



Then it was back to the line for the cash registers, which seemed to take forever. Every other customer had an item that wouldn’t scan, while the cashier herself was moving so slowly that I would have sworn the purple-haired girl had been hired by Angelo himself.



My hands were still shaking and my breath was coming out in harried gasps.



If this took too long, Angelo could come to, and if Blake was distracted, then…I had to get out there.



Finally, it was my turn. Miraculously, my items scanned without any issues and the cashier shoved them into a bag only moderately slowly. So, after a quick tap of my card and grab of my plastic bag, I was out.



In the parking lot, Blake was in the same position, sitting cross-legged, placidly watching the rise and fall of Angelo’s chest. When I walked up to him, he handed me the phone.



“Called the police,” he said.



Then, gesturing to Angelo’s unconscious form, he added, “Angelo hasn’t stirred.”



He stuck a leg out and kicked Angelo in the side again to be sure. Angelo still didn’t move.



I sat down beside Blake, putting the rope and scissors between us, and we got to work tying Angelo up. Blake wound and knotted the rope around Angelo’s arms, tying them together, while I tackled Angelo’s legs. As we worked, a gang of preteens approached, their ball-capped heads all tilted.



“So, uh, what happened?” the tallest one ventured.



Blake glanced at him and then got back to tying, saying, “He tried blowing up my friend’s car and then shooting us, so we took him out.”



There was a shocked silence, and then the same boy burst out, “For real, man?”



Blake gestured to my wrecked car. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”



The boys lingered for another minute and then wandered over to my car before finally sauntering off to the convenience store.



“Kids these days,” Blake said with a good-humored smile.



I smiled back, looking from my destroyed car to Angelo’s unconscious, still-snarling face. God, had Blake and I been lucky. I sat back and thought about it. I’d been running off such adrenaline from one crisis to the next that it was just now really sinking in. Blake and I had escaped getting blown up with my car with seconds to spare. Same went for getting shot by Angelo. Same went for this whole week in fact: escaping Angelo, getting away from the bear, meeting Blake at all. I’d been really, really lucky.