Up ahead, Aria could see the bright orange sign belonging to a Home Depot. The sun had not yet touched the painted stalls of the parking lot, which before business hours were vacant. A group of nine or so men were standing near the inlet where people pulled into the lot. Every morning men who were out of a job, or unable to get work for one reason or another, would stand there to see if someone with a construction project would hire them and pay them cash for the day. For the most part, though hardened by manual labor, the men looked benign enough. Still, Aria felt tense when she passed them. She felt herself walking quicker to try to get out of range.

The hair on the back of Aria’s neck stood up as if she were being hunted. None of the men had made a sound when she had walked by. They had not cat-called, like she had prepared herself for them to do. They had simply watched her pass intently.

It all happened so fast. By the time she felt the eerie feeling of predation and had turned around to check behind her, the man was already close. Upon seeing her notice him, he broke into a run in her direction.

Aria bolted as if on automatic pilot. Panic and adrenaline sprinted through her veins. She tried to run sideways to evade him, but he was faster. Aria had unintentionally cornered herself.

The man pushed her from behind, trying to throw her to the ground. But instead, the force threw her against the wall of an industrial warehouse. Her face buffered her fall. She did not notice the burn of the scrape, or the way the peak of the pain subsided when blood began to flow from her lips and nose, until after everything was over.

Aria didn’t defend herself as the man had expected her to. She had been trained over the course of her life not to. Fighting the futility only put her more at risk. Instead, she froze and smiled at the man, hoping to pacify him or at least get it over with, with the least amount of violence possible.

Caught up in the convulsion of whatever carnal instinct had been triggered, the man said nothing to her. He spoke only with the terrorism of his body. His fingernails carved red marks into the skin of her hips as he tried to rip and pull her pants away from them.

The frenzy was interrupted by two of the men running toward them across the street. “Para ahora! Para ahora!” one of them yelled over and over.

When they pulled the man off of her by the back of his t-shirt, he wouldn’t let go of her jeans. Aria’s legs were pulled high into the air before he let go and they smacked the asphalt hard enough that her heel was badly bruised.