Daniella felt a shudder from her toes to a prickling sensation that shivered across her scalp. His hand was only in one spot, but she felt him everywhere. Get off get off get off. Did she say those words out loud or did she just think them? Why hadn’t stop been enough? Why hadn’t no been enough?

“Stop.” This was slightly louder than the last time. Like a shot that had gone off in the quiet room. The piece of her that wanted to fade off into an invisible specter knew that it had lost. She’d have to start making noise, now.

“I don’t think you need to get nasty.” Brock’s hold on her wrist grew insistent.

Daniella tasted real fear in her mouth, metallic and dry. A tannic, astringent taste. Like a cup of tea that had been left brewing for half the day in the kitchen. But, even then, Daniella wouldn’t let the tea go to waste. She’d drink it. Fear was there to save her. And she still had plenty of fight left in her. She stomped hard—the heel of her combat boots coming directly into contact with the toes of his fancy loafers.

Brock let her go, just for a second, but a second was all that Daniella needed. She scrambled toward the door, before Brock had any more time to register what had happened, before he started shouting—Daniella had enough experience in this life to know that there would be shouting—and yanked open the door.

This is it. Almost there.

And that’s when Rinn Olivera fell through the open door. She looked like she had been about to say something. About to ask for help for a task around the store. But Rinn didn’t say anything at all. She squeaked, stumbled for a moment, and then found her footing at the last second. She took in the chairs all over the place, she took in Brock Harvey hopping up and down on one foot. He transitioned from yelping to finding real curse words to screaming in the span of about fifteen seconds.

Then Rinn Olivera took a good long look at Daniella. She was assessing the bleached-blond hair and the wild look in Daniella’s eyes, she had to have been. And then Rinn looked back over to the man even Daniella knew was her writing hero, the man finally finding his footing. It definitely did not look great for Daniella. Daniella didn’t know what to do. She looked like she had attacked him. She had, in fact, attacked him. Just in self-defense.

Brock did know what to do, though. He recovered so quickly it was nearly inhuman.