Page 33 of Secrets & Sake

Raiden: Miss you. Can I come over?

Once I’ve taken my case map with his picture on it off the wall, then sure.

Me: Aww. That's adorable.

Raiden: Shut up. I'm not adorable.

Me: Let's agree to disagree. Do you like katsudon?

Raiden: Who doesn’t?

Me: I know right?? See you in a few. <3

Did I just heart-emoji him? Oh good god. So much for keeping my feelings under wraps. I want to throw my phone across the store. I bury it in my bag and focus on shopping. My phone vibrates against my leg, and my heart trips all over itself. Great. What did he say? Did I freak him out by emoji-ing my feelings all over him? I can’t look.

I buy the food and walk home from the store. At the final traffic light before my house, I finally cave and check his text, prepared to wince.

Raiden: <3

I stare at the screen for far too long and end up missing the light. He heart-emoji-ed me back. I feel like I’ll melt into a puddle of goo. When’s the last time a guy made me swoon?

Oh, no. This is awful. I’m crushing on my conflict of interest.

Wait a second. Is my conflict of interest… my boyfriend? He did say we were exclusive, but I just thought he meant that in a fuck-buddy sense.

I can’t think about this right now. I jog across the street and walk the final stretch to my house.

The streets are dark and empty. The streetlamp outside my apartment is burned out. I still jump when I hear a noise behind me. A glance behind my shoulder reveals nothing but the empty street, but I thought I saw someone dart out of sight. Unless maybe I just imagined it.

Nerves tangle in my stomach, so I quicken my steps and arrive at my front door. Opening my bag, I fumble around for my keys. Footsteps stampede toward me, making me jump. I whirl around just as a fist comes flying at me. Stars white out my vision as throbbing pain explodes across the side of my face. I crash into the doorway, and my cry of alarm gets choked off when a thick hand wraps around my throat.

My attacker is big and bald, and he only has four and a half fingers on the hand around my neck. A yakuza, and he’s not alone. Another yakuza, scrawny and with a crooked nose, sneers at me from over his buddy’s shoulder. The big guy hurls me to the ground.

“Wait, stop! Who are you, what do you want? I have money, I’ll—”

A foot flies into my back, knocking the breath out of me. Another kick cracks across the back of my head. When one of the thugs presses the dirty underside of his boot against my cheek, the pressure feels like it will crack my skull. A strangled scream escapes me as he grinds my face against the pavement.

What the fuck do these guys want? Who are they? Terror squeezes my lungs until I’m panting. They haven’t even tried to rob me. Are they going to kill me? A whimper escapes me.

My shirt presses into my throat as the thugs drag me toward a car at the curb. Shit. Are they abducting me? Where will they take me? Panic claws at my chest, and I struggle to break free. I can’t let them take me away!

Across the street, a huge shape melts out of the shadows. Brown eyes glow in the dark. Claws scrape over asphalt. One of my attackers shouts a warning, but it’s far too late. A black wolf, the size of a damn horse, slams into the guy pinning me, and bowls him off his feet. I’m frozen, unable to make myself run, unable to even look away as the monstrous wolf grabs the yakuza by the arm and hurls him into the wall so hard, I hear his bones crack.

“I’m s-sorry!” the yakuza screams as if the wolf can understand him. “L-let me go!”

The other yakuza clutches his bloody arm. He grabs a broken bottle off the ground and throws it. The glass shatters against the wolf’s head, giving the yakuza’s buddy time to get up and run. They split up. The wolf looks back at me, and those whiskey-brown eyes make my breath catch. There’s something so off about those eyes.

They almost remind me of…

With a snarl, the wolf whirls away from me and pursues the yakuza down the street and around the corner.

I can’t move. My knees shake, and I fall back to the pavement. I rest my back against the door, panting as my heart races.

Did I… did I really just see that?

That was a wolf. The biggest wolf I’ve ever seen.

What the fuck.