Sanctuary Found (Pelican Bay 2)

“You little piece of—”

“So you’re out on bail, huh?” I said. “Guess that means if you get into any kind of trouble, your bail gets revoked. Straight to jail. Do not pass go.” I kept my voice light and casual, even though I was scared. I knew standing up to bullies was the only way to stop them, but it wasn’t like I was excited about getting my face bashed in. And so far, not one of the few people out and about on the quiet street had done anything but look the other way as they’d hurried to the opposite sidewalk.

“Just remember this when you’re letting your fists fly, Jimmy. My first stop after you’re finished will be the police station because I’m not some defenseless animal who can’t stand up for itself and point the finger at you,” I lied, because no way in hell was I going to go to the cops. But he didn’t know that. I dared to get in his face. “And I will be pointing every one of my fingers” –I held up my hands to show off my sparkly nails– “at you.”

Jimmy scowled and I saw that his temper was going to get the best of him. But the man who’d tried to intervene grabbed his arm and jerked him back. I watched in horror as Jimmy punched him instead. “Don’t ever put your fucking hands on me again, little brother!” he snarled. Jimmy shot me a glance, but since he had a new and seemingly less threatening outlet for his anger, he didn’t come at me. Instead he grabbed the younger man’s arm and jerked him forward. Jimmy’s eyes held him until the younger man looked away like when a submissive animal cowered to a more dominant one. The move seemed to satisfy Jimmy because he thrust the man–his own brother, apparently–away and snapped, “Let’s go,” to the rest of his little crew.

I waited until they were out of sight before I relaxed enough to take a deep breath. My heart was racing in my chest and I could feel a little bit of warmth on my cheek. When I touched the spot, my fingers came away with a little bit of blood on them, so I used the hem of my shirt to dab at both my cheek and temple until I got most of the blood off. Then I reached down to pick up my bags and hurried to my car.

My fingers were shaking as I got my car started, and I was still on edge by the time I got back to the sanctuary. I parked in front of the office and found Nolan and Dallas looking at something on the computer. I didn’t see Newt among the kittens that were in the cordoned-off area in the corner.

“Hey,” Nolan said. “Newt asked if he could go down to the cat building to get that wand cat toy. He really wanted to go by himself. Sawyer is down there vaccinating the cats, so we told him that Newt is on his way down and to look out for him. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” I said with a nod. Newt had been begging me for more independence over the past few days, so I’d been letting him run little errands for me when I was working in the livestock barn. I’d checked the design of every single animal enclosure, including the ones for the animals who weren’t considered dangerous, and every habitat had security features on them that would keep a child of Newt’s size from getting into them. The only animals he could come into direct contact with were the livestock, dogs, and cats, and he’d been around those enough now for me to see none of them were dangerous. Even Jerry the Ornery Zebra had been uncharacteristically careful with Newt.

Me, not so much.

No, I hadn’t ended up in the water trough on my first day working in that enclosure like Nolan had his first time out, but Jerry had somehow managed to leave a pile of zebra poop right in my path when I wasn’t looking, and I’d stepped into it while wearing my canvas sneakers. The striped hooligan was the reason I’d splurged and also bought myself some decent winter boots at the thrift store today.

Dallas made a grunting sound, then pointed to my face.

“Oh my god, what happened?” Nolan asked as he got up from the chair he’d been sitting in.

“Oh, nothing, I just fell on the sidewalk,” I lied. That fucker, Jimmy, had caused them so much grief already, I didn’t want to give them another thing to have to worry about. I was pretty sure I’d managed to get the asshole off my back, so I wasn’t overly concerned that he would continue to be a threat.