Sharing Hannah

He stopped talking so abruptly I immediately knew something was wrong.

Trey winced hard and his jaw clenched shut, like someone who’d just bitten their tongue and couldn’t talk right away. When his eyes opened again, they seemed focused on something very distant and far away. His face was contorted into a mixture of confusion and pain.

“Trey…?”

He turned. Halfway at first, then all the way around. His feet dragged on the little sidewalk, then his knees buckled. I reached for him, but it was utterly hopeless.

“TREY!”

My lover was just too tall, too big. Even with me clutching him, he went down like a sack of bricks. It wasn’t until after he slammed to the ground that I saw the figure standing behind him. His assailant had been eclipsed entirely by my lover’s broad body…

When I saw who it was, I nearly threw up.

Forty-Three

BROOKE

“Hi Brooke. Are you okay?"

My ex-boyfriend stood menacingly on the sidewalk, a police-issue nightstick in his hand. I knew this because he collected them. His stepfather had been on the force, and at one point in his life Chris had been obsessed with becoming a cop.

“Are you alright?” he asked again quickly. He reached for me and grabbed my wrist. “I saw you struggling with that guy, pulling you along and—”

“CHRIS WHAT THE FUCK!?”

I yanked my wrist away violently and knelt down. Trey had fallen, but he was still moving. I was screaming at him to get up.

“It looked like he might be yanking you into a building,” Chris continued. He was speaking very fast, something he always did when he was nervous. “I—I mean… he had you by both hands. He was practically dragging you across the sidewalk, and—”

Trey rose. His body slowly uncoiled to its full height, his chest heaving, his big arms hanging by his sides. I saw his jaw tighten. His hands flex a few times, before curling into fists.

Chris saw it too.

“Trey…” I said, putting a hand on his chest.

In the cold shadows on the side of the building, I saw all the blood rush to my lover’s face. He looked huge and red and very, very a

ngry.

“Trey, please, listen…”

Chris ran. Trey bolted after him. I was powerless to stop any of it. It all happened so goddamn fast.

“WAIT!”

Chris was running along the sidewalk, toward the front of the building. He’d just turned the corner when Trey caught up to him. He grabbed his assailant by the hood. Yanked him back with such strength and ferocity, I thought for sure he’d snap his neck.

Oh my God…

I heard a strangled gurgling, as Chris continued trying to run and breathe at the same time. But it was no use. Trey already had him.

I winced as Trey picked Chris up, and his feet left the ground. He flipped him over his broad back, Chris’s arms and legs floating limply through the air like a rag doll’s. There was a bone-jarring crack as Trey slammed him hard to the pavement… right in front of the double-doors to the faculty dorm complex.

“TREY!” I screamed.

He finally heard me and looked up. His face was bright red, like an angry bull. His expression was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

Two people rushed up the walkway from the other direction — a man and a woman. They both stopped over Chris’s limp body.