“Screw you!” Ari yelled, or tried to, into his hand.
A commotion across the store made Ari jerk her head in that direction. Four guys ran through in baseball caps and sunglasses. Jace held a gun to an elderly man’s head and asked him for keys to the office.
Four? The guy who had her was a fifth. Not one she’d counted before and not one seeming to work in conjunction with the others.
Her abductor stopped at the back of the store and hoisted her against his chest. Ari’s mouth was still covered, but she watched as his free hand covered the door handle. The muscles in his forearm flexed as he twisted it and again, she noticed how strong he was. Her eyes widened as the knob stopped at the locking point, but he continued rotating until there was a sharp crack, breaking the metal off in his hand.
He swung the door open and pushed her inside a small, cluttered closet, lit by a single blub hanging from the ceiling. Ari turned quickly, looking for an escape, but he had her blocked. Anger welled up inside her chest, surpassing the fear. But, instead of a gun-wielding criminal, Ari found herself face-to-face with him.
He wore a baseball cap under a thick, black hooded sweatshirt. The brim shaded much of his face and Ari couldn’t see his eyes. All the same, she knew it was him. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing muscular brown arms and on his left wrist she saw a blur of letters tattooed in dark ink.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, working around the ring in her mouth. She spit it into her palm. He ignored her and started to leave. Ari realized he was going back out to the front of the store.
“Hey,” she said, gripping his arm.
He turned sharply and put a finger to his lips. She looked up at his eyes, which were shadowed completely by the bill of his cap. Despite the obscurity, she was mesmerized by the intensity and control brimming from within, and Ari found herself nodding, willing to do whatever he asked her.
“Don’t leave until the police get here,” he said in a gruff voice. He closed the door, leaving only a sliver of light between it and the frame. Ari pressed her back against a wall, catching her breath.
Within moments, Ari heard a loud smashing sound. Shelving? The shouting increased, and the distinct sound of grunts and curses exploded from the other side of the door. Someone was getting their butt kicked for sure; she just hoped it was the bad guys. Ari listened to the fight, wincing here and there as fists landed on flesh and objects toppled over. The inside of the closet felt increasingly stuffy and hot. Sweat pooled at her lower back from nerves, heat, and the mere fact that she couldn’t see what was going on outside.
She should’ve been scared, but she wasn’t. He was a legend, a myth. Even though she’d never laid eyes on him before, she knew. It was him. Although there were documented accounts of his existence, there was no solid proof. Ari now knew the truth. He was real.
He didn’t have a name. Well, obviously he did, but not publicly. He was that guy who walked in the shadows and appeared in the nick of time. He saved drowning babies and appeared out of nowhere to help those in need. He was on the playground when the bad guys tried to sneak away with other people’s kids. He was like Batman or Superman or The Green Arrow, but not the made-up fantasies of men who never grew up and who sketched their heroes into comic books. He was real, and he’d just saved Ari from four armed gunmen.
He was the Glory City Vigilante.
Chapter 2
Ari sat in the familiar office waiting on Detective Bryson. Nothing much had changed since the last time she was there four years earlier, except the pictures of his wife now included two children.
She’d given her statement at the robbery, claiming to have hidden in the closet while the men ransacked the store. She lied in her report, not including any information about the mystery guy singling her out. She wondered if this was why Bryson had asked her to come to the station, or if it was about her parents. He hadn’t said.
“Thanks for waiting,” Detective Bryson said, closing the door behind him. They met when she was 21, when he showed up at her apartment, grim and bearing bad news. “How have you been?”
“Pretty good,” she answered. “Busy with work.”
He sat behind his desk, shuffling some papers around. When he looked up, he frowned and said, “You cut your hair.”
Ari ran her hand over her short hair. The last time she saw him, her hair went halfway down her back. Now it was short, other than the long pieces she tucked behind her ear. “Spontaneous decision,” she said.
“It looks nice.”
They looked at one another over the top of the desk. Detective Bryson had rich brown skin and pretty, grayish eyes. She barely knew this man at all but he’d seen her at her worst. “So,” she said. “Any particular reason you called me down here?”