A Bitch In Time (Marina: Part One: Naughty Nookie Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

chewed up by
bulls!  The ferocity of the attack the woman had endured beggared belief. 
I wanted to say something, do something, but what could I have
done?  Save gawk at her? 
    I’d made my way to the stairs,
my step almost three times faster than hers and passed two floors, when I’d
heard a cry.  It had been a weak mewl and I might not have heard of it,
but I had and I’d known it to be her.  I’d run back up the stairs, hoping
to be of help, thinking she’d hurt herself again.
    New York isn’t a place where
neighborly aid is frequently offered.  But I’m not from New York, I’m
Montana born and bred.  Help thy neighbor is a way of life, not something
you pick and choose to dole out.
    I’d made my way back to her
and found a man, standing over her, his leg arched back at an odd angle and I’d
known he’d been on the brink of kicking her in the gut.
    My arrival had shocked him and
he’d been standing there, like a dumbass, as though he’d been frozen to the
spot.  I’d used his hesitation against him.
     Jerking my arm back, I’d
shot the edge of my wrist upwards and broken his nose.
    Blood had gushed out. 
His screams had filled the landing.  Literally gurgling with blood, he’d
spat some of the liquid at me as he’d snapped, “You bitch!”
    I’d come at him again, with
the same move and this time, the pain of it had him tilting backwards and
slamming into the floor.  Luckily, a foot or so away from Jenna’s
trembling body.
    “Is this your
boyfriend?”  I’d asked, bending down to help her up. 
    It had taken all of my
strength to get her back on her feet.  Any time she’d placed pressure on
her bones; her eyes had grown dazed as though she was on the edge of
consciousness.  It had seemed as though she were mere inches away from
fainting.
    By the time I’d gotten her
standing, she’d managed to grit out, “Yes.  He’s my boyfriend.  And
yes, he’s the reason I’m like this.  T-thank you for coming to help me.”
    We’d made it down the six
flights of stairs to the ground floor without any incidents and without another
word spoken between us until I’d led her outside and asked her if she wanted to
go to a doctor’s clinic.  To which she’d shaken her head and mumbled, “I
can’t afford it.”
    I’d refused to take notice,
knowing that she needed medical attention.  After forcing her into a cab,
I’d directed the driver to take us to the nearest clinic.  I’d sat with
her for hours in a smelly waiting room filled with bawling babies, red in the
face from the fury of whatever was wrong with them.  Their bedraggled and
exhausted mothers bouncing them on their knees, as they hoped it would stop the
endless tears.  Some of the patients had sat slumped in their seats as
they slept off their ‘drunk’.  Others had stood, jittery, shaking, waiting
for their next fix.
    The receptionist had looked at
Jenna as though she were a turd and spying that, I’d wondered if she was more
than just a battered girlfriend and I’d asked her if her boyfriend was also her
pimp.  I could have minded my own business, probably should have done, but
the question had burnt a hole in my tongue and I’d needed to know.
    The humiliation on her face as
she’d nodded would never leave me.  Somehow, that had made it all the
easier to hand over my credit card for charging the treatment.  After the
six hour wait for her to be patched up properly, I’d helped her back to my
place.
    Helping thy neighbor might
have been bred into me over childhood but it had never crossed my mind that I
could have placed myself in danger by inviting her into my home.  
    She might have been a thief or
a junkie, willing to do anything to get her next dose of whatever drug she used
to numb the pain of her reality. 
    But I’d had faith in her and
she hadn’t let me down.  She’d repaid my kindness by doing nothing to
prove that I was unwise to trust her.
    Slowly, we’d become friends
and roommates, when