The Lives Untold: Chapter 9: What. How. When.
~Damian~
Rain.
Of course it was raining.
I walked down the nearly empty street, hands buried deep inside my coat pockets, letting the rain soak through my hair.
I didn’t care.
Honestly, I hadn’t cared about much for the past week.
The city around me blurred beneath the streetlights. Cars passed occasionally, their headlights stretching across the wet pavement before disappearing into the distance.
I didn’t even know where I was going.
I just needed to walk.
Somewhere quiet.
Somewhere my thoughts couldn’t catch up with me.
Then I heard shouting.
I stopped.
At first, I thought it was just an argument.
Then I heard something hit the ground.
I looked toward the alley.
Four men stood beneath the flickering light.
They were surrounding someone.
A girl.
I couldn’t make out her face through the rain.
One of the men lunged toward her.
She moved.
Fast.
She ducked beneath his arm, stepped aside, and sent him stumbling past her.
I froze.
What the hell?
Another man moved in.
She dodged him too.
There was something almost familiar about the way she moved.
The confidence.
The footwork.
The way she seemed to anticipate where they were going before they even moved.
I took a step closer.
“Hey!”
The girl turned.
For half a second, I couldn’t see her face clearly.
Then lightning flashed across the sky.
And I saw her.
My entire body went cold.
No.
It couldn’t be.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
My brain refused to process what my eyes were telling me.
That messy hair.
That familiar face.
Those eyes.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“…Tabitha?”
She froze.
Just for a second.
Her eyes widened.
Then one of the men moved toward her again.
“LOOK OUT!”
I shouted.
She reacted instantly, ducking away as the attack missed.
I didn’t think anymore.
I ran into the alley.
“HEY!”
All four men turned toward me.
Tabitha’s face changed.
Not relief.
Not happiness.
Something closer to horror.
“Damian?!”
My feet stopped.
She knew me.
She knew exactly who I was.
And judging by the look on her face…
She absolutely did not want me here.
“What the hell is going on?!”
“Get out of here!”
Her voice cracked.
“What?”
“GO!”
One of the men turned toward me.
Tabitha immediately stepped between us.
“Don’t you dare touch him.”
I stared at her.
My heart was pounding.
My hands were shaking.
I couldn’t understand anything.
She had disappeared.
She had broken up with me.
She had supposedly wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
And now I had found her in an alley…
surrounded by four armed men.
“Tabitha…”
She glanced at me.
For the briefest moment, our eyes met.
And I saw something I’d never seen in her eyes before.
Fear.
Not fear for herself.
Fear for me.
“Damian,” she whispered.
“Run.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Her expression tightened.
“Please.”
That word stopped me.
Because Tabitha never said please like that.
Not jokingly.
Not teasingly.
Desperately.
I looked at the men.
Then back at her.
My mind raced.
Who are these people?
Why are they after her?
Why does Tabitha know how to fight them?
Why didn’t she tell me?
And then a fist collided with my face.
I barely had time to react.
I stumbled backward and hit the ground, a sharp sting spreading across my face.
“AGH!”
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I touched my nose and winced.
Great.
Just great.
I looked up.
Tabitha was being held by a bald man with an eyepatch.
Seriously?
What was this guy auditioning for, Captain Hook?
My brain was apparently choosing this exact moment to make stupid observations.
Then I noticed something.
Tabitha wasn’t looking at him.
She was looking at me.
Her expression was terrified.
“Tabitha!”
The man who had punched me suddenly charged toward her.
He was holding a shovel.
“WAIT!”
I tried to get up.
Too slow.
He swung.
The shovel struck Tabitha.
She staggered.
My entire body went cold.
“TABITHA!”
She didn’t look at the man.
She looked at me.
Her eyes stayed locked onto mine.
And somehow, that was worse than anything else.
Because in that single look, I saw everything she wasn’t saying.
Run.
Don’t come closer.
I’m sorry.
And then her knees buckled.
My heart stopped.
“Taby…”
I forced myself back onto my feet.
I didn’t care who these men were anymore.
I didn’t care why they were after her.
I didn’t care what she had been hiding.
That was Tabitha.
My Tabitha.
And she was in danger.
I lunged forward.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
I ran at them, my hands held up in a clumsy boxing position I’d learned from Jackie Chan.
I didn’t think.
My mind was blinded by fury and rain.
The man with the eyepatch snatched the shovel and raised it, aiming straight for my head.
I barely had time to react.
But before the shovel could even come close to me, a leg shot upward.
THUD.
The man with the eyepatch went flying backward.
I froze.
Completely.
My raised fists slowly dropped to my sides.
I stared at Tabitha.
She was standing between me and the men.
Tabitha.
My Tabitha.
The girl who complained when jars were too difficult to open.
The girl who once screamed because a moth flew near her.
The girl who burned pancakes last Thursday morning and then proceeded to argue with the smoke like it had personally offended her.
That Tabitha had just kicked a grown man across an alley.
My brain refused to accept it.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
“…Tabitha?”
She didn’t answer.
She just stared down the four men.
Her breathing was uneven.
Her hair was plastered against her face by the rain.
And despite everything…
She looked terrifyingly calm.
The realization hit me so hard that my stomach dropped.
She knew how to do this.
Not accidentally.
Not because she’d gotten lucky.
She knew how to fight.
She’d been doing this long enough for it to look natural.
My heart started pounding again.
But this time, it wasn’t because of the men.
It was because of her.
“I’ve known her for eight years.”
The thought from a week ago suddenly echoed through my head.
There was nothing I didn’t know about her.
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I couldn’t believe I’d ever been stupid enough to think that.
There was an entire side of her standing right in front of me that I had never seen.
How much had I missed?
How much had she hidden?
And why?
“Touch him again,” Tabitha said, her voice low and shaking with fury, “and I’ll make sure to introduce you to Satan himself.”
Her voice went an octave lower,
“…Bastards.”
I stared at her.
My heart hurt.
Not because she had just saved me.
Because she had looked at those men like she had done this before.
Like this wasn’t new.
Like this was a life she’d been living without me knowing.
“Taby…”
She finally glanced at me.
For half a second, the terrifying expression disappeared.
There she was.
My Tabitha.
Scared.
Exhausted.
And somehow still more worried about me than herself.
My throat tightened.
“What happened to you?”
She looked away.
That tiny movement answered more than words ever could.
Something was very, very wrong.
And for the first time since I’d met her…
I realized I didn’t know the person standing in front of me.
And that terrified me.
She turned towards me, grabbed my hand and then ran.
“Come on. We need to leave.” She yelled hurriedly “Quick. Before they get back to their senses.”
