Chapter 123: Chapter 123

Annabel was on her way to meet with David but because she felt not to drive, she decided to walk down to meet with him since their meeting point was trackable.

It had been a long time since she took a walk, that was the main reason she decided to walk.

Night was fast approaching and it was getting a bit dark. Anabel hurried along at a brisk pace to meet David at their usual rendezvous point in a small eatery a long walking distance from her house. The road she was currently walking on had a slight reputation of being a well-favored spot for petty thieves and pickpockets and she'd already been careful to hide her valuables whenever she took that route. Thankfully, she'd never been a victim of the notorious thieves though she was quite sure she could defend herself quite well if push came to shove.

She'd walked a few minutes in sweet silence, the only sound was that of her heeled shoes on the tarred road but then, she began to hear footsteps behind her. It was a faint scuffling noise at first, barely noticeable. When she strained her ears hard enough, she could hear the faint echo of it. Obviously, whoever was following her was doing his best to keep up and mimic the sound of her footsteps. Abruptly, she stopped and the footsteps ceased just a little bit after hers. That was all the confirmation she needed as she felt a warm breath on her neck. Whirling like a ballet dancer on the balls of her feet, she swung her shoulder bag with as much force as she could muster and it caught her attacker square in the jaw. With a muffled "ow", her attacker clasped a hand to the assaulted jaw and Anabel wasted no time in raising her knees as high as her skirt would allow and giving him a swift but forceful kick to the balls.

Her attacker crumpled to the ground like an empty bag of chips and lay there, groaning. Satisfiedly smirking, she turned to continue on her journey.

"Not so fast, lady", a rough voice growled at her immediately she turned. The voice belonged to a teen of about eighteen, dark skinned and mean-looking.

"What do you want?", Anabel asked haughtily.

The teen grinned, showing a row of brownish teeth.

"Now there's a nice question", he said, the grin widening. "Wonder what'll be the answer to that".

He started to move closer to her and Annabel forced herself not to take a step back.

"All your money will do". The sick grin reminded her of a carved Halloween pumpkin. "Hand all your money over, lady".

Anabel gripped her bag tighter. Of all the days for this to happen.

"No". She replied.

The grin faltered for a bit. "Huh?", He said stupidly.

"No", she repeated.

"You're either very brave, lady, or very stupid". He lunged.

Heart pounding, Anabel sidestepped, whirling in the process. The perp's fingers grazed the skin of her forearm and Anabel resisted the urge to wipe a tissue on it.

"There'll be none of that, lady", he said. "None of that. Now hand over your bag or this is going to get real nasty".

To Anabel's horror, the other guy she'd kicked in the balls had somewhat recovered himself and slowly got to his feet, anger blazing in his eyes.

He cracked his neck and fingers menacingly and she only just noticed that his arms were very beefy.

"Oh, shit", she muttered under her breath. The first one heard her.

"You're right", he said. "Shit it is".

She turned and ran but didn't get more than ten steps ahead when a hard clutched at her dress and pulled. She tumbled backwards and landed hard against a hard chest.

"Oomph", she said as a large, smelly hand clasped down on her mouth.

"Not so confident now, are we?"

While one guy held her to him, the other grabbed the strap of her bag and pulled. She held on with all her might - which wasn't very much, but was enough to keep the bag from getting into the wrong hands.

Growling in frustration, the one holding her yanked her head from behind and hot pain spiked her skull. Her grip on the bag slackened for just a bit and she felt it slip between her fingers a moment before she tightened her grip on it again. Groaning, she found the feet of her captor with her heeled shoes and stomped on it, hard.

"Goddammit", he cried, his hand on her mouth shifting slightly to give her just the opening she needed to clamp her teeth down on his middle finger in a vice-like grip. He let go of her like she was hot iron and tried to yank his finger away.

Anabel was sure her jaw hadn't worked that much in her entire life as they did in that moment. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth as the owner of the finger danced around, yelling, trying without success to pry the bloody finger from it's cage of teeth.

Anabel was dimly aware of the other thief yelling something indiscernible and the one she still had in the grip of her teeth yelling back.

"Hit her, motherfucker", the anguished one yelled to his partner. "Hit her!"

Anabel had just enough presence of mind to let go of the finger in her mouth as a large knuckled fist found the side of her face. She sprawled in the ground from the force of the blow and spat blood out.

"Bitch!", He whose blood she spat out yelled. "You'll pay for that! This just got personal".

He pulled a small folding knife from the pocket of his combat shorts, flicked it open and grinned evilly.

"Hold her".

Anabel scrambled to her feet before he could reach her though and assumed a fighting stance.

"Don't come close to me." she warned.

"Or what?"

He reached her and tried to grab her hand. Years of training in jiu jitsu had her moving, swift as lightning and delivering a hard punch to his stomach, making him double up in pain.

Seeing that things were not about to go the way he planned it, he lunged at her in an almost berserk rage, thievery forgotten.

Annabel mimicked his motion, lunging, and then striking, ducking and everything else required to teach the two thieves a lesson. At last, they both lay in a groaning mess on the ground. Anabel spat residual blood out at them.

"That'll teach you bastards".

She turned and walked away.

She at least gave them the chance to run but they decided not to and that was why she gave them the beating of their life. They should be grateful and lucky she wasn't in a bad mood. If not, the beating they would have received would be worse than that which she gave to those fools who attacked her at the party that very night.

Meanwhile at Mr. Evidence's house, Rose and Mr. Evidence had long finished the body massage as they had their bath together and prepared for the day. On the other hand, Mr. Evidence continued to struggle with his emotions on why he was being so free with her. He just couldn't understand the sudden bond between them.

At some point, whenever he has the intention of treating her just like other women, there is always a regret he always gets even without hurting her. That was something he always struggled to understand and also get over it.