Invasion

The library was closed.  She locked the doors, shut down the front desk, put away the last of the books that were left behind on the tables.  When the work was done, she pulled her own book from her bag and curled up on the couch by the windows, reading by the waning light of the late afternoon sun.  She heard her phone buzz again in her purse, but ignored it.  Was that the tenth missed call?  The eleventh?

She read until it was too dark to make out the words on the page.  That’s when she saw headlights in the parking lot, heard the angry, urgent pounding against the front door.  She closed the book, pulling up the collar on her shirt for the 100th time that day to conceal the blue-black finger marks on her neck.  She fumbled in the dark for her phone and with trembling hands, for the first time, she dialed 911.  He’d invaded her last safe haven.

For Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers

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The night had started well.  She could remember his playful laugh, the way she felt his eyes lingering on her as she walked away.  You can look, but you can’t touch, she’d thought with a giggle.

She looked at him now, slumped over in the passenger seat.  She stopped in an abandoned lot, dark and still at 3 AM, but bustling in a few short hours.  She let his body tumble onto the wet asphalt, the mysterious drug he’d intended for her still coursing through his veins.

She stared at the word written on his forehead in crimson before driving away.

RAPIST.

 

The Moral Mondays prompt this week is Look, Don’t Touch.

Happy International Women’s Day!

We are all beautiful and strong.