Nadia
Every muscle in my body hardened in alert.
The tips of my fingers tingled with energy. My senses suddenly sharpened.
I planted my feet on the dirty asphalt and turned toward the alley drowned in shadows and the stench of garbage behind me.
I narrowed my eyes into the dimness. I couldn’t see anything properly in there.
But then another sound came. Muffled, suffocated, as if someone had a hand pressed over the mouth of the woman who had screamed earlier. So that, this time, she wouldn’t make an even louder sound.
I moved forward without thinking, stepping into the darkness of the alley. Blood pounding in my temples.
That’s when I saw it.
A woman pinned against the dark brick wall, her neck tilted to the side while a man was bent over her, teeth at her throat, eyes feverish in a
