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I could get inside. I could handle this much.

Calling somebody else wouldn’t keep Chief out of it. Dad would tell Riot. One brother would tell another. He would come anyway, and I would have made it everyone’s problem instead of just his.

The store door was right there.

I put the phone away.

“You only friendly with the Bishops?” the man asked behind me.

I turned enough to keep him in sight.

“Stop following me.”

He caught my wrist.

I didn’t think about what to do with his hand.

I had been getting out of that grip since I was small enough for Dad to pick me up afterward and tell me to try it again.

I turned and pulled free, moving my whole body instead of trying to outmuscle him with one arm.

His fingers slipped.

I put space between us immediately.

That had been the part Riot always made us repeat. Getting loose wasn’t the end. Getting away was.

“Don’t touch me,” I told him, loud enough that the woman at the nearest pump looked over.

The store entrance was a few yards behind my right shoulder. I moved toward it without turning my back completely.

He lunged after me.

This time his hand closed around my upper arm, hauling me toward him hard enough to hurt.

I drove my other elbow back into him.

It landed solidly. He made a noise I had never heard during practice.

For a second, his grip loosened.

Then he swore and grabbed me with both hands.

My shoulder struck the brick beside the entrance. Not my head. I kept my chin down and my feet under me, trying to turn out of his hold.

Dad and Riot had never let me count on being stronger than somebody. I wasn’t stronger than this man.

I was also not going to stand still for him.

I drove my heel down, shoved against him, and yelled.

“Let go of me!”

He had heard me before.

That was the part that scared me.

The door banged open beside us.