My eyes roll to another dimension. “I promise you, he doesn’t.”

Amanda gets mischievous, “Well, this will be an interesting test.”

“Hey!” Ian calls out. He hugs Randy, kisses Amanda on the cheek, and then we do an uncomfortable song and dance. “Hi,” he says to me.

“Hi,” I say back.

Freedom now morphs into a heavy brick in my stomach as Randy orders four beers. When my arms finally relax from alcohol, Ian sits next to me with a smile. “How did your week go?” he asks. I look at him strangely until he shrugs. “I’m trying to ask about you.”

“After six years? Really?”

“Just answer the question.” His chin creases as he takes a drink.

“Today sucked actually.”

Ian erupts with a yell of frustration, which confuses me for just a moment until I see the Lakers game playing on a television across the room. I close my eyes for a second and try to breathe. He yells at the ref a bit more, then continues. “Did you see the article my sister wrote about your mom?” He pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “She told me to give this to you.”

Maybe he does remember?

My mother’s picture stares back at me. I nearly can’t remember her healthy face. “So, your sister got the grant?”

“Yeah. They’ll be spending the next five years studying your mom’s cancer.”

“Wow, that’s amazing . . .” Our eyes meet, which makes me wonder if our friendship can exist. “I’ll make sure to call your sister tomorrow.”

“Or you can just come over?” He grins. Instantly he sees my irritation. “Or not. You got the rose?”

“No,” I lie. “Why’d you leave a rose?”

“’Cause I wanted to.”

“There’s no reason?” I ask, noticing Amanda is listening. “There’s no other reason but because you wanted to?”

It takes a moment, but he soon smiles, “Okay, well the precinct’s winter dinner is tomorrow night. We’re supposed to have dates.”

Amanda shakes her head with irritation behind her big brown eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“What?” Ian shrugs, yet we say nothing, and his attention goes back to the game.

Unexpectedly, a very handsome and very tall man in a blue sweater passes by our table. Both Amanda and I can’t help but stare. He seems a bit older than us, with deep green eyes and messy dark hair that falls to his temples. He lands at an empty table just across the room, but it isn’t until I see his eyes that he seems strangely familiar. Somehow with sixty people in a room and a max capacity of forty-five, he makes direct eye contact with me. His grin sends my stomach into a loop-di-loop and I smile.

Ian removes his hand from the back of my chair with a shake of his head as he stares at the other guy. “Who’s that?”

“I don’t know. He looks a bit familiar,” my voice lilts.

“You know that guy?” The jealous Ian is always just beneath the surface. “Fine. We may as well just invite him over.” Ian challenges the man across the room with a stare.

I quickly jump to my feet and bang my knee on the table. “Ouch,” I say as I grab for my purse, but accidentally knock it to the ground sending bits everywhere. The man in the blue sweater jumps to his feet with concern while Ian does nothing but look at me like I’m crazy.

“You’re leaving?” Amanda asks, as she helps me collect my things.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m tired.” When everything’s gathered, I stand. “I’ll see you later. Have a good weekend.”

“Go ahead . . . like you always do. Run away,” Ian growls.

Randy and Amanda try to break the tension with good-byes, but Ian stubbornly remains seated, until he looks at me, “You’re coming with me tomorrow night, right?”

I can’t help but angrily grin at Amanda with an I-told-you-so kind of stare, so she reaches out and slaps the back of his head.

“What?” he asks.

Without answering, I hightail it out of there so fast that the thick crowd and small hallways bruise my shoulders. Even though the cold night air has never felt so good, my jacket and scarf aren’t going to battle the freeze during the quiet walk to my apartment. I don’t need BART since my apartment is less than a mile away from the restaurant, however, tonight is especially chilly. Ian used to keep me warm on our walks. Tonight, all I can think about is my single, hippy mother who spent most of her life wearing tie-dye and appreciating the Haight-Ashbury District. She gave me the name Willow thinking I would be a statuesque, twiggy type like her, but I must have taken after an unknown sperm donor with stocky legs. When I reach the crosswalk, I think about how she taught me to love, but respect, the city. When I was young, she always held my hand when crossing the busy streets. “Don’t ever walk home alone—and don’t take rides through California in a yellow van with some guys named DJ and Harry,” she would laugh at the joke I didn’t understand.

Well, tonight the sidewalks seem especially daunting. Unfolding the crumpled paper with my mother’s face, she seems to be reprimanding me for walking home alone, all to avoid Ian.

Not many cars are out along the back streets, but as one drives by, I hear the crackle and crunch of the tires on the road, then it goes quiet again. Several streetlamps flicker on and off and it takes effort to avoid the dark spots. Why is it so freaking quiet? I accidentally catch my toe on the edge of the sidewalk and nearly face-plant but manage to recover my balance. It wouldn’t be the first time, and most likely, not even close to the last, since I tend to be grossly uncoordinated.

I precariously look over my shoulder, but there’s no one. Humming under my breath helps my nerves as my shoes tap the sidewalk, making a one-two beat. There seems to be nothing ahead but a whispering wind as it slides through the buildings. I wrap my arms so tight they become a strait jacket. Somebody yells just around the corner, making me jump, but when passing the alley, an angry man gets into his car and drives away while a woman screams at him from her third story window.

Just a few yards ahead, a skittish cat crosses the street, taking one or two suspicious glances at me. I am pretty sure that we share the same consternations while walking home and he could most likely get to his destination faster.

“This is stupid,” I whisper to comfort myself. Yet, in the back of my head, my mother’s words reverberate. To her, she intended for these words to comfort me, but instead I feared them. She believed in something I didn’t.

“There are people who watch you,” she said when I was small. “I don’t know why . . . they always have. I see them every day. Don’t worry, I think Grandpa sent them here to watch over you. They’re your angels.”

When her words scared me, she would shake her head and smile. “They’re okay . . . just watching you, that’s all.” Last year, just before her death, she said it again. “Angels have watched you all your life. I see them. They’ll protect you when I’m gone.”

Ian reminds me often that my mother was slightly crazy. My psychologist once said it was a deep response to trauma as a child. However, neither answer helps.

Minutes before my mom took her last breath, she looked at me in between her gasps and said, “Let them take care of you and stay away from the others that want to hurt you.”

Tonight, her voice is loud along these quiet and lonely streets, as I notice the dangerous man behind me.

It’s only ten steps before he dives at me and ten steps before my knees hit the hard cement sidewalk when his heavy body clashes with mine. The skin along my hands peel back as they slide forward. I don’t recognize the screams escaping from my mouth, “No!” Yet this doesn’t slow him down. Instead, he crushes my chin against the cement sending searing pain through my jaw, but it is the loud crack that makes my stomach roll.

His large hands rip at my shoulder and twist me to my back. My scalp screams as he uses my hair to pound my head into the sidewalk. “Please!” I cry again.

My sight wains. Panic sets in as I grasp at anything in the darkness.

Blood covers me as my lungs crush from his weight. Something silver sits tightly in his fist forcing me to take notice. I throw my hands up for protection as he swings at my head. Slice after slice, he tries desperately to tame my flailing arms.

Then, a shadow appears like an angel in the night. Standing above him is a dark figure so large that it alone is terrifying, and it rips my attacker from me. He flies back with surprising force and hits the wall ten feet away. The grotesque sound of bones breaking against the brick is a relief.

An abyss begins to swallow me. The wheeze and gurgle of my filling chest makes me drown. Convulsions overtake me just before everything fades.

CHAPTER TWO

I am so cold my teeth chatter.