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"Answer me, Ophelia" Z’s voice is strained, worried "Are You All Right?"

"I’m fine" I take a deep breath, tell myself that it’s true "I’m fine"

He doesn’t look convinced

"I swear," I reassure hi sure my voice doesn’t tremble this time "I’ his attention to Harvey, who is just now cliround where Z threw him "Hey, man, what the hell was that for?" he complains as he picks his hat out of the snow

Z doesn’t answer, just plows a fist straight into Harvey’s face Harvey rears back as blood starts leaking from a cut on his cheekbone He touches his cheek, looks down at his criloves Then launches hier than Z--a couple of inches taller and probably fifty pounds heavier--but Z doesn’t so much as flinch He just meets him head-on, with a fist to the sto for air Then Z really gets to work

It’s over almost before it starts A few jabs, an uppercut, and a hard roundhouse to the gut and Harvey is laid out in the snow, groaning Z stands over hie "What’s the ive you a free shot Let you see what it feels like to hit a oes to punch hiet in theso to end up in jail, and he doesn’t deserve that, not when he’s just trying to help h" I put s h Soo around putting his hands on women just because he feels like it" He draws one booted foot back and kicks Harvey in the ribs Then does it a second and a third tiet away frorab hiain, he shakes me off He doesn’t seem to hear me All he hears, all he can focus on, is Harvey

"You don’t look so strong now, Harvey Rolling around on the ground Begging like a little bitch How’s it feel not to be the strong one, huh? How’s it feel not to be the one in control?" He kicks hioing to kill hied word that comes out of his mouth

I rush him from the side, shove hiain My attack catches hiains his balance, then turns to me with a confused look on his face "What’d you do that for?"

"Look at hi as he curls himself into the fetal position and waits forto be any more My shove was the wake-up call Z needed He’s finished I can see it fro up frohtmare

Like he can’t believe what he’s done

I don’t knohy, but I reach for him I should be terrified by his display of violence, by the way he lost hi about the way he touched me, the way he came to my rescue, that tells me he won’t hurt me At least not with his fists Besides, if he’d wanted anything froo

It only takes Harvey a couple of seconds to figure out the attack has stopped Once he glances at Z and realizes he’s not going to get hit again, he unrolls hi soh-pitched voice thatto hurt her"

I think about the bruises on my are and he doesn’t even know Or, more likely, it’s that he doesn’t care

"Get the fk out ofstep forward "And if I ever catch you near Ophelia again, I’ll kill you"

Ice runs down my spine Not at the threat, but at the deadly soft conviction behind the words A part of me thinks they aren’t for show, that Z really oes deathly white before spinning around and fleeing in the direction of the lodge as fast as his injured body can carry him

After he disappears into the trees, I turn to Z "Are you okay?" He’s stretching out his hand like it really hurts Which, of course, it must It’s bruised and swollen, the knuckles split open from the force hich his fist connected with Harvey’s face The fact that he wasn’t wearing gloves, that his hands are ice cold, has only aided in the da, whether with cold or reaction I’m not sure But I can’t leave him out here Not when he just saved me from a fate I don’t even want to think about Damn Harvey and his hey-can-I-hitch-a-ride approach And da into one of those too-stupid-to-live heines from horror movies and I don’t like it, at all