She saw everyone out of the store, shutting the door behind them.
Going around, she shut off lights on the top floor of the bookstore. She wemt through motions of closing, shutting down registers, running the last of the dishes through the sanitizer.
She brought out the vacuum and ran it over the carpet where the small group had spend roughly two hours in discussion.
Her phone had three text messages from Rafa.
How did the night go?
When do you think you will be done there?
Call me when you get home.
She replied: Finished, locking up now.
She typed the code into the panel, stepping out of the door and turning the key in the lock.
Dropping her keys into a pocket on her backpack, she slid her phone out of her pocket to text him back.
Someone came up behind her, shoving her into the alley next to her store.
Her bag slipped off of her shoulder onto the sidewalk. Her phone dropped in the opening of the alleyway.
She was shoved into a brick wall with the force to make her head spin. She reached out to shove the person off of her but they were larger and her wrist was painfully pinned between her.
"No!" She shouted. "Get off!"
"Shut up!" Came a male voice.
She got her wrist free from between them, driving her nails into his ear and neck, dragging her nails down and clawing into him.
He cursed, grabbing her wrist and shoving it into the wall above her hear. There was a crack sound and she cried out in pain.
He let her broken wrist drop, covering her mouth as he started fighting her jeans off of her legs.
She felt tears fall down her face.
Headlights turned onto the street a few feet from them.
She stomped onto his foot and then brought her knee up to his crotch.
He stumbled, and his pressure on her faltered.
She managed to shove him away from her and attempted to get around him to the alley.
He tackled her, forcing her to fall into a couple of metal trash bins.
She screamed, feeling pain drive up her side as he once again climbed on top of her.
Headlights stopped at the storefront.
AJ attempted to claw his face, reaching for soft parts like his lips and eyes.
He drove his knee into her ribs, kneeling on her torso as he attempted to cover her mouth. His other hand went to his belt buckle.
She bit him as hard as she could.
Once his hand was off of her mouth she screamed as loud as she could.
Red and Blue lights started flashing off of the buildings, lighting up the alley.
"POLICE!" A man shouted, flashlights spreading across the shops and down into the alley.
"Fuck!" The attacker shouted, getting up and taking off the opposite way.
He had kicked her in the thigh as heforced himself off of her.
Pain in her torso spread into her chest, and she began to cough, pain seering up her body.
"HERE!" Someone shouted, a flashlight falling over her.
A second flashlight beam came over her, before a woman came to kneel down next to her. "Hey, Sweetie, can you talk?"
"Yes." AJ rasped out, her throat sore from screaming.
"Call a bus!" The woman told her partner. She turned back to the girl that was bleeding. "Can you tell me your name."
"Adeline."
"Okay, Adeline, we are going to get you to a hospital, okay?"
Adeline coughed again.
"Donovan!"
The male officer looked over, seeing blood on her lips and chin. "Dispatch, we got internal bleeding," He fished through her backpack. "Adeline Jane Preston, 27 years old. DOB August 12th, 1992."
Sirens sounded a few blocks away.
More Red and blue lights lit up the street as more police turned up on the scene.
"Notify Special Victims." Donovan told another officer.
Adeline lifted her head to look, gasping as pain radiated in her chest.
"Hey, Adeline, please don't move." The female officer was saying. The officer picked up her hand.
Adeline cried out.
The officer flashed her light on the wrist, taking in the swelling and odd angle. She set the extremety down gently.
The ambulance pulled up in front of the alleyway, EMTs getting out of the back with bags.
The officer backed away as they went to examine her.
The female officer walked back to the street. "Anything in her bag other than her name?"
He held up her cellphone, screen shattered. "Kissing an older guy on her phone?"
The female looked at the phone. "Shit."
"What?" He tilted the phone back to look. "You know him?"
"So do you. Former Assistant District Attorney."
"The one that killed the kid?"
"Yeah, yeah, um, Barba." She finished.
"He just got out of Special Victims, now someone tries to rape ... whoever she is?" Officer Donovan stated.
"We'll find out, ride along to the hospital?"
The EMTs pulled the gurney out of the ambulance, carefully loading Adeline onto it and wheeling her back. "Someone going with?"
"I will." The female officer volunteered.