How had I gotten myself into this situation again?

Here I was, on the first day of my week-long vacation away from school, sitting across from a guy named Freddy, who had just finished telling me how many reps he did at the gym each morning of every single exercise known to man. Before that, I'd been treated to hearing all about his mother's bunions and his collection of action figures.

And I hadn’t even been here for an hour.

The semester had been a long one, with the kids in my class never sitting still for longer than five seconds and the endless stream of additional expectations and administration piling up higher than Mount Everest. It was only hours ago that I'd finally gotten it all done, and I was looking forward to relaxing in a really long, really hot bath when my phone rang and Melanie, my sister, informed me that she had set me up on a blind date with a guy that she'd met at the gym.

She said he was hot enough and seemed to be able to string two sentences together. I had vehemently objected to this plan, but she'd promised to phone me at 10 PM and give me an out so that if things weren't going well, I could pretend that there was an emergency with my cat and bail. She was then kind enough to remind me that, if I didn’t keep trying on the whole dating front, my vagina would eventually atrophy and fall off.

But as I contemplated another three hours listening to Fred wax poetic about his original, still-in-the-box Boba Fett, I was beginning to think that was the better fate.

A quick glance down at my wrist watch told me that it was now well after 10 and my dearest sister had not yet called. In short, that meant that I was screwed.

I was stuck on an awful blind date, the likes of which I'd been on more times before than I cared to count, and it seemed that the cavalry in the form of one Melanie Mitchell was not on its way.

Son of a bitch.

Rolling my eyes to the vaulted ceiling of the restaurant, I prayed for patience and hoped that, just maybe, Freddy was not actually a terribly boring, completely self-involved person, but was just nervous. I knew I babbled when I was nervous, too.

Half an hour later, though, I was fast realizing that things were even worse than I’d feared.

Freddy was leaning forward with his elbows on the starched white tablecloth, leering at me from behind pale blue eyes that gave me the chills. And not in a good way.

His breath, though we hadn't yet ordered any food, was tinged with garlic and made me shrink back in my chair in an attempt to reclaim those precious few inches between us that he had stolen when he leaned forward.

If Freddy could sense my discomfort or tell that I'd stopped listening to his ramblings about the ingredients of his Monday morning smoothie and was secretly plotting ways to kill my sister, he didn't let on. The only thing that stopped the word vomiting was when a waiter dressed in black from head to toe approached our table and asked again whether we'd like to order appetizers.

When the man had been by before, Freddy had insisted that we were having a fine time talking and needed more time to decide what to eat. From the sympathetic look that the blonde server had shot me before leaving us, it was clear that he could see that while Freddy might have been having a fine time talking, I was stuck in hell.

"Have you decided on appetizers yet?" The waiter, whose name tag identified him as Sam, asked, while pulling a stylus from the electronic notepad he was using and tapping on it.

I was ecstatic about the interruption and quickly made a selection.

"I'll have the spinach and feta calzones, please," I told Sam, who noted my order down just as the not-so-lovely Freddy scoffed.

"Are you sure that's the appetizer that you want? Do you even know how many calories that is?" Fred asked, brows knit with concern as he crossed his arms and regarded me.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, I mirrored his movements. "Yeah. Why?"

With a small shake of his head, Freddy smirked at Sam as if to say back me up here, buddy before letting his eyes fall back to mine. "It's just that…I wanted to make sure that you knew there were healthier options on the menu."

Barely managing to suppress a muttered curse and a crude hand gesture, I smiled sweetly and leaned forward with a confidence that I didn't feel.

"Well aware, pal. But I like calzones and I'm secure enough in myself to order them whenever I feel like."

I wasn't that secure in myself. Not secure enough to stop the red flush staining my cheeks. But dearest Freddy didn't need to know that, and I wasn't backing down.

Freddy shrugged and handed his menu back to Sam. "I'll just have the roasted tomatillo and garlic salsa."

Great, more garlic-- because that was exactly what he needed. With his attention momentarily drawn to Sam, I rolled my eyes and twisted my wrist to look at my watch again, appalled to find that it had only been 10 minutes since the last time I checked it.

"So," Freddy said once Sam had unfortunately taken his leave again. "Have I told you that I'm in the tool manufacturing industry yet?"

Oh God, there were so many great things I could do with that statement. The most obvious, of course, was pointing out that he was possibly, by far, the biggest tool that had ever been manufactured in any industry, but instead I sat back and shook my head with a long-suffering sigh.

"No, you have not."

Freddy's excitement was palpable, but to me it simply looked like he'd gone all sweaty and clammy and his grin resembled that of a movie villain who was about to make the hero watch as he clubbed baby seals or something.

Not that I thought of myself as a hero, in my own or any other story, but Freddy would definitely have made a great mistakenly smug villain. Mistakenly so, because he was deranged if he thought I was actually about to pay attention to whatever snooze-fest he was about to inflict on me.

I pasted a smile on my face and went into smile and nod, boys mode. While Freddy launched into an unnecessarily detailed description of what, essentially, just sounded like sales to me, my mind drifted back to the best and most creative ways to torture my sister over this particularly bad idea of hers.

Melanie was only a year older than me and we'd grown up more like twins than anything else. She was my best friend and I loved her to bits, but our personalities were probably on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum. She was outgoing and forever encouraging me to be the same. She was fiercely loyal, albeit scatterbrained-- as her forgetting the bailout call once again proved, but she was fun, loud and adventurous.

I had my moments, sure. But I preferred my risks calculated and my life organized.

Melanie and I would look at the same situation and while we'd both be willing to give it a try, she would rather jump in head first and deal with the hurt or consequences if it came, while I would take a step back, and assume that the hurt and consequences would come unless we took whatever steps to prevent it first.

It was a small, but fundamental difference between us, but that was just the way we were put together. It was exactly why I'd been on countless dates like this one. Melanie would meet a man and just set it up, while I hardly ever closed my eyes and jumped feet first.

It wasn't that Freddy was bad looking, at first glance I'd even agreed with her assessment of his being hot, but having spent––a quick glance at my watch told me that only another five minutes had passed––a total of just over an hour with the man, I now had to disagree. I appreciated a fine-looking specimen of the male variety as much as the next girl, but I firmly believed that if it was only the window-dressing that was worth looking at, then there was nothing there for me.

Freddy was a prime example of such a situation. Those pale blue eyes, while not bad at all, were also not striking and if I was being completely honest, were a little bit lifeless.

Brown hair that vaguely resembled the color of drying mud fell in longish curls to frame a face with features that all somehow seemed to miss the mark. His Roman nose was a little too long and a little too broad, while his chin could have been stronger.

I wasn't judging by any means. I wasn't exactly an oil painting myself, but at least I didn't act like I was. Freddy, on the other hand, was eyeing every woman in the restaurant and had moved on from his titillating account of his job and was on to telling me about all the women in the gym he’d had, and could have.

He only stopped when his appetizer was finished and he suddenly lurched to his feet. "I'm just gonna go drop a deuce to make space for the rest of the meal. BRB."

Practically gagging at both his pronouncement and the fact that he’d actually said the letters “BRB” instead of saying “be right back”, I waited until he disappeared into what I assumed was the men's room before exploding into action. With no clue how long it might take to evacuate a bowl of tomato salsa from the sphincter of a man who benched three-eighty, I tore through my purse and yanked out a twenty, tossing it onto the table next to my barely-touched appetizer. Then, I hightailed it outside, passing waiter Sam as he nodded his approval.

Once I stepped into the chilly night air, I let out a sigh of relief. Sweet freedom.

Hot on the heels of that relief, though, was righteous fury. I was going to have to shave off Melanie's eyebrows in her sleep or maybe put a heating pad into her pillowcase to make sure that she would never touch her cheek to the cold side of the pillow ever again to get revenge for this one.

I wrapped my jacket closer around me and my arms around my waist to keep warm while searching for my car. It was only then that I realized that Freddy was my ride.

"Crap on a stick," I muttered, weighing my options. I punched in Melanie’s number, but she didn’t answer. Going back inside to ask Freddy for a ride was not happening. I'd rather walk the couple of miles back to my house in the freezing cold than be subjected to another minute with that man.

The streets were quiet at this time of night, especially given that the restaurant that we'd gone to was on the outskirts of a residential area and had no other bars or clubs around it, so waiting on a Lyft would take just as long as walking. Might as well get it over with.

Darkness shrouded me between the streetlights and the chilly night air bit into the exposed skin on my hands and cheeks. My breath created little puffs of smoke in the cold and while I felt distinctly like the unlucky character at the beginning of every horror movie ever made, I would walk over glass if it meant avoiding Freddy.

Woman up, Starling. You’re doing this! I commanded myself.

I tucked my hands into the pockets of my soft, fleece-lined jacket, my chin into its collar, and kept my head down as I made my way home. There were a few people milling about on the deserted sidewalks, but as soon as I turned from Main, I left all traces of fellow night prowlers behind.

About halfway home, I was reflecting on having had yet another terrible blind date when a loud catcall from my right drew my attention to two men sitting on the steps of one of the buildings.

"Hey, baby, looking good! How much?" one called, while the other nudged him in the side with his elbow.

"How much?" he guffawed at his friend, joining in. "That was a good one, bro. Hey, why aren't you slowing down, baby? We'll show you a good time, promise."

They were both slurring their speech and looking at me like I was about to be the next hit of whatever it was they were smoking that was filling the air with a pungent, sweet smell. One of the men was a little older than the other and was clearly the one in charge, since he was the one to get up and start following me when I tried to walk faster, pulse pounding.

I wasn't the kind of woman who was easily frightened or who screamed during scary movies. If I was watching the scene I was living play out on screen, I would have watched calmly, possibly picked up on anomalies or inconsistencies in the story and crunched on popcorn while silently encouraging the heroine to wheel around with some mace in hand or something.

Too bad I wasn't watching a movie. It turned out that my body knew it, too, its reactions alerting me to the possible danger of the situation that I found myself in. All the way from the hair on the back of my neck standing on end to my wildly beating heart and the chill that ran through me, setting goose bumps prickling over my arms and legs.

The men kept calling to me, but I just increased my pace, fumbling for my phone.

Please, God, do not let that be the last date I will ever go on. It seemed almost too cruel a fate.

It was only when I heard the pounding of footsteps behind me, breaking into a run, that I broke into a full out sprint and sped down the alley that ran behind an old bank.

They’re chasing me, I realized. Like prey. Not simply following me anymore, but actively chasing me now. The sudden shock of fear that ran down my spine momentarily paralyzed me and I stumbled over my feet, my hands shooting out to break my fall as burning pain seared from the pads of my palms and my kneecaps when they grated against the asphalt.

The sound of laughter made its way to my ears and I tried to scrambled upright as the two men started circling me, whistling low. The older man crouched beside me with a grin that chilled me to the bone and didn't reach his eyes, his voice slightly breathy when his gaze cut to those of the younger man.

"She's a pretty one, you're a lucky man to have her be your first. I think I'll take a run at her when you're done, make sure we show her the time of her life tonight."

A sob of terror caught in my lungs and I choked it back with force, not wanting to give them the satisfaction. I remembered years ago during some or other self-defense seminar, we'd been told that most sexual offenses were committed in the ultimate power play as opposed to being driven by lust.

A small, possibly irrational, part of my brain thought that if I could somehow control my reactions, they would realize that they had no power over me and simply leave. But deep down inside, I knew it wouldn't work, because for the first time in my life, I was truly and completely powerless. The deep and visceral grief I felt in that moment swallowed me whole and a scream bubbled in my chest as the older man roughly secured my wrists to my sides.

My last cognizant thought was of Melanie. Jesus, Melanie would blame herself.

But even that thought skittered away as the sound of fumbling, followed by a lowering zipper, seemed to reverberate like a gunshot in my head. A sudden numbness overtook me, like my body shutting down from the inevitable pain it was about to endure, when the air seemed to hum with a sudden, crackling energy.

"Step the fuck away from her."