Free Rise of the Dunamy by James R. Landrum Page B

on her mindless busy work and worrying about her evening, and Bishop dodging the higher-ups and anyone else that might question why the two weren’t out canvassing scenes and searching for clues. Finally, the day came to an uneventful close. Bishop shook Sofia from her trance-like state with a booming ‘good night’ as he passed her desk. As Bishop left the station, Sofia was still looking around the room as if she had just been awoken from a deep sleep. As she finally became aware of her surroundings, she snatched up her belongings and made her way towards home.

11
    S ofia was so filled with adrenaline and excitement she felt as though she had been pounding energy drinks all day as she prepared for her date with Lucian. The anxiety crawled through her skin like a million tiny spiders. It had been years since she had actually gone out on dates and those hadn’t gone well.
    After her brief dating experience with Mateo, Sofia focused much more on her studies and her extracurricular activities, and made no time for dating. She went to her proms with dates, but since they were with groups of other people and had always ended with a giant party, she had never felt that they were representative of what a real date was like. Since high school, Sofia had gone on only three dates, and each one was its own level of terrible.
    The first date she went on out of the academy was the one she considered to be the first of her adult life. She had been asked out several times by men while she was in college and the academy, but never felt like taking the time away from her studies to go out. She was still deciding whether or not to follow her parents south when she accepted a date invitation from a charming young man she had attended college with. He had been after her for months prior to her graduation and Sofia felt good around him.
    Her expectations were low, but they were still not met. The majority of the date took place at a noisy bar, where he proceeded to drink so heavily Sofia had to take him to the hospital before calling it a night and heading home alone. His intoxicated state being as debilitating as it was, the drunken Casanova still managed to make several half-coherent attempts at fondling her during the drive to the hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital he was admitted for alcohol poisoning, and a broken wrist Sofia had given him as a parting gift for his unwanted advances.
    Her second dating experience occurred several months after the incident with the drunk and the hospital visit. She had decided that moving to Atlanta to be near her parents would be a nice change and immediately began attending the Police Academy upon her arrival. During her training there she met another cadet that had just moved down from Pennsylvania and they decided to get together to check out the town together. He managed to do a little better with his selection of locations, taking her to a quaint, undiscovered café that he said a friend had suggested to him. Although she expected their discussions to include something about getting used to the cultural differences they each experienced since moving South, the dinner conversation was instead driven by their experience at the Academy, and little more. At the end of the date, Sofia lowered her guard and agreed to take a look at his apartment. Although well-versed in the enforcement of the law and identifying predators, she had never had personal experience one.
    After taking a look around his shabby bachelor’s pad, Sofia decided to make her exit. Being that she hadn’t been in the situation often, she felt a goodnight kiss was expected in the situation and granted him one. Sofia’s attempt at a sweet, soft goodnight kiss turned into sloppy, one-sided, face-rape that she attempted to endure. When he started trying to remove her clothes, Sofia tried to pull away from him, but he pulled her back tightly and became more aggressive. Sofia’s repeated warnings that she was not interested in him