A Knight Comes To Bed Read Online Free Page B

as they were made to suffer.
Chapter Six
    RACHEL WALKED AROUND the sculpture garden completely at ease. It was one of her favorite places to stop on her way home from going out, when she actually decided to get out of her apartment. The night had a chill on it that she didn't like though, and instead of really taking her time, she moved rather rapidly down the narrow trail of worn grass.
    Sometimes she stopped to peer up at the stars, trying to make out half-remembered constellations. But other than those brief moments of hesitation she moved with a grace born of confidence.
    When she got to the sculpture of the two figures embraced in struggle and one groping the other, she sped up her step. Although she hadn't been one of the people that had protested the existence of the stone carvings, she didn't exactly like them, either. For her, the piece was just a reminder that there were people out there who wanted to hurt her for reasons that had been recycled and reused for years, reasons as old as time, really.
    As a beautiful and smart woman, Rachel sometimes thought about how lucky she was to not yet be a statistic on a chart somewhere in the annuls of the university that mapped out the rise and fall of sexual assault on campus, moving with the wax and wane of frat boys and sports stars. Rachel didn't think all of them were like that though, always keeping in mind that there were plenty of frat friends and sports people she kept in touch with, and they would never even think of so much as treating her poorly.
    That's why Rachel hadn't protested with the feminists even though she considered herself one, even going as far as to tell her mother and father, when he was still alive, that she identified as a feminist. Her mother had taken it well, just laughing a little laugh and telling her not to burn her bra right away. Her father had gotten a little snappy, saying something along the lines of the expected “no daughter of mine” speech. Rachel had taken both reactions in stride, realizing that her parents would always be her parents no matter what, and no extremist political ideology was going to change that for them.
    But Rachel didn't really consider feminism to be extremist at all, instead viewing it as a natural reaction—wanting equal pay and to be in charge of her own body was something she felt should be the default way of thinking for women, since it was certainly what men would want if the positions were changed. She was lost in deep thought when she heard what sounded like a large animal rushing through vegetation behind her.
    Rachel turned, but instead of seeing a charging bull saw Kurt Sully, one of the football players that always looked at her like a piece of meat. In the brief moments between seeing Kurt and him crossing the distance, she screamed as loud as she could.
    Rachel turned to meet him and saw that his eyes were dark and menacing, as if he knew exactly what was going to happen. His left arm cocked back to deliver a powerful punch. She feinted like she was going to duck or shimmy past him to the right. But instead, she held her ground and blocked with her right arm. His punch fell long, with the bicep impacting her blocking arm and his fist overshooting her head by a few inches.
    For a second they seemed to freeze in the air, like two marionettes strung up by gods to mime the sculpture “Greed” that served as their backdrop. Before the seemingly stretched-out moment ended, Rachel managed to rake Kurt across the face with her nails, from top to bottom. Each finger opened up a deep rent in his face that gushed blood down onto his varsity jacket.
    Then they dropped to the ground with a thud, entangled. Somewhere in the flight or fight part of Rachel's brain, it occurred to her that she would probably need some kind of plan. When she stood up, Kurt would be standing up, too, and his intentions were pretty clear at this point.
    Rachel rolled over on her stomach, pushed her palms down on the earth, and