“Eight years in a mental hospital, and they still didn’t manage to teach you to keep your hands to yourself, you crazy cunt?” the jerk snapped, patting himself down as if checking to see if I’d somehow picked his pockets with my elbow. Which would have made me some kind of genius thief more than a psychopath, but whatever, not worth mentioning.

I also restrained myself from correcting him that it was seven years, opening my mouth to instead repeat my hollow apology, but I didn’t get the chance to do even that.

“What the fuck did you call her?” Ansel snarled, switching from exuberant puppy to rabid pitbull in an instant. He slammed his hand into the guy’s throat and somehow lifted him right off his feet so the guy’s trainers dangled inches off the ground.

The guy gurgled and flailed, unable to answer the question, not that I expected he wanted to admit to what he’d said right now. People in the crowd near us turned to see what the commotion was, with a chorus of gasps and squeals of horror—and, let’s be real, maybe a little excitement. I’d lost my breath and my voice entirely, my jaw hanging open so far you could have stuffed a bowling ball in there.

“That’s what I thought,” Ansel said, still in that feral tone, and tossed the guy aside like he was an inflatable dummy rather than an actual human being. The crowd parted, none of them wanting to face a collision, and he thumped to the ground in their midst, right on his sorry ass. And oh boy, did he look sorry.