Dirty Deeds(11)

Once in the bar, I ordered a beer and quickly surveyed the room. It was a riotous mess of people having fun in ways I never really could. Once upon a time, when I was eighteen, before I had been deployed, before I lost everything again and again, I had the same sense of naivety and immortality, like the world really wasn’t that bad and it was waiting at my feet. I laughed at all my options. Now I was older, I knew the truth. There were no options. There never was.

The world was bad.

Alana and her friends had secured a table and were drinking, laughing, looking like everyone else. I tried to study her as subtly as I could but from the way she kept looking around the room, I was too afraid to get caught. The thing was, she wasn’t looking around, eyeing people as if they meant to harm her. She was sizing up the men like she wanted to eat them for dinner.

Eventually I removed myself from the bar and went to hide in the shadows. It was safer this way, even though a small part of me was tempted to see her face when she saw me. I knew the affect I had on most women. That’s not even my ego talking, that’s just fact. I don’t really take a lot of pleasure in the fact that women seem to gravitate toward me. Being good-looking meant nothing. They just want a hard fuck and big muscles. They wouldn’t feel the same way if they got to know me.

The more I stared at Alana, the more I was struck by how familiar she looked. I knew that was nothing to ignore – there was a chance that I’d seen her somewhere before. But I couldn’t place when or where. Though she looked familiar, something about her amber eyes or her smile, which alternated between fun and feminine carnality, she possessed this kind of life to her that I know would have made a permanent impression on me if we had happened to have met before.

It was later in the night when she got up to use the washroom. Her friend had to help her navigate the rowdy crowd and before I knew what I was doing, I was walking after them. I waited by the men’s washroom, staring at my phone, pretending to be occupied.

All I could think about was why? Why was I doing this? Why didn’t I just get the fuck away and go live out the rest of my life? Why was I here? The gun burned in my pocket but I already knew I wasn’t going to use it on her.

Then, there was movement. I looked up to see her come out of the washroom, alone, and lean back against the wall. She shut her eyes and seemed to wince. Time seemed to stretch as we both stood in this dirty hallway. If she looked my way she would catch me staring at her.

Do it, I thought. Look.

But she didn’t. She seemed like she was in pain and all the carefree vestiges on her face slipped away like water. Now she was the accident victim, broken and bruised. Vulnerable.

It was almost enough to make me move toward her. I don’t know what I’d say, if I’d even say anything. I just wondered if I could tell who she was by her looking at me, if her gaze would show me why this all happened. Why had I been sent to kill her.

I barely noticed the two douchebags who barged out of the men’s bathroom, bumping against the walls as they passed me, slurring and laughing. I could see they were about to collide with Alana and before I knew what I was really doing, I was right there beside her. One guy’s shoulder collided with hers and she let out a yelp of pain as she fell forward.

My instincts were quick and probably wrong.

I grabbed hold of her arm and then quickly brought her up toward me and from the moment she looked into my eyes, hers wide with shock and pain, I could tell who she was.

A wildcat.

I swallowed hard and immediately forgot about wanting to ram my fists through the two drunk boys’ heads. She was staring at me so intently that I knew I could never fade into the background after this. I could never observe her from a distance again. I could never watch from the shadows. From now on, this all had to be out in the open.

“Thank you,” she said to me in perfect English, her voice lightly accented. I guess it came with the territory of being a flight attendant.

“You’re welcome,” I said, immediately relaxing into my role. Without fail, this was the role I’d always fall back in. Dumb tourist jock, Derrin Calway.

However I failed to relax my fingers. I slowly released them from her arm before I made her uncomfortable.

From the slight pout to her lips, I could have sworn she wanted my hands to stay where they were.

A long, heavy moment passed between us as we stared at each other. I tried to take her all in – her hair as it stuck in places to her damp forehead, the faint bruising still evident around her eyes, the stiff way she held her battered limbs, the soft swell of her cleavage – not knowing if I would get the chance again.

Then the door to the bathroom swung open and the tall friend came out. “What a mess in there,” the woman said to Alana in Spanish. When she didn’t get Alana’s attention, her eyes swung over to me.