I felt the warmth of Hunter’s chest against mine, and comforted myself in the rhythmic rising and falling of his lungs. Nestling closer to him, I nuzzled my face into his neck, preparing to nip his skin and slip into sleep…
Something felt wrong.
My eyes flashed completely open.
Wait. I twisted my neck, gazing around at the room. Panic began to seize at my chest.
Oh fuck. We fell asleep!
What time is it?
I extracted myself up from Hunter’s slumbering body. He shifted slightly in his sleep, turning inward to the sofa as I fumbled around in the semi-darkness, whipping on my panties, jeans, and what was left of my shirt. Quietly but quickly, I crept over to the blackout curtains on the other side of the small, private room…
Ripping open the drapes, I gazed upon the clear sign of my own damnation. My strength left me as I dropped down to my knees in defeat. The bright sun filtered in, casting its infernal glow across the entire room.
“Mmf…” Hunter groaned, moving to cover his face in the sofa’s seam. He lazily called out to me: “Hey… Sarah, can you… turn out the light?”
“The light’s not on,” I groaned.
There was a pause.
Suddenly, there came the sounds of quick and panicked rustling. I felt the warmth of Hunter’s form as he stopped behind me, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a terrified look on his face.
“What fucking time is it?”
“I don’t know,” I moaned, scrambling around the floor for my phone near the sofa. It must have fallen out of my jeans pocket during the festivities the night before.
“Maybe your father hasn’t noticed that you’re gone,” Hunter spoke optimistically, taking a quick look at the window.
Before I could retort, there was a sound of commotion from deeper into the strip club. Apparently, there were still some people from the night before…
My spirits crashed further down when I heard the distant shout… “Police!”
Hunter groaned, covering his face with his hand. “I guess that was a tad optimistic, now that I think about it..."
All of a sudden, another noise joined the fray… Louder… Vicious… Deadly.
BANG!
I turned to hunter feeling as pale as a ghost.
“Was that a gunshot?”
“No,” Hunter replied as I listened to the hissing sound on the other side of the door. “That was pepper spray.”
4
Hunter rushed across the room, his posture completely changed.
“Babe, we’ve gotta go.”
As Hunter threw his jeans on, I finally put my hands on my phone. A million missed calls, of course, and all of them from my father. I glanced back up and could see coils of smoke drawing into the room from outside the door. My eyes had already started to water.
“What are we going to do?” I said with panic in my voice.
Another muffled call came from down the hall somewhere. “Police! Drop the guns!” That one sounded familiar enough to strike terror down my spine…
“It’s war,” Hunter hissed. “Your father is coming for you and it sounds like he brought half the police in the damn city. The problem is this club isn’t going down without a proper fight…”
“The club?” I asked, confused. “Are you talking about the strip club, or your motorcycle club?”
Hunter didn’t skip a beat as he threw his shirt on, straightening a quick crick in his neck. “Yeah, Sarah, at this point I don’t think that there’s really a difference…”
The commotion had slowed in its progress, but it was still conspicuously advancing down the hallway towards us… And it had intensified. The sounds of actual gunfire were now filling the club as Hunter ran to the window, fiddling at the latches.
“Dammit!” He hissed when they wouldn’t move. “Stupid goddamn thing must be locked… guess I’m just gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way…”
I was frozen to the spot as I heard the violence going on outside this little room. Every part of me wanted this to be a dream… I just wanted to wake up in Hunter’s arms with the whole world set right again.
But this was no dream. My father was outside that door, and he was coming…
Hunter put his hands on a bar stool beneath the small bar along the far wall. Carrying it across the room, he steadied himself beside the window and raised it up to the glass, shattering the window. With quick reflexes, he used one of the bar stool legs to break out the glass along the edges of the windowpane, securing a safe passage out – so long as I didn’t touch the sides.
More smoke poured under the door, my throat burning as I locked eyes with Hunter.