“I'm sorry,” I replied. I was trying not to sound rude, but I was trying not to sound too friendly, either. I just wanted this to be over, whatever it was. “I'm in a hurry, and I wasn't sure you were talking to me.”
“You wasn't sure I was talkin' to you? Who the hell else is out here?” The man in the suit rolled his eyes, then addressed the others over my shoulder, gesturing at me wildly. “Fer chrissakes, will you look at this broad? I've seen cacti that were friendlier than this!”
The other two chortled, and he turned to look at me again. “What's with this freakin' hostility, huh? Where is the attitude coming from? I mean, look at me...I'm not a criminal, I'm dressed real goddamn nice over here, an' you're actin' like I'm some kinda thug who's gonna snatch yer purse! As though there'd be anything in it that I'd even freakin' want!”
“Fine,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “What's the question?”
The man in the suit giggled, and the sound made me queasy. “Okay, so here's the question.” He held up his hand and put the tips of his thumb and forefinger together, making a circle. “Do you think you'd be able to wrap your ass around somethin' that's about this wide? 'Cause if so, I think we're in for one hell of an evenin'!”
I tried to run, but the two men behind me grabbed me roughly. My shoes scraped against the pavement as they dragged me back to their cars. I opened my lips to scream, but one of them shoved a wadded-up handkerchief into my mouth, hard enough to make my jaw ache. The other one—a man with extremely large ears and thick black eyebrows that looked drawn on with magic marker—pulled a gun from the back of his track pants, pressing it against my temple. “Shut up an' enjoy the romance, darlin', an' you can still walk away from this. I mean, you'll be walkin' bow-legged, maybe, but...”
The one in the suit opened the back door of one of the sedans, and the other two shoved me onto the back seat face-down. One of them went around to the other side, opened the other back door, and grabbed my arms and held them to keep me from struggling. I whimpered and thrashed, but I was helpless. Hot tears started streaming down my face. My mind was racing. I have to get out of this somehow, I can't just let this happen, there must be something I can do to stop this, oh God, no, no, no...
Behind me, the man in the suit pulled up my skirt and tore open the seat of my panties. I could feel his palms rubbing my thighs and buttocks. “Hey, would ya look at these curves, huh? Looks like someone's been eatin' pretty well!” His hands were spreading my cheeks apart, and I started to hyperventilate, groaning and shaking my head in protest. I could hear the sound of his zipper going down, and his shoes stepped between my ankles, separating them. “Still, you guys know what they say, right? The bigger the cushion...”
His voice trailed off, and the man holding my arms down looked up at the one in the suit, concerned. “What is it, Frankie?”
“Shh,” the one called Frankie answered tightly. I could feel him straightening up behind me, his hands no longer on my hips. “You freakin' hear that?”
The one holding my arms cocked his head to listen, but my panicked breathing must have been too loud for him to hear anything. He grunted, “Quiet down, you stupid broad,” and smacked the side of my head lightly with the barrel of the gun he'd been holding on me. It wasn't hard enough to hurt much, but it did stun me into silence.
That was when I heard what they were listening to—the loud growling of machines, steadily getting closer. At first, I had the absurd thought that it sounded like chainsaws approaching, and I was worried that even worse people were on their way to hurt me. Then I realized that the sound was the angry roar of motorcycles.
“Fill yer hands, you freakin' mooks! We got company!” Frankie snarled. He backed away from my exposed bottom, giving it a hard smack. “Get lost, you dumb skirt. Forget you ever saw us.”
Before I could do much more than back out of the car and straighten up, five motorcycles revved up the street toward us, their headlights glaring as they screeched to a halt. It was too dark to see the faces of the men riding them, but I heard one of them call out to the others. “Remember, we take Frankie alive! Waste the other two!”
Does that voice sound oddly familiar, or...?
Everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion around me. I saw the two men in track suits level their guns at the bikers and open fire—a quick series of flat pops and cracks that sounded like a string of fireworks. The bikers fired back, and when the car door next to me was peppered with bullets, the same voice called out again. “Watch out for the girl! We ain't here to drill civilians!”
My heart felt like it was smashing against the inside of my ribcage and trying to get out. My mouth was full of a coppery taste like blood, and electricity seemed to crackle in my veins. I had never felt so terrified in my life, and I was certain that each moment I felt this way would be the last thing I ever felt. I kept expecting one of the bullets to hit my head and I wondered what it would feel like, or if I'd even feel anything at all before dying. What if it doesn't kill me? What if it paralyzes me for life? Oh God, please just let the shooting stop! I can't take anymore tonight!
I saw a bullet hit the big-eared guy in the side of his neck and everything snapped into focus. I realized that I was lucky these men on the bikes had chosen to intervene, but I could still die in the crossfire if I wasn't careful. I threw myself on the ground and crawled under one of the cars as the bullets continued to fly, smacking the side of the car and chipping the pavement near my face.
I saw Frankie's pants and shoes as he crouched behind the car. His hand reached into his pocket and produced a cell phone, dialing it with shaky fingers. He had to yell to make himself heard above the shots. “Jimmy! Yeah, it's me! I'm outside Billy's place. Those freakin' bikers just rode up outta nowhere, they wanna kidnap me or somethin'! Mick an' Dumbo are tryin' to hold 'em off...”
A shotgun blast went off, and the big-eared man dropped to the ground right in front of me. His entire face was a bloody mess, and one of his huge ears was hanging off. I clamped my hand over my mouth as I stared into his scrambled brains, afraid I might be sick.
“...shit, they got Dumbo! You gotta send some guys right now!”
Suddenly, I saw a bullet ricochet off the ground next to Frankie. The phone dropped from his fingers, and a moment later, he crumpled to the street next to it. A round red hole had appeared just above his left eyebrow and was already starting to seep. His eyes bulged at me for a second before the life left them.
I heard a clip of ammunition click into place, followed by an enraged scream. “Eat shit an' die, you goddamn cocksuckers! I'm comin' for ya!” I could hear the third man's shoes slapping the pavement frantically as he rushed them, firing his gun wildly. The shotgun boomed again, and the man fell onto his back. He twitched twice, then remained still, blood pooling beneath him.
The silence that followed was deafening. The first sound I heard was the voice of the biker again. “Alive, Boomer. Was that too big a word for you? Did you need me to spell it?”
The one called Boomer responded with a grim chuckle. “Hey, I'm a bomb guy, Nic, not a kidnapping guy. You want someone blown up, I can help you. You wanna do duct tape an' chloroform, ask Ditch. That's how he gets most of his dates.”
Wait...Nic? Did he just call him Nic?
Another voice spoke up, reedy and nasal. “Go get fucked in a canoe, Boomer.”
“Pffft, best offer I've had all night.”
“We get one of these high-ranking suckers alive, we can try to trade him for Growler and put an end to this bullshit,” the first voice said. “We keep leavin' 'em dead, and this war's just gonna go on and on. We can't afford that.” I saw a pair of boots walking toward me. I was certain I'd seen them before, and now I knew where.
“Now what are you doin'?” the nasal voice asked plaintively.
“I'm gonna go make sure you didn't ventilate some innocent woman on top of it all,” the first voice answered. “The way tonight's going, that's all we fuckin' need.”
The boots stopped in front of the car, and their owner bent down to peer beneath it. For the first time in since Christmas, I stared into Nic's face. His eyes widened, and his eyebrows raised so high they nearly touched his hairline.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you have got to be kidding me.”
My breath quivered, and I did my best to force a smile. “Hi.”
Nic stood dazed for another moment, then reached out to me. I took his hand and gingerly slid out from under the car, standing up. He looked me up and down, still confused. “What...what the hell are you doing here, Lauren?”
“Um, nice to see you too, Nic,” I joked lamely. Despite the circumstances, I still realized that I was happy to see him. I'd long since convinced myself that I never would again. But he didn't look happy to see me at all. In fact, he seemed furious.
“Seriously, what the fuck is going on?” he demanded.
“I just, y'know...I was on my way home from an audition and...”
“And you were, what, walking? In the middle of the night? In this fucking neighborhood? I thought you were smart! What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you know how goddamn dangerous this city is? Do you know what kind of bad shit can happen to you out here?”