by Nicole Fox
“Perfect,” I think. “No one will even notice us.” The knife did not worry me. I had grown accustomed to dealing with weapons far more threatening than that.
Feeling thrilled at my prospects with Erica, I slid out the bar stool for her and bought her a drink. After our kiss outside, she seemed much more confident. She sat up straighter, flexing her tits out to their most-appreciable view, and even ceased plucking at the end of her dress––something she had been doing all night to make sure it never rode up too high.
“I knew it,” I reflected aloud. “There’s something awesome in you.”
She smiled with those lips that had curled so easily around my cigarette, opened her mouth to speak, and–
“Dominic? Dominic Molina?”
I whirled. The voice––thick, scratchy, and male––was one I prayed I did not recognize. I located the speaker: one of the drunken Crooked Jaws, his eyes wide with stupid recognition. His gaze was fastened directly on me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, sinking my chin as low as possible behind the collar. Still, the idiot approached, like a dog upon a rattlesnake.
“Oh, you can’t hide from me, Jasy-Baby. Not in this place,” he cackled, now practically beside us. Erica looked on in silence, her mouth agape.
“Listen, sure,” I grunted, deepening my own voice. “I don’t know who it is you’re talking about, but if you don’t leave me and my girlfriend alone, I’m afraid I’ll have to––”
“What? Have to what?” He sneered. With a wicked grin, he leaned down over the table where he and his buddies had been sitting, and plucked the knife that had been left, still quivering, buried in the wood. “You can’t do nothing here, tough guy,” he sneered. “Not in Fang territory.”
He jabbed the blade at us––mockingly, with no intent to cut. Still, Erica squealed, and recoiled back on her bar stool.
“Well, Mr. Fang, or whatever your name is,” I said, slowly rising to my feet. “I want you to think about this real hard: could I be the person you are looking for? Possibly. But what if I’m not? You got a bar full of innocent people here, me and the lady included. Now, why don’t you put the knife down, and she and I will––”
“No,” he hissed, raising the blade for a killing blow. “You come onto our territory ground, ain’t no one innocent. You of all people should know that––argh!”
He sprung, roaring, through the air, the knife blade flashing. Like a snake, I shot my hand out and knocked the weapon aside, then landed a punch square on his jaw. He hit the floor, and I whirled to Erica.
“Erica,” I said, drawing my pistol from its holster. “When I say so, run!”
Chapter Five
Erica
“When I say so, run!”
His words fly from his mouth so quickly I cannot hear them. All I could see was the knife blade, driving down at us like a shard of ice. Then striking and flipping end-over-end into the chaos of feet in the bar crowd. Dominic grabbed my hand in his left fist. In his right, he held a gun.
“Jesus Christ!” I gasped. “What the hell is going on?”
The attacker, who’d been knocked off his feet by Dominic’s punch, regained his stance. Around him, other men erupted in anger, drawing from their leather jackets more knives and, in one case, a gun.
I was completely frozen. What new horror was I to be subjected to? This is not at all what I was looking for–
“Erica?”
Dominic’s voice. A hard squeeze of my hand.
“Ready…run!”
He bolted. I remained, stupidly, my ass glued to my seat. And yet, his grip on my hand held fast, for, a half a second later, I felt myself being whipped onto my feet and yanked, at a million miles an hour, along the length of the bar.
“Get them!” Someone from behind us cried, and I heard the sound of tables being thrown and glass shattering on the floor.
BOOM! A bullet flew overhead, digging a crater the size of a saucer into the far wall. I screamed and tried to bury my head in my hands, but Dominic kept dragging me along.
“No, you idiot, don’t shoot!” I heard someone cry. “We’ll hit each other! Knife them, boys! Knives!”
“Them?” I echoed stupidly. Why the hell did they want to hurt me?
All around me, people screamed, dashing for the exit. Dominic used the chaos to seize me around the arm and drag me underneath the bar, to hide, at least momentarily, from view.
“You okay?” He pressed, touching my shoulder. I realized I was breathing so rapidly I was nearly hyperventilating.
“No!” I gasped back, and he squeezed my hand.
“That’s okay,” he said. “Because I am, and I’m going to make sure we get out of here safe. You got it?”
I nodded, taking a moment, despite the danger, to admire just how cool and collected he was. He looked no different than a businessman at a difficult meeting.
“But if we’re gonna do that,” he continued, “You have to listen to every single thing I say. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Where are they?”
A hyena’s voice thundered across the bar. It was nearly empty now, save for us and the group of attackers––the Crooked Jaws, I think Dominic had called them. By poking my head out beyond the shadow of the bar, I could see them approaching. I did so quickly, making sure that I couldn’t be seen–
“There they are!”
Damn! By a blink of an eye, and a flit of the hair, one had spotted me.
“Jump!” Dominic bellowed, and together we burst from the ground.
In a single, fluid movement, Dominic threw himself sideways, up and over the bar. I clung to him, allowing him to guide me over, but in spite of this, I still wasn’t quick enough: my hip, shielded by nothing more than a single sheet of fabric, collided with the edge of the bar in a rolling impact of pain. Dizzy, I crumpled rather than slid to the other side of the bar, where I hid, trembling in fear.
Dominic, meanwhile, drew his gun and held it over the horizon of the bar. Boom! He fired. I saw a light burst in a shower of sparks. Boom! The jukebox exploded, the music suddenly silenced.
“Bad aim,” I thought, until I realized that he wasn’t aiming for the people. He was trying to scare them. And, by the way they now hesitated to approach the bar, I could tell it worked.
“Through the kitchens,” Dominic ordered, pointing towards the large, silver door at the far end of the bar. “Now!”
I bolted. Then, my stupid high heel caught on something, and I tripped, my ankle twisting agonizingly beneath me. I cried out, struggling to move, when, next thing I knew Dominic’s arm was around my waist and he was carrying me through the door.
The heavy metal barriers slammed shut behind us. “Help me!” Dominic cried as he grabbed the end of a heavy metal shelf and began dragging in front of the door frame. Swallowing the pain in my hip and ankle, I leapt up to help him.
Suddenly, I heard a cough behind us. We whirled to find a chef, his hands raised in trembling, his skin as pale as the dough which he served.
“Y-you can get out that way,” he stammered, pointing to the far end of the kitchen, where an emergency exit sign waited to guide our way like a holy symbol.
“Thanks,” grunted Dominic, pocketing his gun. Steady as could be, he grabbed my hand and led me, limping heavily, to the door.
It swung open, revealing a cool, dark alley.
“Let’s go!” He said, charging out. We looked left: a towering brick wall, lined with barb wire. We looked right: an empty alleyway, leading to the main road. It was to this that we darted.
“Freeze, Broken Spire!” The voice came almost as powerfully as a gunshot, ricocheting through the filth-strewn alley. Behind it, men appeared, filling up the exit, guns and knives leveled at us. And this time, I realized, they wouldn’t be afraid to shoot.
“Back to the kitchen!” Dominic roared, seizing me once again and whirling around. Crash! We slammed against the kitchen doors which, this time, remai
ned closed. Through the misted glass I saw the face of the chef, now glowing with savage triumph, pumping a key in his fist.
“It’s a trap!” I cried. “They’ve led us here to shoot us!”
“No, no they won’t,” hissed Dominic, slowly backing away. “Gunfire draws cops, and even the Crooked Jaws are smart enough not to get cops involved. Isn’t that right, Tony?”
The guy leading the foray leered, grinning. “True, very true,” he growled. “But I’ve always found knives more fun. Get ‘em, boys!”
They lunged.
“Erica!” Dominic snapped. “That wall! Can you climb it?”
I tore my eyes away from the approaching men and gaped at it. It was made of rough-hewn brick, offering handholds that might benefit a professional rock climber. But me? I was proud if I managed to do my Pilates twice a week.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m not strong enough––ah!”
Without warning, Dominic suddenly scooped me up. I expected him to throw me on his back, but no, he hugged me against his chest, so that my legs closed around his chest and I clung to his neck with my hands. Then, he––amazingly, astoundingly, arousingly––began to climb.
I had little time to wonder why he did not put me on his back, for the Crooked Jaws soon revealed it: knives, like flashes of silver moonlight, flying through the air.
“Dominic, watch out!” I screamed, as the first one clanged against the brick wall inches from his ear. But he could not dodge: he could only keep climbing, faster, faster.
“You animals!” I screeched at the attackers, hoping to distract them. “You dirty fucking pigs! Mother-fuckers! Assholes! Ah!”
Dominic seized the top of the wall and hurled us over in a single wrenching of his great muscles. I heard barbed wire tearing at his leather outfit, and more blades striking against the brick. Then, in a whirl of color and nauseating light, we fell, fell, fell, through the air, and–
Whoomph! We hit the ground. Dominic had shielded me from the impact with his body, so I was––apart from my bruised hip and twisted ankle––okay.
For the first time, as I climbed off him, I heard Dominic moan.
“Dominic!” I hissed, seizing him by the shoulders. All of a sudden, now that the attackers were out of reach, I suddenly realized how crazy all of this was. “Dominic!” I managed to get him into a sitting position. “What the hell happened back there?”
Wincing and swearing under his breath, Dominic managed to return to his feet. Rather than answering me, however, he once again seized me by the hand and dragged me forward.
“No, Dominic! No!” I insisted, planting my feet. “I demand to know what’s going on!”
“I’ll…tell you…” He grunted, still obviously winded from his fall. “Once…we are safe…but for now, we need to run!”
I was about to open my mouth to retort when I heard, quite distinctly, a man on the other side of the wall cry, “Circle round! That road has limited exits! Block them all!”
“Jesus Christ,” I swore, this time taking Dominic’s hand. We looked at each other, nodded, and then––despite my throbbing ankle, despite my aching hip, even despite the sour liquor, churning in my stomach and threatening to rise––we began to run.
Chapter Six
Dominic
“You let your guard down, Dominic,” I told myself as we ran. “You were paying too much attention to this pretty woman, and you let your guard down.”
Another man might have continued to berate himself, to call himself “stupid” over and over, but I had learned a long time ago that such relentless self-admonishments were not helpful. Instead, I made myself this promise: “You will not do it again.”
In spite of this, it was very hard not gaze too long at Erica. She ran ahead of me. Though I was obviously faster, I made sure to stay behind her. Part of that was for the delicious view of her butt, bouncing beneath the sheer red fabric of her dress, and the other part was far more gentlemanly: if the Jaws scaled the wall, their bullets would find me first.
I would not usually consider myself a self-sacrificing sort of guy, but Erica didn’t ask for any of this. It was my fault that she was caught up in all this violence.
As we sprinted, the swelling in her ankle was visible, and I could tell by the ragged way she was breathing that something in her core was paining her. Still, she ran on. She was tougher than she looked.
“Which way?” She gasped, as we neared a connecting road.
“Left!” I cried. “Left! We’ll lose ourselves in the crowds!”
I glanced at my watch. A little past midnight. And yet, I know that Main Street would be teeming with drunk bikers, tourists, and partiers. Thank Christ we’d been caught in a thriving town.
At last, we emerged into the main road. Bright lights scalded our eyes, and music thumped so loudly it nearly tuned out the pounding of our hearts.
“That’s it,” gasped Erica, collapsing against a wall and clutching her chest. “I can’t run any further. Are we safe?”
I glanced around. I was in pain, too, but, if the Jaws still hunted us, we could not stop running. Fortunately, I could see none of them. Instead, all I saw was drunk and grinning wanderers––groups of teenagers dressed like bikers, but their mothers would drive them home, kissing couples, and parents with sleeping children slung across their shoulders, attempting to relive the single life.
“I think we’re okay,” I sighed, likewise leaning against the wall. The minute I said this, I noticed a great pain emerging in my side, that I suppose the adrenaline had kept at bay until then. Scowling, I reached around to investigate, but then Erica was upon me.
“Now, Dominic, I expect you to tell me what the hell is going on,” she demanded, recovered enough from our flight to put her hands on her hips. “If you weren’t spewing bullshit all night, then I deserve an answer.”
I gazed at her, her glare as fiery as her ruby-red lips. I noticed streaks of mascara down her cheeks. Tears from before, or tears as we had been running? I wasn’t sure.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. So, here’s the deal: I am part of a motorcycle club.”
She looked at me, completely unimpressed. “So?” She asked after a minute.
“So…I am part of the club that is an enemy to the Crooked Jaws––that lovely little gang that has been shooting at us all night.”
She scowled, and inhaled sharply. “But I thought…”
“You thought motorcycle gangs were just in movies, right?” I interrupted coldly. “Or were just fun hang-outs for fat, middle-aged men going through midlife crises?”
She had the decency to look embarrassed. “Well, yes,” she said, shrugging.
“Well, they’re not, and tonight’s events should prove it to you,” I snapped harshly. Only after I saw her wince at my words that I realized that I was perhaps being unfair. I continued more softly. “Look, I am only spelling this out for you, because I want you to take what I am about to say seriously: you are in danger. I was in Crooked Jaw territory at that bar, and they will do whatever they can to kill me.”
“Well, then, the solution is simple,” she said, so clinically that I caught a glimpse, very strongly, of what she would be like as a lawyer. Empowered, intelligent, and determined.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I can never see you again,” she said, slamming her clutch purse under her arm, (how she had managed to hang onto it throughout all of this, I would never understand) and stomping away.
I seized her shoulder to stop her. “No!” I insisted. “You don’t understand. They have seen you with me. Now, that means you could be a target.”
She paled, but her lips remained set. “So what do I do?”
“You lay low. You don’t go out for a few days. And though I hate to suggest it––maybe get rid of that dress.”
She chuckled. “Ha. My fiancé has been trying to get me to donate it for years. Funny now that the same thing is happening, but for very different reasons.”
/> I pressed onward. “Give me your phone number,” I demanded. “That way, when I sense things are safe, I can contact you.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Is this how you get all the girls’ numbers––look out!”