by Sin
Models, the very thought of Amazonian women with breast implants and four hundred dollars shoes made my blood boil. Every time I flipped through a magazine, I tried to guess how many of them my boyfriend had screwed. The numbers I came up with were staggering. Served me right for dating a male model. When he wasn’t primping, he was thinking about primping.
I dressed quietly next to the bed, every now and then glancing over at Trevor lying there, just to be sure he didn’t catch me. His slender body was so long that his feet just missed hanging off the end of the bed. His blonde head of hair covered his face enough that I couldn’t tell how soundly he was asleep. Creeping towards the door, I held my breath, not wanting to say good-bye to him, but not wanting to stay either. I wanted to play the coward and disappear. As wonderful as a girl-power moment sounded, I didn’t have the stomach to look him in the eye as I crushed his world like he’d done mine so many times before.
I wasn’t worried about what he’d think when he woke up in the morning. He knew that I had an early audition. This one was for a part that would require the blending of Thai dancing and ballet. I’d studied all forms of dance and felt most confident in my Eastern styles. The fact that my skin was olive never hurt when auditioning for parts like this. It did come into play when I’d been cast as a back up in a Swedish play. I spent the entire time powdered to the hills and ended up a sticky mess at the end of each show.
Yeah, there was nothing quite like keeping time when sweat soaked powder dripped into my eyes. After a rather nasty break out, I vowed never to do that again.
I’d been in the city now for nearly three years. My twenty-fourth birthday approached fast. In my mind, I’d already had myself headlining my own Broadway show by now. It’s not like I was getting any younger. My name wasn’t in lights, hell, it wasn’t even in small print on the playbill.
I’d wanted to be one of the greatest dancers New York had ever seen. No, that hadn’t happened. Still mainly in the chorus, I danced in the background and watched as someone else stole the spotlight. I told myself that as long as I was paid that it didn’t bother me--I lied. Lying to myself should have been a good indicator to get out of Dodge, but I’d never been one to take a hint.
“It’s all about who you know,” my mother had said to me before I left for the city. I told her that she knew nothing about the world of dance and that I didn’t care that I went against her wishes. She’d refused to pay for college when I told her that I was studying performing arts, and she’d never once come to any of my shows. She insisted that I’d never make it as a ballerina, funny thing was, I never claimed to be one. I studied more modern forms of dance, but my mother would have to know me to know that.
My mother and I had never seen eye to eye. I was her mistake, her accidental pregnancy resulting from a chance meeting in a bar in New Mexico. Her short little stop to visit with a friend had left her with an eighteen year obligation--me. The only information she had to give me when I asked about my real father was that he was part Native American, or at least that’s what she thought he was. She had no name and couldn’t even tell me the city she’d been in at the time.
Yeah, she was a real help.
My mother married when I was seven. Barton was a good man. He treated me well. He treated his biological children better though. Who could blame him, they all matched. My mother with her head of sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, and Barton with his matching blue eyes and even blonder hair looked like the poster family for Mattel. Yes, they had produced two of the most beautiful girls ever, Cindy and Jessica. I called home to talk to them as much as I could. They were good girls. Cindy was heading into eighth grade, and Jessica was entering fifth. Our age differences prevented us from being too close. I felt more like their aunt than their sister, and I looked nothing like them. My light olive skin, dark brown eyes, and straight black hair were a far cry from their Californian surfer looks. Most people assumed that I was Italian or maybe Mexican when they saw me. I didn’t correct them--it was none of their business.
I locked Trevor’s door on my way out, and headed down the hallway. I checked my watch, and found that it was almost ten. I could still catch a taxi, and make it to bed by eleven if I was lucky. I didn’t want to blow this audition. I needed the work. My rent was due, and my roommate had just informed me that she was moving to Las Vegas to dance in a show there. I told her that she’d most likely end up in feathers and fishnet stockings, but she didn’t care, she’d had enough with the job market around here.
Pulling my sweatshirt over my head, I yanked it down tightly over my face. It was long enough to cover my hands, and I was happy about that, considering how cold the night was. I blew two quick breaths into my cupped hands and walked on. I knew that I’d have better luck catching a taxi down the block. Trevor lived tucked back in a ways, not too many cab drivers ventured down that far. They stayed where the tips were good.
Who could blame them?
I noticed the same group of teens that had been hanging out on the corner for the past few weeks walking towards me. The first time I’d seen them at night, I’d been a little nervous. Now, after a few weeks of walking past them, I was used to them. They stuck to themselves, and rarely moved off the street corner. They hadn’t bothered me and I hadn’t bothered them, it seemed like a good arrangement to me.
I watched my feet as I walked. It was an old habit that I’d been trying to break since my move to the city. Glanced around for signs of any yellow cabs, I found none. Of course, having one available when I needed one would have made my day a bit better and we couldn’t have that, could we? It would leave me with fewer things to complain about, thus putting a kink in my sarcastic wit.
I could feel the heavy weight of a pending thunderstorm all around me. The season was right for one and the bizarre shifts in temperature throughout the day had been making the weathermen go mad with severe storm warnings. He seemed to take great pride in breaking into every show I tried to watch.
I’d be lucky to find a cab. Oh, well, if all else failed, I’d make it to the subway and take that. Riding the subway was my least favorite way to get around the city. Nothing compared to that high of sitting next to a man who had never heard of a modern invention called a shower, or trying to play ‘guess that smell’ on the six.
I preferred walking, but female and alone at night in the city didn’t add up to anything good. My guess was that short of carrying a wad of hundred dollar bills, I was breaking every ‘stay safe’ rule around. A blinking sign would have cost me too much, so that was out of the question.
A smashed tin can flew past my head, and startled me. The hair on the back of my neck rose and adrenaline kicked in. Spinning around, I found myself surrounded by the group of teenagers from the corner. I tried to do a head count, but my nerves got the best of me and I lost count around twelve. None of them looked a day over eighteen, and all of them looked anxious.
Never a good mix.
I glanced behind me to see if there was anyone around to help me. No one was there--I was on my own.
Guess those ‘stay safe’ rules had some merit.
I turned to run, and was caught by two of the boys instantly. I struck out at one and he punched me in my stomach. Pain radiated through my abdomen and I screamed out as another one grab me by my long hair, and yanked me backwards. I clawed at one’s eyes, and ripped a handful of hair out of another. They screamed obscenities at me as they continued to try to pin me down. I knew if they managed to get me down and into the secluded alley, my chances of coming out of this alive were slim to none.
I kicked out and one of them grabbed hold of my foot and twisted it. Hot searing pain shot up through my leg. My mouth formed around a scream that remained lodged in my throat. The combination of terror and pain had stolen my voice. All that I had left were tears, and they flowed freely from me.
Another blow hit me in my face, and I had to spit the blood out that welled up in my mouth to keep from choking on it. The hot, coppery liquid contin
ued to flow regardless of how many times I expelled it from me. In an instant, the attackers were on me, pinning me down on the ground and gathering around me. Stuck on my back, and at the mercy of gang members, I found my voice. It was faint, but there. With a force I didn’t know I possessed, I screamed out. A boot to the side of the head silenced me.
“Come on man, hurry up…we ain’t got all night!”
“No, man … we gotta do this right. He’ll check her ya know, he’ll want to make sure ... If you want in then....” Their words began to blend. I wasn’t able to make out what they were saying. I felt removed from myself. Fear took over and I could no longer think clearly.
A dark haired boy leaned over me, and tried to pull my sweatpants down. I kicked and hit at him in an attempt to keep him at arm’s length. Someone yanked my wrists back, and I lashed out at them with my good leg. My heart pounded so hard that I could hear it in my ears. The rhythmic thumpty-thump served to temporarily drown out the cries from the others. They’d been yelling to get things moving along faster. Apparently, my murder wasn’t going fast enough for them.
I heard someone screaming and prayed that they would bring help. Hope rose in me, and for a brief moment I thought that my savior had come, before the awful realization hit me that that someone screaming was only me.
I kept kicking my dancer strong legs out at them. Several of them flew off me, but not before they’d managed to rip my sweatshirt open. Not having a bra on left my breasts fully exposed to them. The shock of what was about to happen to me sunk in and, without thought, the need to survive prevailed. I kicked out again, and my leg was met with a thud from a wooden bat that appeared in one of the boys’ hands. There was a sickening thud, followed closely by something in my leg popping. White hot pain tore through my body and vomit rose in my throat.
Screams tore free from me as I cried out for help that never seemed to come. The bat boy took two more full wind-ups, then blows, before I felt nothing. As sick as it seemed, it was truly a blessing.
Someone’s fingers wrapped deep into my hair and slammed my head against the pavement. My vision blurred, and I could fell the inside of my head rattle. I tried to push myself up and off the ground, but I had nothing left in me. I heard something growling, and the boys pulled away from me. I struggled to get my swelling eyes to open. When I did, I wasn’t sure if I had a concussion or not, because I thought I saw one of the boys fly past me with his arm bent at a funny angle.
Growls sounded all around me. It was as if I’d been dropped into the center of a kennel at feeding time. One by one my attackers piled up before me, each broken and bruised, but from what I could gather, alive.
It was a shame, really.
Lifting my head, I felt a wave of nausea sweep over me. I tried to focus, but I couldn’t make sense of the furred creature I was seeing. Was it a dog? Was it a wolf? It was massive, bigger than any dog I’d ever seen. Its shiny amber coat reflected the dim streetlight and made it seem almost supernatural. For a few minutes, I was sure that it was a figment of my imagination, but it moved towards me. I drew in my breath, expecting it to be my last. The animal’s snout nuzzled my check, and I waited for it to go for my throat. It licked my forehead and nudged me gently.
My gaze fell onto its paws, and I saw blood. It’d been injured in the fight with the boys. I reached out towards it, and slid my hands softly over its wounds. The dizziness that had been threatening me moments before returned. I tried to hold onto it, and felt its paws shift into human hands under the weight of my fingers. Darkness swallowed me whole, and I welcomed it.
Chapter One
I glanced at the back table. It was filled with guys I’d never seen before. Regulars were what we lived for and all these fresh new faces piqued everyone’s interest. I wasn’t sure how they’d managed to get six grown men into that booth. In theory, the booth was for groups of five or more, but I’d never seen it work with any degree of success. Somehow, they’d managed to pull it off.
Interesting.
I did a double check to make sure I had my pen and order pad with me. Angie was supposed to take that table, it was in her section, but she’d asked me to do it. She’d gotten as far as their drinks and decided that she’d had enough. I couldn’t blame her. I’d overheard the short dark haired one asking if she was on the menu.
No, none of these men were regulars.
I wasn’t so sure that Vinnie, the owner, was going to be all right with these guys being in here. The bar was his baby. He’d even named the damn thing after himself. He’d given me a job two years ago, when I needed it most, and had always been there for me. My co-workers had become like an adopted family over the years, and I knew them well enough to know that they didn’t like this kind of riffraff in here.
I hadn’t planned on waiting tables at a bar. No, once I’d had a dream of being a dancer. I had come to the city to make it happen. Things had been slow at first for me, but eventually I landed a part in a Broadway production. Soon after, I landed a few more paying jobs. On my way home one night, after an opening, a group of teenagers attacked me. Later in court, they claimed to have been only trying to scare me, for some sort of gang initiation. Yeah right, they successfully managed to scare the measly twenty-two dollars I had out of my bag, and leave me beaten and broken on the street. I spent two weeks in the hospital. The doctors were concerned about internal bleeding, a possible skull fracture, and didn’t want me putting any undo strain on my shattered leg.
I bent down and rubbed my knee out of habit. Every time I thought about that night, I was reminded of how they had stripped away my chances of making it as a dancer. When the paramedics arrived, they found my leg broken, protruding outwards, and my kneecap smashed to pieces.
A wooden bat will do that to you if you’re not careful.
Four surgeries later, I was left with thick scars, and my own personal weather prediction tool. Yeah, my knee hurt like hell before big storms. I’d all but given up watching the news, I was better at telling the forecast than their meteorologist.
I looked down at myself. I almost never wore anything that showed my scars. My black jeans didn’t show the old injury, and after endless hours of physiotherapy I no longer walked with a limp, and I no longer danced. That’s how I ended up working at Vinnie’s. I had no desire to go back home to hear my parents say ‘I told you so’, and I couldn’t make a living dancing. That left me little choice. The bills didn’t stop coming; in fact, they only increased.
As I approached the back table, another group of men entered the bar. I slowed my pace, and watched the men at the table shift in their seats. They were uneasy about the new arrivals, and frankly, I was too. A short man with slicked back dark hair motioned to a large black man next to him. “Terrance … get us some more seats.”
I watched as Terrance walked over, picked up another table, and carried it over to where his friends were seated. The act of moving a table with a solid steel base didn’t seem to faze the man. I opened my mouth to object to them rearranging the bar, but thought it wasn’t worth the effort. Maybe if I was lucky, they’d stay and stack all the chairs up real nice on the tables after they left. Nah, probably not.
I stood in awe of the fact that they’d managed to squeeze even more people into the back corner. These weren’t small men. It was like a clown car, only bar style. The thought of red noses and face paint made me smile.
I shook my head, pulled my pad out, and walked towards them. The slick-haired guy, who reminded me of a greaser from a fifties movie, rubbed his narrow chin and looked at me. He looked like a rat. Everything about him gave me the creeps. He had one of those stares that made you feel like something was crawling on your skin--just under the surface. Images of worm-like creatures filled my mind and it was all I could do to not scream out. I wanted to wipe my arms to be sure that I was free of anything, but didn’t.
Good girl, don’t want them to think you’re a loon.
“Hey doll face, where’s Blondie?”
I knew he meant Angie. She had a head of short, bleached out blonde hair, and a nice set of breasts to go along with that. It almost seemed to be prerequisite for girls with supermodel figures to have the stunningly white blonde hair to go with it. The boobs seemed to be added perks--pun intended. No part of Angie fit the ditzy blonde mold, though. She was going to school for child psychology, and was waiting tables to work her way through it.
“She’s backed up … I’ll be taking over for her. What can I get you guys?”
He looked at my chest. After working in a bar for almost two years that didn’t surprise me. What did catch me off guard was the way his eyes lingered over my throat, and how his tongue flickered out over his almost non-existent lower lip.
“Rayme,” he motioned to my nametag. “Is that your real name?”
No part of me wanted this man knowing anything about me, but I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I sensed that these guys were on edge enough without me adding to it.
“Yeah.”
He looked over at his companions. “Why don’t you come on over here … Ray-mee?” He said my name slowly. I took a step back, and he let out a howl, making me jerk and nearly drop my order pad.
“You’re afraid of me,” he said.
“Do you want to order anything to eat or not?” I was angry and scared, but unwilling to let on to that. If this guy wanted to send someone screaming away in fright, he’d picked the wrong girl. I’d stared hell in the face and lived to tell.
“Mighty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Ray-mee.”
“Dag,” a stern voice said from behind me. It ran over my skin and my eyelids fluttered of their own accord. I turned around slowly and found myself looking up in the face of an incredibly handsome man. His eyes were dark brown, almost as dark as mine. Streaks of yellow highlights danced through wavy brown hair that hung just past his shoulders. His jaw line was hard and squared. I saw the muscles in his neck tightening as he looked past me at the weasel behind me. His gaze shifted and I realized that he now stared at me. I did my best not to look like a lovesick puppy. Somehow, I don’t think it worked.