by B Amari
I stilled instantly. The boys feeling my lack of movement slowed theirs and their attention turned one hundred percent to me.
“What is it? Are you okay? Was this to much, after ...” Silas asked. The gentleman was back, but we were not talking about the assault. Not here. Not now.
I looked over the crowd. There was nothing suspicious anywhere I could see. Maybe it was nothing. I’d been through a lot. Maybe it was just my brain farting real little, like when you’re in public and you just gotta let off a little pressure.
“I thought I saw something. No worries, think I was just seeing things.” Both looked at me skeptically but when I smiled and started to move again, they slowly relaxed again too.
I wondered how many of these women knew they were dancing around the owner of this fine establishment. I’d seen the way some had looked at him, like a chunk of meat - some as if they’d already tasted the meal.
Hssssssss. A weird hissing sound stabbed through my mind, and I shook it off. Freaking stress.
Andreas’ must have caught the theme of my thoughts. He leaned in over my shoulder and whispered in my ear like I had done earlier. “I only see you. You are stunning, Medoe, absolutely breathtaking.”
A blush rose to my already flushed body. I was sure my ears were about to set off the fire alarms. Silas watched us, his face unreadable. He reached around my waist and pulled me from Andreas’ arms. When I was close enough to hear him, he leaned in close on my other side. His lips brushed my ear lobe and a shiver ran down my shoulders and spine, his stubble brushed my cheekbone and I couldn’t help imagining it elsewhere.
“He’s not wrong you know.” Silas whispered. As he pulled away the smallest kiss brushed against my cheek. So faint I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t imagine it.
I felt my legs shake, what was I doing?
I wasn't positive of course, but it felt like - if I wanted to - I could have both of these men. They weren’t competing for me here, they were showing me they could work together - and it was working.
It wasn’t smart to let these guys treat me like this when I knew there was no way for the treatment to continue. Eventually, my reprieve from my curse would end and I would have to give-up these guys, and their affections, even if we actually found a way to make it work for awhile.
As if all the warmth had been sucked from the room, so to, was my good mood. I squeezed out of the hottie sandwich just in time for another black blur to appear in the corner of my vision. When I turned to check it out, there was nothing.
I’m going crazy. All this stress, it’s gonna age me a decade. Eww, wrinkles.
“I need a drink guys, heading to the bar now!” I yelled over the beat of the music.
We headed to the bar as a unit. Andreas took the lead and they kept me between them, again. I was starting to feel like the lady-meat in a cheesy bodyguard porno.
When we reached my favourite spot I threw up a hand to alert the bartender. It was fucking busy tonight. “Another round cutie!” I yelled. The girl behind the bar was just as apple pie pure as they came, and if I swung that way I’d be tripping over my own tits to get her to look my way.
She smiled at me, acknowledging she had heard me, and I wondered if Andreas had warned his staff I was with him. Either way, I wasn’t snubbing my nose up at good service.
The drinks arrived and I slammed mine back, turning to lean against the bar and scan the crowd as I’d learned to admit was a habit.
The boys were betting who could drink more shots before tapping. I was going to sit this one out and keep up my look out.
Every shadow or lack of flashing laser lights had me tightening my fists. I was going to drive myself crazy with paranoia.
A voice started to chant in my head, like my own but the fear that bled through the sound made me wince.
One foot in front of the other, over and over again, run, survive. One foot in front of the other, until you’re far from danger, run.
I gave myself a mental slap and locked that voice away. Like fuck I was letting the paranoia-personality take control. Give me the logical, loser me, over that scared bitch.
Run. Live. Run. Survive.
It was getting louder. As much bravado as I filled myself with during my internal dialogue, I just couldn’t lock away this instinct.
I turned back to my friends, and slapped them both on the back with synchronized precision. “Drink was good but I’m going to need some air.” I turned to Andreas. “Got anything confiscated back in the office that’s good for nerves?” I smiled as he realized what I was asking for.
He winked and walked behind the bar to speak with the bartender before disappearing into the back, where I assumed the extra liquor was stored.
Silas took my hand and led me to the emergency exit beside Andreas’ office where the music was duller, and I could actually hear myself think.
“Are you okay?” Silas had cocked his eyebrow impressively high as if he needed me to know he wasn’t going to be hearing any of my bullshit.
“I don’t know. I keep… seeing things. Like these flashes of black. Maybe my irons low or I need more sleep.” I rationalized.
“And?” Silas asked. I wanted to know how he knew these things, like the fact that I was still holding back. Did he have his own personal polygraph test in his pocket or something?
I looked down to the front pockets on his jeans. Nope, no polygraph. When I looked up an amused expression filled Silas’ face. “What now?” I asked
“You just looked at my dick. Seriously Medoe? I’m trying to make sure you’re okay, and you’re blatantly staring at my dick. How am I supposed to restrain myself, and be a comforting gentleman with a raging hardon?”
A psychotic laugh bubbled its way up my throat and burst from my mouth. I’d never heard Silas use half those words even when unguarded, let alone when speaking to a woman. I liked drunk Silas.
“I was checking your pockets for a lie detector gadget.” I explained. He didn’t look like he believed me. I don’t think I’d believe me if I were him either, but it was the truth. “And honestly, I’m not sure I’m okay. I think I’m going crazy, actually.”
Silas’ eyebrows drew together and I could tell he was about to protest.
“Don’t try to tell me I’m not. I wasn’t exactly mentally and emotionally stable when we met, and I’m still not today. I got issues, there’s no denying that. But none of that is what I mean.” I sighed. How the hell did I explain this?
Andreas saved me from myself and the hole I was digging. He came up behind me and placed his hand on my lower back, Silas squeezed my hand to let me know the conversation wasn’t over. I hoped he was too drunk now, to be able to remember tomorrow.
Andreas swiped a card over the digital monitor beside the exit before pressing against the bar and opening the door. Outside was dark, but the air was warm; not heavy but still caressing the skin.
I stepped outside and at first my heart leapt, then grew to a lethal pounding. Why would they bring me to this place? What made them think this was a good place to get air so I didn’t go crazy?
Silas squeezed my hand again and his other fell gently on my cheek, drawing my gaze to him. “This isn’t the alleyway, it’s the other side of the building. Just breathe.”
As his words registered my heart slowed, and I started to notice things that made our position obvious: the neon lights to the tattoo shop down the road casting a green light across the wall, the grassy lot behind and to the right of the club, there were no trash cans here, a fire escape hung off to my side. The alleyway on the other side of the club was a dead end, no fire escape, it had smelled of hot garbage and I remembered seeing the large metal bins.
I looked up into Silas’ eyes. “Thank you.”
He nodded knowingly, and looked over my head at Andreas. I turned too, I had asked for something. “Get it?”
“Of course. I always deliver,” he replied.
Chapter 10
The smoke filled my lungs and
I held it to the count of five. I released the cloud from my lips and felt a lot of the anxiety I was carrying float away with the exhaled toke.
I wasn’t big into drugs or anything, but marijuana was more of a natural herbal remedy to me than what society would deem a dangerous narcotic. My ancestors on my moms side would agree, they put that shit on everything.
With the weight lifting away, the tension I’d been holding in a tense little ball in my stomach unfurled a bit. Maybe I really did need sleep, or maybe my iron really was low.
“Hey guys, I think I’ve gotten what I need from tonight,” I turned to Silas. “Since you’re not partaking would you be able to go grab our coats? We’ll leave after this.” A real smile graced my lips as I looked at him directly. I would never get used to this feeling that spread through me, as I was safely able to gaze into someone else's eyes. Not that I thought it would last long anyways, but I’d certainly like to get used to it.
Silas nodded and gave my hand another squeeze before going back through the side door.
If I didn’t reign in the paranoia that had been plaguing me tonight every frigging black fly that buzzed by was going to make me think these mysterious killer men were skulking around. I couldn’t be preoccupied with that now, when I was so close to getting answers.
My mind was starting to do it’s thing. The thing it does when I can block out all the bullshit behind the haze of fake happiness I was getting from the smoke. I don't think there’s a name for it, but I call it zoning. Like zoning out, but more...in.
In all the bluster and commotion of the past few days I hadn’t really stopped to ask myself what questions it was I really wanted answered, and if it was realistic that these guys would help me answer them, or if I was just using that as an excuse to have that human contact again.
Well, I told myself, realistically, on my own, after I had rehabbed myself from my obsession with the questions I couldn’t answer, I never really went looking again. Afraid I would fall into old obsessive habits, and I would completely lose my mind to it this time. However, I needed them. If anything, my time in this city has taught me one thing, I craved human contact. And in order to keep it in my life, I had to figure out what this damned curse was. I had to understand it.
I was pretty sure if I asked Jacques to report only to me, and directly to me, he would. I could keep the men out of the curse side of things if I did that, but something told me they would find out some other way, and I would have wasted the effort.
I also needed to know who was after me and why. That was number two on my organizational list of questions my high mind had demanded we focus on. I would make a list before bed tonight of all the identifiers I could remember of the man who attacked me. I would put together my own file, and be my own investigator. I was real handy with a computer, and years on the streets hadn’t left me lacking in gut instinct. That way I could keep the parts that only I should know to myself, and satisfy the others with the chase for the attackers.
That left only one question for me to uncover the answer to: Why was I able to look at Andreas and Silas with no consequences? If I could find the guilty variable I had a geneticist contact to the west side of the country that would have a field day with the information I could give her.
She was real deep government, but she hated them all. They were lucky they could afford to pay her a steep salary, and provide all the equipment a scientist could ever dream of, or she may have defected to the terrorist side and then we’d all be doomed. I was positive that her reputation on the dark web was underestimated. The things they say she had done, her potential was astronomical. Like bioengineered weapon of mass destruction kind of astronomical.
You got this chikorita bombita! I mentally high fived myself.
With my attention completely in the zoning I hadn’t noticed that Andreas’ face grew stony, and not in the happy cheechy-chongy-way that it sounded. His features had grown suspicious.
His large hand came down on my shoulder as he threw the joint to the concrete behind him. “Stay here,” he growled and moved around me.
His long legs took strides away before I understood what had happened. Fuck staying here by myself, I thought. I turned and chased after him. He was standing at the mouth of the alleyway, his body pressed against the brick of the building, peeking around the corner. I marched out to the sidewalk and looked in the direction he was surveilling.
An all black SUV, with tinted windows, some fucked up plate, and chains stored on the back was burning rubber, and eating up pavement, a cloud of white smoke left in its wake.
I looked to Andreas. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes hardened as the SUV drove out of sight. He turned to me and put his arm around my shoulders, crowding me into his side and moving us back towards the door. I enjoyed the feeling, but I surmised pretty quickly that it wasn’t an emotional embrace so much as a shield. “Andreas! What is going on?”
His deep voice sounded shaken and it made my heart race. “That was them. Those men. I saw something, over your shoulder. When I got there they were gone, but not before I saw them hopping into their car. They wore those damn leather uniforms like your attacker, and at least two of them were wearing those ceremonial white knives you mentioned.”
I felt all the calm I had managed to accumulate disappear in an instant. I felt the panic starting again, and the autopilot screaming for me to press the button and let it take over; begging me to check out so I didn’t have to deal with right now. I shoved the lid closed on my mind and drew my focus back to our surroundings. I couldn’t be pussing out when we could be attacked at any moment.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, a mass of a body came through the side door. In the shadow, I couldn’t tell who it was, but it was bigger than Silas. As we entered the shadowed space slowly the form became clear.
Silas had someone by the scruff of the neck, the gun I had loaned to him was pulled out, and pointing in the person's face. He pushed the man to his knees, the man's hands falling to the ground to brace for the impact. He immediately raised his hands into the air in a surrendering motion. “Please,” he mumbled.
“Shut the fuck up,” Silas’ voice growled. I’d never heard such venom in his voice, hell in anyone’s voice. I didn’t like the sound coming from him. The longer he was in my life the less like himself he grew. I needed to find a way to make the Silas I’d met in the beginning take back over, or I was going to ruin this perfect specimen of a man.
I took stock of the man that drove my sweet Silas to point a gun at him. Hair neatly trimmed, young skin and features, maybe my age or a little younger. A tattoo on his face. I looked closer. He had a damn rock rose tattooed over his neck and up his face beside his ear. Well isn't that just a kick in the balls for such a lovely plant. I found it curious I had never heard of them before and now they were popping up everywhere. Lower he wore a necklace that pulled tight to his corded neck, a sword crafted of green stone connecting the torque like band. His clothes though, I trembled. His black leather uniform was an exact match to my attackers, but it had no buttons. Did the button even matter?
“This Vlákas thought it would be easy to get one over on me.” Silas threw a small handgun and some other things to the ground and a needle broke off of whatever the other things were. “Tranq darts. They’ve been watching. They wanted me out of the way. Whoever these guys are they’re sending child soldiers to do their dirty work. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, I made him within minutes of being back in there.”
“My attacker wasn’t a child,” I whispered.
The man wiggled away from Silas’ weapon and grumbled. I couldn’t catch the whole thing from where I stood, but I gathered he was complaining about being called a child and I heard him say twenty-five. My ears were starting to buzz. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.
Andreas stepped forward hauling out his own gun. I heard the safety click off and it was quickly shoved into the soft skin under the man's chin. I backed up a cou
ple steps away from the scene that was unfolding. The voice inside my head had started chanting again.
One foot in front of the other, over and over again. Run. Survive.
Andreas’ deep voice carried to my ears and I focused on what he was saying. “... burn marks out front. I’d never seen a plate like that, but I’ll describe it to Jacques. He’ll find something I’m sure. They were dressed the same, kind of…” Andreas trailed off and Silas picked it back up.
“This guy isn’t sporting a shit ton of those buttons like the others, but he’s gotta be with them. What do you wanna do, your club your rules, right?”
Andreas looked to Silas with respect, and words were shared between them unspoken.
A zoning like I’d never felt before started. Everything slowed down in my mind, I saw every little flicker of their eyelashes, the sweat dripping down the captive man's temple, the slight rising of Silas’s chest. Then I noticed Andreas’ finger twitch towards the trigger.
Something pulled on me, a hissing sound played in my ears again, and I lurched forward pushing Andreas away from the captive man. “Wait!”
Silas dove for me in the same moment and rolled with me until we were away from the man on his knees. “What are you doing? They want you dead and you just put yourself within arms reach!” The venom in his voice hadn’t left and for once I felt fear around Silas, but that didn’t mean I was going to put up with that tone of voice.
“Don’t take that shit with me Silas. Andreas was going to kill him.” I jumped to my feet and walked back towards the man.
His face was drawn and resigned, it hung low, like he had accepted that he wasn’t getting out of this alive. “I have an idea.”
Before I could enact my plan Andreas had gotten back to his feet and stood in between me and Silas’ would be attacker.
“Let me by Andreas. This debt these men keep accumulating is to me. You might want to make your business safe, but it’s me they’re after, so this is my call. If he lives or dies is my choice.” I steeled myself. I wasn’t going to budge on this. I wasn’t having anymore blood on my hands than I already did if I could help it.
