by Hunt, Jack
She came out and went to get her belongings. Eric stood there, six foot three, a rugged-looking individual who had played football all through high school. Dark hair, chiseled jaw and far bigger than she was. She’d met him in her first year of film school. Back then he seemed fine. “We are done talking, now get out before I call the cops,” she yelled.
“Oh, Maggie, why have you got to say that?”
She stabbed her finger at him. “It’s over between us. Now get out!”
“No it’s not. You haven’t given me a chance.”
She went to slip by him and he shifted to the left and blocked her.
“You got one chance, and you screwed it up,” she replied.
Her father had always told her that any guy she dated would make mistakes. That wasn’t an issue. Mistakes could be corrected, even forgiven, but if any man raised a hand to her, that was it. It was over. There was no second chance. She agreed.
Eric looked at her bag and tried to grab it out of her hands.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your damn business.”
“So you seeing someone now?” he asked in an accusing manner.
“No. But even if I was, what has that got to do with you?”
He grabbed her by the arm and squeezed tight.
“Listen to me.”
“Let go, Eric!” She struggled within his grasp.
“Why do you have to act like such a bitch?”
Maybe that’s why she reacted so fiercely to the word. She’d never been called that by anyone until Eric.
“Please. Let go of my arm.”
“And you’ll listen to me?”
“Let go.”
“Not until you listen.”
She knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere by struggling. He had at least a hundred pounds on her and one swipe from the back of his hand and she’d be seeing stars. She stopped resisting and looked at him. “What do you want?”
“You. Me. This,” he said staring around at the apartment. “I messed up. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. You know, about you and me and I know we can make this work. You’ll see.”
While he was talking she was eyeing a vase on the counter. She’d never been one for violence but after he hit her, she had sworn that if he ever came near her again, it would be the last time. Eric continued, “I can move in tonight. I’ll take you to Times Square. It will be like old times.”
Another reason why she didn’t want to go there, he’d taken her there several years in a row while they were dating and once after he moved in. Everything about the noise, the people and the event just reminded her of him.
“So, what do you think?”
She pursed her lips and tried to crack a faint smile then shrugged. As soon as he released his grip, she would go for it.
“Maggie?”
“I don’t know, Eric.”
“Come on, you know when things were good they were good.”
“Yeah, um…” She pulled away from him. “Okay.”
He got this wild grin on his face like he’d just hit the lottery, and then he released her. “Ah, you’ll see. I knew it. You and I, we got something that is far stronger than…”
Before he could finish, she reached for the ceramic vase full of wildflowers and smashed it over his head. He let out this wild cry, and she bolted for the door. She unlocked the multiple latches then swung the door open. Before she had a foot outside, she felt a hand grasp the back of her hair and pull her back in. She slid across the glossy hardwood floor and her shoulder banged into a small side table knocking it over. She felt a shot of pain and reached up to find her head was bleeding.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Eric was fuming. He kicked over a chair and swiped his hand across the counter knocking the fishbowl to the ground. Glass shattered and her fish slid across the floor. She was in too much pain and shock to even react. All she could do was look on in a state of panic.
“Now look what you made me do!” he bellowed.
“Help!” she screamed, hoping one of the neighbors would hear her but no one did. It was the middle of the day. If people weren’t at work, they were probably out on the streets joining with all the other revelers. She knew Lexi was outside. Maggie spotted her cell phone on the table across the room. If she could reach that, she could call the cops. Eric followed her gaze and went over and snatched it up and tossed it at the window. He must have thought it would just bounce off, instead it shattered the window. Scrambling to her feet she tried to make a beeline for the door, but he burst across the room and knocked her sideways into the wall. She hit it with such force that the drywall buckled and she collapsed to the floor gasping for air. Eric loomed over her, his face twisting into someone she didn’t even recognize. Was this even the same man she’d met years ago? What had changed? Surely there should have been signs. Red flags? No, he wasn’t like this when she first met him. He was the sweetest man she’d ever met.
“All you had to do was give me another chance.”
He stabbed his finger near her face. Crying, she choked on her tears. “Get out, Eric. I’m going to call the cops.”
“The cops aren’t coming. It’s New Year’s Eve, stupid!”
Between his legs she saw Lexi coming up behind him. She screamed at Eric to mask the sound of her approaching. She had no idea what Lexi was going to do but just seeing her made her feel better. Eric had opened his mouth to continue his tirade when his whole body started to vibrate. He hit the ground and started flapping around like a fish out of water while Lexi held a Taser against the back of his neck.
“You fucking asshole!” She looked at Maggie. “Maggie, move, now. Go to my car.”
Maggie didn’t hesitate, she got up, grabbed her bag and keys, and glanced once at her dead fish before dashing out the door. Lexi wasn’t far behind her. As they raced across the street to her car, she cast a glance over her shoulder expecting to see Eric charging out but he wasn’t there. As soon as they were in the vehicle, she gasped for air.
“Where the hell did you get that Taser?” Maggie asked.
“On eBay.”
“Why?”
“Darlin’, this is New York.”
With that said, the engine roared to life, and they tore away, leaving behind Maggie’s asshole ex and an apartment that would probably be torn apart by the time she got back — if she ever went back. She couldn’t even imagine how bad things would get.
Chapter 3
“You’re fired!” the words echoed in Jesse’s ear. He couldn’t believe Alfonzo had the nerve to wait until he’d finished the last delivery before he told him.
“First off, you can’t fire me, as I don’t work for you.”
“I pay you.”
“Yeah and you owe me.”
“Owe you what?”
“Eighty bucks. Forty from the first delivery, and forty from the last.”
“You cost me a lot more than that today. You’re lucky I’m not sending you a bill.”
Jesse screamed into his phone. “You bastard. I needed that money.”
“And my customers needed their packages, so I guess we’re even.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“See you around, Jesse.”
Jesse was about to reply when the line went dead. He squeezed the phone tight and for a second he wanted to toss it over the heads of the smiling faces of those gathered in Times Square. He was fuming. Not only had a car nearly run into him, he’d been held up at gunpoint, got a flat tire on the last leg of his journey to deliver a package that he wouldn’t get paid for, now he had to deal with this shit? Street Kings had been the only service that had provided him with enough steady work to pay his landlord, the rest was chump change. What was he supposed to do now? A light snow began to fall only adding to his frustration. The noise in the city was deafening. Everyone looked frozen as they eagerly waited for some dumb ass ball to drop so they could blow their horns, kiss and pretend like the next yea
r of their lives wasn’t going to be as shitty as the one they were leaving behind. The fact was for most people it wasn’t getting any better. He gazed around at the mass of idiots crammed into steel pens wearing purple hats and 2019 glasses. What a bunch of morons! Police herded the crowd into spots like cattle. They weren’t taking any chances. National Guard soldiers, bomb-sniffing dogs and radiation detectors were among the crowd. If that wasn’t enough, thousands of protesters had gathered to vent their anger over the president’s aggressive rhetoric toward North Korea, with some holding up signs that said: WE WON’T FIGHT ANOTHER RICH MAN’S WAR! and STOP THE ARGUMENTS NOW BEFORE WAR STARTS!
It was a complete circus. Jesse stared down at his phone to calculate how much he’d made for the day. When the figure came up, he groaned. He should have netted at least a hundred and forty, instead he’d barely made thirty bucks.
While he was staring at his phone, he felt a crowd of people push up against him forcing him forward into the rest of the masses. He tried to use his bike and elbows to make his way through, but it was useless, there were just too many damn people.
“Get out of the way!” he yelled but was caught among protesters and those eager to see the ball drop. He felt like a fish trying to swim upstream. A heavy police presence moved in on the group as voices got louder, and someone fired a flare. A trail of smoke cut through the night over neon signs before a golden-orange light lit up the evening sky. The chants of protesters only incited the police. Soon what had been organized chaos turned into disorder as a line of police pushed through the crowd and started dragging people out. Jesse fell back as people landed on top of him.
“Hey!” he yelled but his voice was lost as tempers flared and protesters fought back. After managing to get to his feet he tried to escape but soon found himself caught in the middle, nothing more than another face in a crowd of protesters. A meaty hand clamped onto the back of his collar then yanked him through the crowd. His natural instincts were to pry himself loose, and he kicked back but that only added fuel to the fire. Two cops grabbed him to help their comrade and before he knew it, he was zip tied and was being thrown into the back of a police paddy wagon.
“What did I do? C’mon!”
They didn’t listen but just slammed the door shut.
He didn’t think his day could get any worse — how wrong he was.
* * *
Inside the police wagon, Elliot nursed a busted-up nose by turning his head and rubbing the blood off on his sleeve. He cast a glance at the new addition to the group; a young guy, mid-twenties, five foot nine, short dark spiky hair, wearing black bicycle gear, neoprene and a backpack. He shouted a few obscenities at the cop and told him he didn’t have anything to do with the protest, and that they had got it all wrong.
“You’re wasting your time,” Elliot said as the cop told him to shut up.
The guy looked at him for a second before kicking the door. A few shards of light from neon signs filtered in through the slats in the rear. Beyond the steel the sound of the crowd raging against the system continued. Bodies slammed up against the side of the wagon making them rock inside.
“You’ll only incite them further.”
“Are you are a protester?” the man asked.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“The name’s Jesse, you?”
“Elliot.”
Jesse leaned back resigned to his fate. “So how did you wind up here?”
“They didn’t have enough room in the next van. Told me I was breaking a law by rooting through the garbage searching for cans. But that’s bullshit.”
“Actually, it’s not. Once the garbage hits the curb, legally it belongs to the city.”
“What are you, sanitation police?” Elliot asked.
The guy shook his head and smiled.
Elliot continued. “Anyway, they must have thought I was some terrorist threat. They were stopping pizza guys from going into the crowd, they confiscated an umbrella from one woman and yanked one guy out for wearing a backpack.”
Jesse looked at Elliot, scanning him the way others did when they tried to make sense of why he was wearing a clergyman’s black outfit beneath his dirty jacket. There was no reason. He’d found it in a dumpster.
“You?” Elliot asked.
“Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Story of my life,” a female voice replied from farther back in the darkness of the wagon. When Elliot had been thrown in, there were already three other people inside. After fleeing his abode below Grand Central Station he’d joined the flow of pedestrians heading towards Times Square. He figured he’d be able to gather more cans in an hour there than he could on a regular day. People had nothing else to do than eat and drink while they waited. Times Square was an absolute gold mine for trash after the event, and it was even better if he got there before city sanitation workers showed up.
* * *
Jesse observed the disheveled individual. By any measure he looked like a homeless priest. He was wearing the black outfit with the white collar but that was about where the resemblance ended. His jeans were torn and dirty, and he smelled like a dumpster.
He had a thick head of dark hair, a granite jaw and piercing dark eyes.
“Sounds like it’s getting worse out there,” Jesse said as the crowd’s yelling got louder. He turned his attention to the others inside. Three of them were dressed in protester T-shirts. The female with dark shoulder-length hair had the word PEACE on the front of hers. She covered it up with her thick winter jacket.
“The cops do that?” Jesse asked gesturing to the cut on her head.
“No, that was courtesy of my ex.”
“Oh,” he muttered before turning away for a second then looking back at her. “I’m Jesse by the way.”
“I heard you,” she replied.
“And you are?”
“Not really in the mood for conversation,” she said staring down at her flat boots. She was a good-looking woman, early twenties, green eyes, and from what he could tell athletic in appearance.
A pause then she looked at him. “Sorry, the name’s Maggie.”
He scanned the faces of the other two across from her.
“You know each other?” Jesse asked. They shook their heads.
“No, my good friend did a runner when things got out of control.”
“Left you behind?”
She pursed her lips. “Yep! Seems that way.”
“So, you were here to protest?”
“No, I was here to support my friend. She said it was a surprise. Oh, it was a surprise, alright.” She shook her head again looking deflated before locking her gaze on him. “I thought we were going out to celebrate the New Year. A few drinks, she said, a bite to eat and then ring in the New Year. Then once we were in the thick of the crowd, she hands me this T-shirt. Tells me that it matters. That she’d supported me through everything I’ve gone through.” She sighed. “What was I meant to do? I should have just stayed at home but oh, right, there is no home as probably by now my asshole ex has renovated it with his fist. I’ll probably find my flat-screen in pieces, my mattress on the sidewalk and my wardrobe torn to shreds when I get back. If I get back,” she added.
Jesse nodded. “And I thought I was having a bad day.”
Right then the door swung open, and another man was shoved inside, he however wasn’t ready to accept his fate. He used both of his feet to push back against the van and he launched himself backwards bringing down two police officers. A big mistake. Three more officers jumped into the thick of it and started beating him with their batons before he was tossed head first inside. He landed in the center of the wagon, right on top of everyone’s feet. Before the door slammed, Jesse caught sight of the riot taking place outside. The cops had their hands full. Thousands were causing them no end of trouble.
The stranger coughed and then groaned.
“A little help,” he muttered.
“I’d give you a hand but… I’m kinda tied up,
” Jesse said trying to make light of the moment as the guy struggled to get to his knees with his wrists bound together. Once he managed to slide onto a seat across from Jesse, he got a better look at him. He was a little over six foot, had a full beard, ocean blue eyes and his hair was pulled back into a man bun. He was almost the spitting image of actor Jason Momoa. Jesse even wanted to ask him if he was related but decided that would come across a little weird.
* * *
He eyed the others inside the enclosure. Damon was beyond furious at himself. He’d only been out of the clanger sixteen hours and he was already on his way back there. The parole officer wouldn’t take too kindly to this. But he had no one else to blame but himself. Well he could blame Cole because if he had been there to pick him up none of this would have happened. One minute he was among the crowd breathing in freedom and relishing the sight of thousands of people just waiting to be pickpocketed, the next he was engaged in a brawl. It was not like he was trying to be greedy — he just needed about sixty bucks, enough to pay for a trip north of the city, some food and a pack of smokes. He had no trouble sliding his hand into his first victim’s bag, she was so preoccupied with taking selfies, and everyone was brushing up against each other, that she didn’t even feel her handbag become light. Problem was, there was only ten bucks inside. With cops everywhere, it was hard to go unnoticed. They’d been eyeing him from the moment he arrived. Probably because he wasn’t wearing a New Year’s Eve hat, or looking like he was with anyone. It also didn’t help that a friend of the next guy whose wallet he was lifting saw everything. Before he knew it, he was in a brawl in the middle of Times Square, then being dragged out by four police officers as several people cried thief. He sighed, then cast a glance at the guy beside him who stunk to high heaven.
“So what did you do to get in here?” the guy in the bicycle outfit asked.
“Stabbed someone in the face,” he said without hesitation. It was a lie, but he didn’t think it mattered. An hour from now he’d be locked up and staring down another jail sentence and the last thing he wanted to do was get friendly with anyone. Instead, he sat back, closed his eyes and thought about what had landed him the original sentence.
