by Anna Lewis
Lara’s dolls were popular, selling out almost as quickly as she could make them. The custom orders had a two-month wait time, and people happily waited. What had started out as a hobby just eighteen short months before had turned into a business. Within six months of opening her little online boutique, she had been able to quit her job at the box plant in Fort Worth.
Not that building cardboard boxes wasn’t glamorous, she thought with a smile, so glad to be done with that chapter of her life. She had kept her head down and kept busy at the box factory for five long years, never getting a raise, nor a promotion, working herself until she could hardly stand up and then wash, rinse, repeat. She didn’t miss that life, and her dolls sold well enough for her to quit her job and build a sizable savings account. She had even taken a vacation, something she hadn’t done in a while.
The court case had set her behind, but she had managed to keep from getting too far behind by sewing in her hotel room near the courthouse. It hadn’t been ideal, but the court had no control over what she packed, only her media access. Once she got home, she had shipped out the completed dolls, getting to work on the others that were backlogged and completing them in record time without sacrificing quality. Which was a good thing, since the forty dollars a day that she was being paid for jury duty didn’t cover much, even if the room service meals and hotel were included.
There was a knock on the door, followed immediately by the doorbell. Lara smiled. Her fabric had arrived, and the delivery man was eager to get her signature and get back on his route.
She grabbed a bag by the door, opening it and smiling when she saw her regular delivery guy.
“More fabric,” he said cheerfully.
“Thank you. I finished Jasmine’s doll.”
She pulled the little doll out of the bag, handing him the dark-skinned baby doll with natural corkscrews and deep brown eyes. The man smiled, his eyes shiny as he cleared his throat.
“Lara, this is beautiful,” he said. “It looks just like my baby girl. She’s going to be so happy when I pick her up from kindergarten.”
He reached for his wallet, but she stopped him with a wave.
“I won’t take it, so don’t even try.” She was resolute, so he gave up, and instead fished a snapshot of his daughter out of his bag.
“Keep the picture. That way, when you’re having a bad day, you can look at her and know that you helped put a smile on her face.”
“Thank you. I hope she likes the doll.”
“She’s going to love it. Thank you, again.”
He jogged to the delivery truck, jumping in and leaving with another wave.
Lara set the box down and locked the deadbolt behind her. She hooked the chain in and set the alarm that she had purchased the day after court had ended. It was only lunchtime, but she had nowhere else to go today. As she had the past two weeks, she would spend the rest of the day sewing, listening to classical music and shutting the outside world out.
***
Lara stepped out of the shower, toweling her curly brown hair dry and running her fingers through the damp curls. She looked at her reflection, glad to see that the haunted look she had been faced with since the trial was beginning to fade. Sitting through a triple murder trial had been emotionally exhausting. The evidence had been gory and heart-wrenching. It was more death than she ever wanted to see. The nightmares were finally gone, too, though she still struggled to fall asleep at night.
She got dressed, not quite ready to go to bed, even though it was after ten at night. The little doll on her sofa beckoned. After a hot shower to work the kinks out of her neck and the stiffness out of her hands, she was ready to get back at it.
Slipping her canvas shoes on, she worked her hair into a messy braid and tied it with a band as she walked down the hallway, toward the front of the house.
She was almost to the living room when she saw a silhouette in the window by the door, and she froze.
Who was on her doorstep at ten at night?
An instant later, there was a knock on the door, followed immediately by the doorbell.
Lara stood there for a moment, just a few feet from the door, wondering who it could be and trying to convince herself that bad guys didn’t knock.
“Who is it?” she called out with a trembling voice, looking through the peephole at the man on the porch.
She didn’t recognize him.
“Ms. Fox, Federal Marshall. I need to speak with you.”
Lara was rooted to the ground where she stood, the words taking forever to sink in. When they did, she shook her head. There was no way that a Federal Marshall was at her doorstep.
“I’m not expecting anyone,” she said, yelling loud enough to be heard through the heavy door. “Leave your card and I’ll call you back tomorrow.”
She had no intention of calling him back.
“Ms. Fox, we don’t have a lot of time. You’re in danger, and if I have to kick this door down to get to you, I will.”
Her stomach dropped at his words. Kick her door down? Was he serious?
She backed away, her mind racing, trying to figure out what to do. She was halfway down the hall when the first kick hit the door. The door bent on the hinges, groaning against the frame, but holding fast. She screamed, covering her mouth and quashing the sound before it traveled. There was another kick, this time accompanied by a splintering sound.
Running as fast as she could, she fled down the hall toward the back door. She threw the bolt and undid the chain in one swift motion, just as the front door crashed open at the other end of the house.
She opened the door, and took a step at a run, coming face to face with the man that had been on her front porch just seconds before. Trying to reverse her momentum mid-stride, she slid and landed soundly on her backside.
The man advanced. Kicking back and pushing with her hands, she crawled backward, then flipped over and got on her feet, taking off and going into her room. She closed the door behind her, crying out in frustration when she looked at the bare doorknob. She didn’t even have a simple thumb lock to twist. She held the knob and braced her feet, but the man was bigger than she was, and obviously faster, circling around the house before she could even get to the back door.
The handle turned in her hands though she tried with all her might to hold on. He pulled on the door. She was able to hold it closed despite his strength. Her fear sent adrenaline coursing through her veins, the terror giving her superhuman strength.
But her strength, even in the moment, wasn’t enough to hold the door closed. She felt him yank the door hard, and her hands slipped. She stumbled backward and turned, running toward the bathroom.
“Stop!” the man shouted. “We’re here to save you.”
Like hell, she thought, jumping over her bed instead of going around, but even that shortcut wasn’t enough to gain ground. She felt a hand go around her arm, and she was yanked off her feet just a few inches from grasping the doorknob.
Writhing and twisting, she fought ferociously to get free. Her fingernails connected with skin, and she heard him hiss in pain. The moment of satisfaction was brief as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her off her feet. He dropped her onto the bed and grabbed her wrists, clamping her hands down to her side and holding her still.
“Listen to me, please. We don’t have time for this.”
She kicked at him, fighting even harder. He was inches from her face, trying to get her attention, but she wasn’t listening to his words.
Then he said something that she couldn’t help but hear, loud and clear.
“Do you want to die, Lara? If you want to die, just say the word and we’ll leave you here for The Cleaver to take care of you. But if you want to live, you have to listen to me.”
She went still, his words penetrating as no others would. She knew that name, and she knew where she had heard it.
The defendant in the case was Jimmy the shiv, a less than subtle reference to his affinity for knives as m
urder weapons. During the court case, a man known as The Cleaver came up, but Jimmy denied knowing him. Lara hadn’t been fooled and neither had anyone else.
She didn’t want The Cleaver to come for her, and she didn’t want to die.
“Good,” he said, breathing heavy. “Now listen to me. You have five minutes to pack a bag of clothes, toothbrush and toiletries if you want. No ID, no credit cards. Just some clothes and some toiletries. Got it?”
She could hear someone rummaging through her closet, and she saw the blue backpack she’d had since college fly across the room and land on the bed. The man at the closet looked at her and smiled, doing his best to make her feel at ease. It was the man from the front door. No matter how he tried to make her feel at ease, she wouldn’t feel comfortable with a man who just went around kicking in doors.
“I need my purse,” she argued, looking down at her hands and not looking at the man that held her quietly on the bed.
“You have four minutes now,” he countered.
Angry, she looked up at him, but her anger was gone when she saw his face. He was the man from the front door. She looked over his shoulder at the other man, then back at him.
“Twins?” she said, seeing no other explanation.
“Three and a half minutes,” he said. “Get up and pack, or I’ll pack for you.”
He handed her the bag, letting her go and standing close by. She wanted to argue but thought better of it. One man was imposing enough, but two; she couldn’t fight two. They both wore Marshall’s shields on chains around their necks, and snugly-fit Kevlar vests over their tight white shirts.
She got up, going to her dresser and grabbing handfuls of clothes, shoving them in the backpack and zipping it shut.
“I can’t stress to you how important it is that you hurry,” the twin she had scratched said.
“I’m trying,” she shot back.
She went into the bathroom, filling the second pocket with toiletries and zipping it tight. She checked to make sure that they weren’t watching her, then opened the vanity drawer. She reached in the back, grabbing a folding knife and a handful of cash she kept in the back of the drawer, and shoved it into the inner pocket, zipping it shut, then shutting the outer pocket.
“Thirty seconds,” someone called out, his voice impatient.
“Chill. I’m done,” she said, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and tightening the straps. “Let’s go before my neighbor comes out with his shotgun.”
The second twin chuckled, ignoring the first twin when he shot him a look of disdain.
“I’m still taking my purse,” she insisted.
“Not a chance in hell,” the man growled. “You take orders from us, not the other way around.”
“Give her a break, Spencer.”
“I’m saving her life. If anyone needs a break, it’s me.”
***
They hurried her through the house for the front door. Suddenly Spencer stopped and held up his hand for quiet.
“What?” the other twin asked.
“There’s someone under her car,” Spencer said.
“Under my car?”
“Shh,” both men said in unison.
They watched the man get up and start walking away from the car as if he hadn’t just rolled out from under it.
“Where are your keys?” Spencer asked quietly.
“Why are you still whispering?” she wondered, pointing at her purse.
“Because these men rarely come alone. The car is just insurance to make sure you don’t slip away when they come for you.”
“I can’t do this,” she said, feeling lightheaded as the bile rose in her throat. “Why is this happening?”
“Haven’t you heard?” the other twin asked.
“Trevor, not now.”
“Maybe, if you told her, maybe she would come willingly and this would be a little easier.”
Trevor ignored Spencer and looked to Lara.
“You’re the only juror left that hasn’t been murdered. Well, you and one other guy, but we’re not sure about him.”
“Not sure how?” she asked Trevor.
“One of the jurors was a mole for the mob, and I think that the last guy is probably the holdout that hung the jury. He’s been a little harder to find, but we’re working on it.”
“We need to go,” Spencer said suddenly, his voice deathly quiet.
Trevor looked up and out the window.
“That’s not good,” he said.
Lara looked in the direction they were looking, heart in her throat. There were men in the shadows not far from her house, eyes locked on her house. The soft light of a streetlamp illuminated the guns in the hands.
Trevor rushed over to where her purse was, digging through it and pulling her key fob out triumphantly. He pointed it at the window, pushing the button to unlock the door.
The door unlocked and with a quiet beep. Trevor looked at the fob, his face lighting up as he went for another button.
“Duck,” Spencer said, pushing her down to the ground.
“But w-”
The explosion cut her off, the force of it rocking her little house and blowing her front window inward. Glass showered over them, falling to the ground in tiny little twinkling showers.
“That’s why,” Trevor said. “Thank goodness for remote start. Let’s go.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her up from the ground. Glass fell off her backpack as they ran out the door, taking a hard left to go behind the house instead of toward the sidewalk. Spencer was behind them, moving slower, but not far behind. They were headed across her huge backyard, straight for the six-foot privacy fence that separated her acre from the neighbor’s.
“There’s a dog on the other side of that fence,” she called out to Trevor, slowing down a bit to turn now that they were halfway across the yard.
“He won’t get us,” Trevor said.
She started to argue, but then caught a glimpse of what Trevor was looking at. The sight of it shocked her and caused her to trip over. She went down hard, shrieking at what she saw running behind them, rolling in the damp grass, then getting up and trying to outrun the monster.
“Relax,” Trevor said, grabbing her around the waist as she ran past him and stopping her. “It’s Spencer.”
“It’s a dragon,” she said, shaking her head furiously. “I’m dreaming. This has to be a dream.”
“It’s no dream,” Trevor said, holding her where she stood.
She watched in horror as the last of Spencer’s humanness melted into the face of a dragon, green scales so dark that they were almost black in the moonlight. The dragon stepped forward and leaned down, and Spencer started running toward it with Lara in his arms, her backpack squished between them.
“No!” she shouted when she realized that Trevor meant to put her on the dragon. “No, please.”
“The car won’t distract them long,” he said, his voice still lighthearted despite the danger they were facing. “Trust us. We’re the only ones here that don’t want to kill you.”
He tossed her onto the dragon's back, just behind the wings, then climbed up and situated himself behind her. Strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her against him. He was hot from running. His strong arms were like steel around her.
She heard shouting behind them and looked over to see two men picking themselves up from the ground where the explosion had knocked them down.
“Let’s go!” Trevor said loudly. Then leaning over so that she could hear him clearly, he said, “If you’re afraid of heights, you might want to close your eyes.”
“Let them kill me. I can’t do this,” she said, though she didn’t mean it.
“No,” he said into her ear. “It’s my job to keep you safe and I take that job very seriously.”
***
The dragon on whose back she sat shot into the sky, massive wings outstretched and flapping in the balmy air. Lara felt weak, looking down at the ground as they soared
straight up, the fiery remains of her car lighting up the night.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Trevor said, holding her closer so that she was cradled against him. “I won’t let you fall.”
Fall? She hadn’t even considered falling. Her hands reached down before she could stop herself, gripping his forearms and holding on tight.
“Relax,” he said. “Spencer isn’t going to do barrel rolls with us on him. That’s more my style.”
“Good to know,” she said, her voice sounding odd and far away. “Where are we going?”
“Safe house. Specifically, our house. It’s like a fortress, and so far, the mob has managed to get to four jurors in witness protection.”
“Why were they in witness protection?”
“Have you been living under a rock? After the second juror was killed, the rest were rounded up and put into witness protection. Well, everyone except for you and the last guy. He didn’t write his home address down when he signed his jury card, and the notification was sent to his post office box. We don’t have a physical address for him and one other guy.”
“Can’t you just do a process of elimination and figure out who is dead, then look up his name or something?”
“We could, but the other guy is burned so badly that we’ll have to do a DNA test to find out who he is. DNA takes time and we have no one to compare it to.”
“That’s awful.”
“I can’t believe that you didn’t hear about this.”
“I turned the news off and use a CD in the car. The day after the trial, the coverage was everywhere. I couldn’t relive that case over and over every day, so I shut it off.”
