Tricks

by Cambria Hebert

  When my head cleared the window, I blinked through the night, looking around for the guy with the gun. No one was there. Not even the dark sedan. They were on the other side of the wreckage. They didn’t see me trying to get free.

  The sound of the sirens grew insistent and loud, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I knew they were very close by. Perhaps those hadn’t been my last minutes. Perhaps I really would get out of this.

  Hope was like balm to my tattered body. I felt my dry, cracked lips break into a smile.

  These assholes were going down. And I was getting a second chance. A second chance at life. I wasn’t going to work it away this time. This time I was going to live.

  My torso cleared the wreckage and I stopped to gasp for breath.

  A sudden burst of heat caught me off guard. Bright yellow and orange exploded into my vision. Before I could register any blistering pain, the explosion completely melted my body and turned it into ash.

  There would be no second chance for me after all.

  1

  Tucker

  My mouth felt like it was packed with cotton. You know that dry but slightly sticky feeling? My tongue moved and it brushed against the roof of my mouth and the cotton came with it.

  I grunted and opened my eyes only to immediately shut them again. I wasn’t ready for morning. Shit, how much did I drink last night? My body was still heavy with sleep, my limbs not wanting to get up and cooperate.

  One of my arms was flung wide and I pulled it in to rub a hand over my sleepy face, hoping it would wake me up a little more. I knew I needed to get up… I just couldn’t think of what the reason was.

  Something shifted beside me and I felt the covers lift and drop. The soft sound of footsteps reached my ears. It wasn’t a something. It was a someone.

  I went home with someone last night.

  Opening my eyes again, I glanced to my left in time to see a woman wearing nothing but a pink thong step into the adjoining bathroom and quietly close the door. Well, now I remembered the reason I went home with her.

  Her ass was luscious.

  Vague flashes of last night filtered through my hazy beer-soaked memory of skin against skin and a low, seductive laugh. What was her name again? Veronica? Violet? Shit, I hadn’t a clue.

  Tossing away the covers, I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and looked down. I was buck-ass naked. I looked around for my clothes, which were lying in a pile near the door of the bedroom.

  Must have been in a hurry to get naked. I smirked. I was always in a hurry to get naked. Especially when I was with a woman with an ass like that.

  I glanced back at the closed bathroom door as the toilet flushed and the tap water turned on. That was my cue to leave. I had my boxers and jeans on when the door opened.

  Rushing out the door with shirt in hand seemed a little immature, so I turned. And, man, did I get an eyeful. There was no way in hell her boobs were real. They were too perfect. Large, round, creamy globes sat high atop her chest. They gave way to a flat stomach with a light-reflecting stud in her bellybutton. The pink thong was still in place but left little to the imagination and her long, tan legs stretched all the way to the floor.

  Her hair was dark, her features exotic and her lips were full.

  Even drunk, I had good taste.

  I motioned with my chin, a little “what’s up” gesture, and draped my T-shirt over my shoulder.

  “Leaving so soon?” she asked, padding across the carpet toward me.

  I didn’t even pretend to not look at her chest. Shit, this had been a one-night stand. She could think I was a dog all she wanted. Hell, she’d be right.

  ‘Course, she clearly wasn’t the type of girl to be offended by my wandering eyes. She walked right up to me, wound her arms around my bare waist, and pressed those perfect tits right up against my chest. Then she rubbed around like she was a cat and I was her scratching pole.

  “Don’t you want to stay for breakfast?” she purred.

  “Much as I’d like to, I can’t. Got somewhere to be.”

  The woman, whose name might or might not be Veronica, pulled back and sashayed her ass across the room to a wooden nightstand by the bed. She bent at the waist, giving me the perfect view of said bottom as she scrawled something on a piece of paper.

  I considered staying longer, but if I did that, she’d think this wasn’t just a one-night stand. Girls were complicated like that. If our one night stretched into morning, they got ideas. Ideas that maybe they would be the one to capture the guy no one else could. They would read something more into morning sex than the sex that occurred late at night when both our tongues tasted of beer.

  I might sleep around, I might like a variety of ladies, but I never gave false hope where there was none. I might be a dog, but I wasn’t an ass.

  Sweet Cheeks (I had to call her something) swayed her hips back across the room and held out a scrap of paper to me. “Call me,” she said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder.

  I glanced at her chest one more time, then stuffed the piece of paper in the front pocket of my jeans.

  She leaned up and pressed her lips to mine, slipping her tongue between them. I kissed her back quickly and then slowly pulled away. Reaching around, I palmed her ass. “Thanks for last night,” I said and walked out of her bedroom without even looking back.

  By the front door, I found my shoes and leather jacket and quickly finished dressing before stepping out into the cold morning air. I wasn’t going to miss this cold. I was actually looking forward to moving on, trying something new.

  A thin layer of frost covered the windshield of my truck. Instead of getting out and scraping it, I blasted the head and let the engine idle, letting it melt on its own. While I waited, I pulled out the already crumpled piece of paper I was just given. Smoothing it out, I looked down, my eyes skimming over the number I was never going to call to look for her name.

  I laughed and crumpled the paper back up and tossed in on the floor of the truck.

  Rachel.

  Damn. I hadn’t even been close.

  2

  Charlotte

  My eyes closed for like the fifth time since I sat down on the couch and turned on the nightly news. With a sigh, I pressed the button on my phone to illuminate the screen and check the time. It was after eleven. He wasn’t coming home.

  Again.

  Really, I wasn’t surprised. In fact, it surprised me more that I was sitting here waiting for him. I knew better. Usually, I would just take myself off to bed and not think twice about him being late.

  Many nights spent at the office were pretty much required when you were on the fast track to becoming an all-powerful executive. It was common for Max to spend three nights a week at work and then spend many more here at home, working on a laptop into the early hours of the morning. I didn’t mind it. I worked a lot too.

  A person didn’t become successful in their career without sacrifice.

  I clicked off the TV and checked to make sure the front door to the apartment was locked. Leaving a small lamp lit in the living room, I headed toward the single bedroom with a yawn. As I walked, I made a mental list of things I needed to accomplish tomorrow and decided that getting up early would be a good idea.

  After carrying out my skin care routine and putting on a fresh pair of silk pajamas, I climbed between the crisp, white sheets and laid my head on my pillow. With a final glance at the glowing red numbers on my alarm clock beside the bed, I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

  But sleep didn’t last long.

  Something woke me. It wasn’t necessarily a sound or anything specific. It was a bizarre feeling, something close to intuition that had sleep fading away and consciousness taking over. Even with my eyes still closed, I recognized that it was too dark in here.

  The blackness was more penetrating, more final.

  I opened my eyes, wanting to confirm what I was feeling. The clock was no longer lit up. The dim light that usually filtered insi
de the bedroom from the living room was also not there.

  The entire apartment was shrouded in darkness and shadow.

  My heart began to thump unevenly as panic clawed its way into my chest. Calm down, Charlotte, I told myself. The power is just out. It’s not as if that has never happened before.

  Yet something felt off.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Pulling back the covers, I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and stood. Creeping toward the window, I reached for the blinds, meaning to look outside to see how far the power outage reached tonight.

  An ear-piercing sound split through the stillness and I shrieked and stumbled backward. My heel caught on the too-long hem of my silk bottoms and I landed on the bed. I lay there feeling my heart pound against my ribs as the fire alarms inside the building shrieked with urgency.

  Was there a fire?

  Out in the hall of the building, I could hear doors opening and closing, the murmur of voices as people made their way toward the exits.

  Great. I guess it wasn’t just a false alarm. With a sigh, I pushed up off the bed and grabbed a super soft mohair sweater and slipped my arms through, wrapping it around my middle.

  Yeah, technically the fire alarms meant to hurry, but I was in no rush to get outside in the middle of the night, on the sidewalk in the cold. No, thank you.

  Navigating the pitch-black apartment shouldn’t be a problem; the furniture was always in the exact same spot. I stepped out the bedroom door and walked a few steps down the tiny hallway and into the rest of the apartment.

  Where I collided with something hard and large.

  What the hell?

  I knew for a fact that my furniture was not in this spot.

  A large, hot palm wrapped around my upper arm, hooking on like a vise, and jerked me forward. “If you scream, I’ll kill you.”

  I screamed anyway.

  I opened my mouth and let out a startled yell as my entire body jerked away from the voice. This was not furniture. This was not good.

  His other hand covered my mouth, muffling my scream.

  “I said shut up!” he demanded in a harsh whisper, pressing his palm hard against my mouth and jaw. His hand was sweaty and sticky. I wanted to gag.

  I held myself stock still, partially in shock. Was there really a fire? Or was the alarm just so thieves could burglarize this building with the distraction of an emergency?

  Now I was sorry I didn’t hurry down to the sidewalk like everyone else in the building.

  The man pulled his hand away from my mouth.

  “If you were going to rob the building, you should have done it in the middle of the day when most everyone was at work,” I told him.

  I felt his stare through the darkness. I could barely make out his features, but he was a large man, likely over six feet and outweighing me by at least fifty pounds. His face pushed in close to mine and his very garlicky breath blew in my face.

  “What part of shut up did you not understand?”

  My stomach tightened. Stay calm, Charlotte. I reminded myself. Staying calm in high-stress situations is what I was trained for. “My purse is on the counter and all my jewelry is in the bedroom. I’m leaving. I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”

  I started to step past him on my way to the door.

  I got two steps before he grabbed me.

  I didn’t think it would be that easy, but at least I tried.

  I was jerked off my feet and stumbled back into the solid wall of his body. I felt his breath brush against the back of my ear and little goose bumps of extreme creepiness covered my neck. He leaned close, until I could literally hear the in and out of his nasty mouth breathing.

  “I’m not here for your money,” he intoned.

  He could totally do voiceover for some creepy as hell B-rated movie.

  “What are you here for?” I asked, proud that my voice wasn’t shaking at all.

  He chuckled. It was evil and vile. A shiver started in the balls of my feet and slowly racked my entire body.

  “You.”

  I had two choices. I could:

  A) Dissolve into a puddle of begging and tears

  Or

  B) Put the woman’s defense class I took to good use.

  I brought my bare foot up and slammed it down on the inside of his instep. He was wearing heavy boots and my size-six foot was bare.

  He laughed.

  I didn’t think it was funny.

  I threw out my elbow and caught him in the rib. The second I heard the wheeze of pain, I spun around and kicked him in the balls.

  He made this little choking sound that I rather enjoyed, and I took off through the darkness toward the door. I wasn’t surprised to find the door wasn’t even closed. In fact, a slim ray of light showed through the crack. The generators to the building must have been on and illuminating the hallways and powering the elevators.

  The fire alarm was still screaming so loudly that my ears were beginning to buzz, as I yanked open the door and plunged into the poorly lit hallway. But at least there was enough light so I could see where I was going.

  By now the others had already vacated the floor and I was alone. I ran forward, down the carpeted hallway, passing by numbered apartment doors and bare white walls.

  Someone tackled me from behind and I fell face first into the plaid carpeting. Both my arms were pinned behind my back and then a knee held them down. A hard yank on the back of my head brought my face up off the floor, and I looked upward into one of the emergency lights.

  “Just for that, I’m going to have to have a little fun with you before I drop you off.”

  Drop me off? I wasn’t a pizza that needed delivered.

  I began to struggle beneath him and he yanked harder on my hair, making it scream and burn at the roots. The knee gouging into my back was suddenly gone, and I started to flip, but before I could get around he straddled me, pinning my hands back against me and sinking his crotch right up against them.

  Then he swiveled his hips around. “Feel that?” he said crudely. “I’m gonna enjoy getting answers outta you.”

  I’m pretty sure that was the nastiest thing I’d ever heard. “What answers?” I asked, trying to ignore the grinding hips of the garlic-breath man.

  The fire alarm stopped abruptly, but my ears were still ringing. I tried to catch my breath, to come up with a smart plan, to figure a way out of whatever the hell was happening to me.

  “Hey, you got her or what?” someone called from down the hall. It was another man. He had a heavy New York accent.

  “I got her,” garlic breath called.

  “Hurry up! Let’s go!”

  The next thing I knew I was being pulled up from the floor and forced toward the stairwell. The sirens of fire trucks drew near, and I knew that help would be here very soon. I just needed to buy myself a few minutes.

  The man shoved me roughly and I threw my hands out to catch my balance, righting myself. But as I moved, I noticed that one of the apartment doors wasn’t latched. In their haste, someone forgot to shut their door.

  “We gotta go!” the man near the stairwell yelled anxiously as the emergency responders pulled up near the building.

  I dropped to the ground, pretending my foot got caught in my pants. I hit my hands and knees and kept my body rigid.

  The man above me muttered some profanities and bent down to yank me up.

  But I was ready.

  As he bent, I threw my body up forcefully. Using my head, I plowed into his chin and jaw, snapping his head back and causing him to grunt. Pain exploded in the back of my skull and I stumbled but quickly focused and pushed away from him and ran at the open door.

  Both men shouted as I threw myself inside and slammed the door. I turned the lock just as the handle began to jiggle frantically.

  “Open this goddamn door!” the man outside roared.

  The other guy with the accent shushed him.

  I raced into the kitchen and pulled a giant
knife out of the knife block on the counter. If he came in here, I was going to stab him. Then I picked up the phone on the counter and put it to my ear.

  No dial tone.

  I replaced the receiver and paced back to the door, brandishing the knife like I was in some kind of kitchen death match.

  The door handle stopped jingling. The banging on the door went silent. The faint sound of a slamming door at the end of the hall near the stairwell was all I heard.

  I gripped the knife tightly and stared at the door. My chest heaved with uneven breath, and the silk pj’s stuck to my sweat-slicked skin.

  I waited. I watched.

  The men had left.

  They were gone.

  My lungs expelled a great sigh of relief.

  Several very long minutes passed until I heard the firemen sweeping through the building, looking for signs of fire.

  I knew they wouldn’t find any.

  Whatever the hell just happened had nothing to do with a fire.

  3

  Tucker

  Everything I owned fit in the back of my pickup truck. The black Dodge was the first thing I bought myself after making it through training and being stationed in North Carolina when I first joined the Corps. Since then, I’d acquired more possessions, but not as many as some of the guys I worked with.

  Most of them were married; some were married and divorced and working on a second marriage. Why you would get out of one bad relationship and then dive into another was beyond me. Especially when there were so many ladies out there for sampling.

  I mean, I guess I understood to an extent. The Marine Corps wasn’t always easy. The hours were long, the pay wasn’t that great, and it involved a lot of moving and traveling. Some guys wanted someone to come home to, someone they knew was there waiting for them, missing them.

  The problem was when you expected someone to wait and wait and worry for too long, they got tired of it. You can’t base a relationship on absence.