by Elodie Colt
“When?”
“Just before I came up here. We ran into each other, and she practically flew at me with her excitement.”
“Jesus, this can’t be happening,” I complained and ran a hand through my hair. “What did you say to her?”
“That it’s your decision, of course. You’re not a trainer on duty anymore.”
“Dammit, that woman is killing me, I swear. She already asked me that today, and I told her no. Is she too stupid to understand, or is she doing that on purpose?”
“I don’t know. I think she understands, but can’t accept it to be true. She still loves you.”
I shook my head, snorting. “Oh no, she doesn’t love me, never has. Cassie doesn’t even know what love is.”
“Do you?”
Jimmy’s question caught me off guard. Living in jail for more than three years had done nothing good for my love life.
In jail, you were surrounded by men only. Love wasn’t what I’d desired in there, so I’d done what everyone else did—jerked off a couple of times a day. After I was released from prison, Cassie was only a tool for me, the living doll I’d dreamed of for the last three years. I never made any promises to her.
Our ‘relationship,’ as she liked to call it, had consisted of going out to do drugs and having sex. Romance had been out of the question. Cassie had mistaken it for something more. Either she was too blind to see, or she was convinced my feelings for her would change someday.
After I’d grown tired of her, I dumped her and had my occasional fun with women outside the compound. It was easier as they didn’t live with me down here where I couldn’t get away from them.
But love? No, I’d never loved anyone, nor had anyone ever loved me. Without parents and friends in my childhood, I never had a chance to experience the sensation. I thought I understood the concept, but I was sure it wasn’t the same as having experienced it.
It wasn’t something I yearned for, anyway. No girl had ever caught my attention for more than a few seconds, had never been interesting enough for me to listen to her stories, or to enjoy the feeling of waking up next to her in the morning. And I was grateful for it. My job was fighting against the evil out there, and it was easier without apparent weaknesses. Granted, I had enough weaknesses. All my friends from the compound were my family. Losing one of them was a thing I’d already had to suffer.
Jenna…
I couldn’t save her, and I’d always blame myself every single day of my existence.
After a few minutes of being lost in the dark veil that was my thoughts, I broke the silence. “I can’t afford to love. There’s no place for love in our lives.”
Jimmy took another gulp from his flask. “Wrong. There’s always a place for love. What you can’t afford isn’t love as you would think, it’s the pain. There’s a big difference, bro.” Jimmy looked at me with a thoughtful expression on his face. “A good fighter isn’t always someone who can fight with his fists. A good fighter can also fight with his heart and for his heart.”
I shot him an irritated look, brows furrowed. “When did you become so wise, man?”
Jimmy laughed in response and clasped me on the shoulder. Without answering, he stood up and made his way back down through the trap door leaving me alone with my whirling mind.
I lit another cigarette and continued to watch the stars.
I woke up strangely refreshed the next morning after one of the rare nights where nightmares had kept their distance and let me sleep in peace.
I’d dreamed of a mysterious, faceless man telling me words of love and affection. We stood on a rooftop watching the sunset changing colors on the horizon. I felt him behind me, his arms wrapped protectively around my torso. I felt so safe in his arms, like nothing in the world could ever harm me as long as he held me close. He stroked back the hair from my neck and whispered in my ear, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll catch you. Always.” His voice was deep but soft, and we both jumped into the nothingness.
A strange dream. I wondered where we had jumped—probably to our deaths. Damn Lauren for putting ideas into my head the night before.
I stood up to walk into the bathroom and noticed with relief that I looked slightly better than the last two days. I stared back at myself in the mirror, but then I gasped when I spotted something weird.
Leaning my face closer to the mirror, I examined my eyes from every angle. I was certain I’d seen a strange glint in them, but there wasn’t anything unnatural about them now. Hmm, maybe only a funny reflection of light.
I went through my routine to get ready for work putting on my black hoodie last and left through the trapdoor on the rooftop. Inhaling the fresh night air, I braced myself for the leap from the top.
After sprinting a few steps, I pushed my body into the air relishing in the thrill of the height looming under me and landed elegantly on another rooftop followed by a roll to deflect the energy from the impact. I continued to pass five rooftops with this choreography, all the time sidetracking chimneys, pipes, and satellite dishes.
I stopped for a moment before hitting the sixth rooftop. This one was the hardest to get to as some of the bricks right where I needed to push off were loose. Taking a deep breath for concentration, I gauged the distance and leaped over the edge.
I knew I was in trouble as soon as I felt my toes slip causing me to lose the needed momentum for the landing. With flailing arms, I tried to regain body tension and managed to grab the edge of the rooftop before I plunged to my death. I hissed when sharp stone cut into my fingers slowly loosening their grip. At the same time, a stabbing pain shot up my leg, and I felt blood trickle down where my knee had hit the unrelenting wall.
And then I did the opposite of what I swore I’d never do—look down. Yes, bad decision. My legs dangled five stories above the ground directly above a garbage container with its lid halfway closed. If I were lucky, I’d land in the open half, but I wasn’t keen on testing that out.
With a battle cry, I pulled with all my might. At that moment, I was thankful that all of my training paid off, and my pull-up finally got me over the edge and out of danger. I dropped down in exhaustion and tried to catch my breath as the adrenaline kept rushing through my veins. Looking down, I saw that my jeans were torn over my knee soaking up blood. The insides of my hands bore some scratches. I carefully wiped them on my pants to rub off the remains of plaster hissing as it burned like hell.
Well, I couldn’t do anything about it now but tend to it at Joey’s and think of a good excuse for Lauren.
Suddenly, movement from my left caught my eye. On the opposite side of the street, a figure peaked out from behind a tree watching me. I was surprised I even noticed the human shape through the distance and darkness, but I was positive that a tall man was lurking in the shadows. He did a good job of blending in with his environment. If he hadn’t moved, I wouldn’t have noticed him at all. His skin was very dark—he wasn’t covered with a hood, so either he wore camouflage clothing, or he was black-skinned.
Who was he, and why was he watching me?
A glint of light made me gasp and take a step back. A flash in the eyes, the same flash in those of the stranger at Joey’s, the same flash I’d noticed in my own eyes earlier. My brain wouldn’t play tricks on me three times in a row, right? Whatever it was, it gave me the creeps.
I drew my hood closer over my face hiding my features. It would be a challenge to continue on this path on top of the buildings with a ruined knee, but I wasn’t going down there to fall into the open arms of a psychopath.
I spun around a chimney to get out of sight and gain distance to the street to keep the creepy guy from tracking me further. I climbed ladders and slid over obstacles with a piercing pain in my knee, but I gritted my teeth and kept going.
Finally, the courtyard of Joey’s bar came into view. It would be a lot faster if I could just use the emergency exit at the backside for entering, but then Lauren would ask questions about how I’d gotten behind the bar in t
he first place.
So, I descended the buildings somewhere in the dark alleys sliding down a drain pipe and cursing as it only enhanced the burning pain in my fingers. Finally setting my feet on the ground, I pulled my sweater over my head, bound it around my hips to cover the blood stains and the hole in my jeans, and made my way across the street. Before I descended the stairs to Joey’s, I quickly brushed my fingers through the strands of my hair in hopes of not appearing like I’d just hit some rooftops.
“Hello, sunshine! I was wondering where you were,” Lauren welcomed me in that usually happy voice.
“Yeah, sorry about that, I had a little accident,” I apologized for being late.
Lauren rushed over to me in a few steps. “What happened?” she asked in alarm.
I held out a hand to stop her from getting into her Lauren-is-very-worried frame of mind. “Nothing serious. Just hit my knee on the way here.”
“Let me see.” Lauren pulled back the sweater to look at my knee. “Oh, wow, that doesn’t look good. You probably should…”
“I don’t need a hospital, Lauren,” I quickly interjected before she could suggest it. I wouldn’t put another foot in those institutions if I could prevent it. At least, not as a patient.
“Let me have a look at that in the storeroom, okay? I’ll need to clean it first. Hey, Joey, you’re okay for a few minutes here alone?”
Joey was just preparing vodka shots and answered without removing his eyes from his task. “Sure thing.”
Back in the storeroom, Lauren got me out of my jeans, and I hopped onto the dishwasher while she opened a first-aid kit to fish out bandages, tape, and disinfectant.
“How did that happen, anyway? It looks pretty nasty,” Lauren commented on further observation making that common hissing sound people make when nearly feeling the pain themselves.
“I fell. Tripped over my own feet,” I added with an easy laugh. Lauren would buy it. My clumsiness was no news to her after spending two years in her house and tripping over every carpet, doorframe, and even her cat.
“And on what underground did you land? The wound is full of pebbles and… I don’t know… something like plaster?” Lauren wanted to know pulling out the pebbles with tweezers and making me wince every time she poked a little deeper.
“Um, I don’t know. I fell over a threshold on the sidewalk,” I mumbled hoping I sounded convincing.
“Hmm, the wound doesn’t look deep, but I’m not sure. You just scratched your skin as far as I can see, but I don’t have a second pair of jeans here.”
“No problem, I’ll stick to mine and cover the hole up with my sweater. Nobody will notice behind the counter.”
“Okay.” After Lauren finished cleaning the wound, she wrapped it up with a bandage. “Oh, before I forget… Two police officers were here yesterday. They wanted to know if I’d seen a man two days ago… someone with long blond hair in a gray trench coat at around two a.m. I told them I couldn’t remember. Did you see anyone looking like that?”
I furrowed my brows in concentration. “No, I don’t think so. Why were they looking for him?”
Lauren took the scissor from the first-aid kit and cut the bandage in the middle to make a knot. “They said they suspected him for abusing one of Jessica’s employees.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful.” Most of the prostitutes at Jessica’s were naive women, their brains too damaged from drug abuse, but I wouldn’t wish for any of them to meet such a fate.
“At first, they wanted to know if there was anything strange going on. So, I told them about the motherfucker I kicked out, but apparently, he wasn’t the one they were looking for.”
“No, he didn’t have long hair at all,” I agreed.
“That’s what I told them, too.”
Well, speaking of strange occurrences, there was the part with the stranger sitting in the corner and his weird eyes. However, that wouldn’t have helped the officers either as I hadn’t been able to make out anything else about him swallowed by the shadows.
“That’s it, as good as new,” Lauren cheered, proudly examining her work.
“Thank you, that should do for tonight,” I said with relief, hopping off the dishwasher to put my jeans back on. “All right, let’s get going before Joey drowns in chaos.”
~~~
Working in a bar in the center of town on a Friday night was anything else but careful treatment and excruciating with my wounded knee. Apparently, it wasn’t just a superficial wound as Lauren had assumed. I only hoped it wasn’t anything serious.
After two hours of work, I was already sweating, the smoky air making it hard to breathe, and my voice was raspy from shouting over the loud music coming from the DJ’s desk. Thankfully, I didn’t have any balancing issues to deal with, or my knee would have killed me. On the other hand, being busy had a benefit—time was quickly flying by, and the clock on the wall showed me it was nearly four o’clock in the morning.
While Joey heaved the seats on the tables and switched off the lights, we cleaned everything up.
“How’s the knee? You’re hobbling,” Lauren observed when we were outside in the cold night air.
“It stings a little bit,” I admitted.
I glanced at the rooftops debating which route to take. The throbbing in my knee was getting worse by the hour. I couldn’t take the same route back home in that condition. I tried to hold back a groan. It would be a long walk without the usual shortcuts.
“You can sleep over at my house if you want. You don’t need to walk the long way,” Lauren offered with a concerned look, but I quickly refused.
“No, thank you. It’s already getting better.” It was getting worse, but I wouldn’t say so to Lauren. I didn’t want to sleep at her house afraid of having nightmares again, and I could do without waking Lauren with my screams of terror and insanity.
When we arrived at Lauren’s apartment, I hugged her goodnight and took off the rest of the way alone. My knee was killing me, and I had to stop halfway to give it a break. I played with the thought of sitting down for a few seconds but thought better of it considering the cold and the strange creatures mingling around here.
I rounded a corner and headed to the park I needed to cross as a shortcut. Passing the empty swings and slides, I was immediately brought back to when I used to play here with Shawna. Our parents always had their hands full as Shawna and I were never satisfied with playing at the playground—no, it was always climbing trees. While the other children were playing hide and seek, we’d hide in the treetops where our parents couldn’t get to us. Once, they needed to call the fire department to get us back down after we stayed up there for over five hours convinced on spending the night sleeping under the canopy.
A few wet drops hit my head, and I glanced up at the sky. It was covered in gray and angry clouds blocking the stars from view. Great, just what I needed. If the weather worsened, I was left with walking back home in the rain, and I couldn’t even attempt to jog with my stupid knee.
A strange feeling overcame me all of a sudden making me freeze on the spot. I was positive I’d felt an uncomfortable breeze on my neck. The night was cold but not windy, and whatever had raised the hairs on my neck chilled me to the bone.
From under my hood, I glanced warily around to make sure I wasn’t being followed and increased my speed as much as my limping would allow. Maybe I was just paranoid. Ever since that fateful night, I wasn’t fond of wandering the dark streets alone. I preferred staying higher on the rooftops where I had a good vantage point and better chances of escape.
Out of nowhere, something cold and unrelenting clamped over my mouth, and my back collided with a solid barrier. Panic overcame me instantly as I realized I was being attacked. I tried to scream, but couldn’t open my mouth as I was roughly dragged backward, my feet uselessly kicking air and gravel.
For a moment, I saw the humor in that crazy situation—two sisters, both attacked at night on their way home. Would I meet the same fate as Shawna? Fair
enough.
Then, something moved to my right and crashed into both of us. The impact loosened the grip of the hand over my mouth, but it also made us both tumble sideways on the unyielding concrete floor. Thankfully, I was cushioned by whoever was still trying to keep their grip on me, and I heard a muffled oomph at my neck.
The object that had smacked us turned out to be a man now obscuring my view. Before I could grasp what was going on, he grabbed me roughly by the shoulders and yanked me out of the way.
Then, chaos erupted.
People shot out from behind trees, bushes, and dumpsters. A few even came rushing down the fire ladders from the surrounding buildings. Was I in the middle of an ambush? And if yes, was I part of it, or did I just have bad luck for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
A second later, everyone was attacking each other. What the hell?
Quickly analyzing the situation, I realized that my attacker was currently busy defending himself, but I still had no idea what the fuck was going on. Were there good and bad guys fighting against each other, or were both groups the bad guys? I hoped the answer revealed itself soon, so I could debate whether I was going to help or make a run for it.
The decision was taken from me as one of the hooded figures charged me. His stance told me he was coming at me with no good intentions. I thought about running, but my knee wouldn’t get me far, so I did the only thing I could think of—face my attacker head on. I cursed myself for never having attended self-defense classes—they would come in very handy right now.
He swung his arm back to knock his fist into my face, but I sidestepped and managed to get out of his way at the last second. Instinct kicked in immediately.
I smacked his hand away, but other than a grunt from him, it didn’t do shit and only gave him the opportunity to bend his arm inward causing me to get caged in a chokehold. The muscles in his biceps were nearly as big as my legs as they bulged next to my face, so it was no miracle I didn’t stand a chance against his strength. Yeah, I should have known running would have been the lesser of the two evils.
