Fight or Flight

by Jamie Canosa

  “Cops are here. Great idea, jackass. Good luck.”

  She glanced at Emerson before jerking her head toward the far back corner. That was more than enough invitation for Emerson. She followed Al to an emergency exit hidden in the deep shadows.

  “Rule number one,” Al had to shout to be heard as she pushed the door open and was immediately drowned out by the pouring rain. “Always know where the exits are. Number two. Divide and conquer. Thanks for your help back there, but now it’s time to go our separate ways. Harder to chase that way. Good luck.”

  Al had disappeared before her words even registered with Emerson. So much for making friends out here. She was on her own. Again.

  Chapter Four

  Emerson

  Emerson’s feet pounded the sidewalk, through puddles, across streets, around corners, and down alleys. She didn’t stop. She didn’t slow down. She didn’t know where she was going or if anyone was actually chasing her. She just needed to get away. Away from the threat of being sent back. Back to him. As far away as she could get.

  When her legs shook from exhaustion and she couldn’t get enough oxygen to breathe, she finally slowed, ducking into a particularly dark alley and collapsing against a graffitied wall. Above her, the dark sky cracked. In the abrupt flash of light she could see the ripples flowing through the numerous puddles spanning the length of the alley. The next flash highlighted the puddle at her feet. She gazed towards the ground, watching the small droplets of rain drip from the ends of her hair and fall into the pool of water in a daze. The night air had cooled to a temperature seasonally low even for fall months, and slight shivers ran down her spine.

  Rocking back on her heels, Emerson looked up into the dark night sky, allowing the rain drops to stream down her face and mingle with her tears. What was she doing here? Was she just lying to herself that she could do this? That this was the answer? Was there an answer for her at all? Did she even deserve one?

  A siren’s high-pitched wail pierced the steady pounding of the rain, and as the flashing lights grew nearer the noise overpowered the thunderous sounds of the night. The alley filled with flashes of blue light, and she knew she had to keep moving. There would be no rest for her here.

  Once the lights and sirens had passed by, Emerson forced herself to continue down the alleyway, emerging on a dimly lit street. It was deserted, except for the figure in the dark trench coat picking through the trash can on the corner. His shopping cart, overflowing with cans and bottles, was parked close by. He didn’t even lift his head from the can as she passed him, and slipped around the corner.

  Strands of wet hair stuck to her face as she quickened her pace, moving along the dark, deserted streets quietly. The only sound she made was that of her already soaked through boots splashing through the endless puddles. Her breathing grew deep and ragged as she pushed herself into a swift jog.

  She couldn’t keep this up all night; she knew that. Her throat and chest were already starting to ache from the cold air, and exhaustion was threatening her ability to stay upright at all for much longer. Desperate for any sort of reprieve from the relentless rain that was becoming a down right violent assault on her body, she ducked into yet another dark alley. The danger this posed wasn’t lost on her, but she’d been pushed past the point of caring.

  It was deserted besides a couple of nearly empty dumpsters. Emerson was seriously considering climbing inside one of those and shutting the lid for the rest of the night, when a flash of lightning drew her attention to something hanging from the wall in the back corner.

  Curiosity piqued, she moved down the alleyway peering through the downpour and waiting for another flash to tell her what exactly she was looking at. When it finally came, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  It was a tarp—two actually—hanging catty-corner between a pair of dead-end walls. Beneath them, a small dry area, just big enough to fit a person, looked like Heaven. Best of all . . . it was vacant. Without a second thought, she crawled underneath the tarps and pulled her legs up tight to her chest.

  The continuous sound of the rain beating off of the tarps, combined with everything she’d been through, quickly pulled her under into a deep sleep. A sleep that clearly wasn’t meant to be when sometime later, she was jarred awake again. This time, however, the cause wasn’t difficult to determine.

  “Mine! Get out! This is my house! Mine!” A man in a filthy, long toga-like shirt and pants so torn and short they looked more like capris was screaming at her above the roar of the continuing rainfall.

  His graying hair was long and matted on both his head and face, and his eyes . . . One rolled wildly in its socket while the other latched onto her with vicious desire. Fear locked up her body.

  “GET OUT!” The man roared as he grabbed her arm, violently tearing her from the small piece of paradise she’d managed to find in this hellhole. “It’s mine!”

  On her feet again, she suddenly remembered how to use them, but before she could take more than a few steps, the man tugged her back against the wall. The look on his face was nothing less than savage. Emerson struggled against his hold on her, but his free hand came up and clasped tightly around her throat.

  Emerson’s fatigued mind struggled to catch up with what was happening as she clawed at his fingers. Her lungs ached, and black spots started to dance in her vision as he clamped down harder. Frantic, she kicked and scratched at the wild man, but nothing fazed him. He was focused on squeezing the life out of her with a terrifyingly single minded determination.

  This was it. She was going to die here. Cold, wet, and alone. It’s better this way. That was all she had the chance to think before she dropped to the ground. Air rushed back into her lungs and she gulped it in greedily. After several deep, desperate breaths her lungs began to calm and her vision cleared just as it latched onto a familiar face.

  Chapter Five

  Jay

  He couldn’t believe it. It was her. The same girl from that afternoon at the station. How much trouble was this girl going to have to get into before she wised up and got the hell out of Dodge? If she didn’t do it soon she really was going to get herself killed, and for some reason that thought bothered him more than it should have.

  “Are you okay?”

  She could only nod, still gasping for air. That had been too close. If he hadn’t been there . . .

  “Come on.” He didn’t have any other choice. At least that’s what he told himself. He couldn’t just leave her alone, and there was really only one place he was certain she’d be safe from her own stupidity: with him.

  Her new psycho friend was laid out for the moment, but they didn’t have time to waste. He pulled her to her feet and she immediately snatched her hand back, but continued to follow him for almost three blocks before putting the brakes on.

  “Wait. Wait, where are we going?”

  “I know a place.”

  “Where?”

  “Not here. Or do you prefer to stay?” He winced slightly at the callousness in his voice, but hoped in was dark enough that she wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t here to be her friend. He was there to keep her alive long enough to convince her to go back to wherever it was she came from. That was it.

  “No.” She spoke so quietly he barely heard her over the pounding rain.

  The streetlamp on the corner cast a dizzying display of light and shadows across her face. Raindrops streaked down her cheeks and tiny nose, dripping from the slightly curved end. Her dark hair was plastered across much of her face, but between the saturated strands, pale eyes peered out at him, still wide with fear and rimmed by dark circles, so hypnotizing that, for a moment, he forgot everything else. Then a car sped by, splashing them with a nearby puddle and he snapped back to reality.

  “Let me see.” His fingers brushed over her jaw and down toward her throat, which he could already see was ringed with dark bruises.

  That nut-job hadn’t been playing around. Before he even registered the feel of her soft, smooth skin und
er his fingertips she recoiled almost violently, pulling her shoulders up around her ears and shrinking back away from him.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” He’d just saved her for crying out loud. What did she think?

  “I know . . . I just . . . I . . .”

  So it was him then. She didn’t want the poor, dirty vagabond touching her.

  “Fine.” It came out angrier than he’d intended, but it didn’t matter. He really wasn’t there to make friends. “Are you coming or not?”

  She nodded, looking almost ashamed. Why wouldn’t she be, accepting aid from a nameless vagrant like him? They walked in silence, a voice in the back of his mind nagging him the entire way. Exposing your squat to someone you barely knew was a bad idea. It was a stupid idea, but he seemed to be having a lot of those since she’d turned up.

  Chapter Six

  Emerson

  Ahead of her, Emerson’s rescuer moved along city street after city street efficiently, never once checking to make sure she was still following him. He didn’t say a word the entire way, so she kept her mouth shut against all of the questions begging to be asked. Like why he’d saved her, or where they were going. She just followed quietly, and took stock of the man—boy?—in front of her. He couldn’t be much older than her—a year, two at most—even though he towered over her.

  Emerson’s line of sight leveled somewhere around his shoulder blades. And what shoulder blades they were, broad and muscular judging by the way his sopping wet shirt clung to them, as well as the powerful arms below. Cold, wet drops hung from the dark curls just above his collar before sliding down his back towards his . . . Okay, stop right there.

  His silence bothered her, as did the tight line to his jaw. She could tell that her earlier reaction had insulted him and she wanted to apologize—to explain—but how did you explain the aversion to being touched. By anyone. It just wasn’t normal.

  Her boots were practically lead weights and squelched with every step by the time the businesses and store fronts gave way to a series of brownstone style apartments, eventually leading to a ramshackle neighborhood of rundown and dilapidated houses. As they moved farther and farther from the well-to-do section of city blocks, the roads and sidewalks grew worse, as well. Here they were riddled with cracks and potholes, some so large it looked like it would take a tank to cross them.

  Emerson wiped away some of the water pouring into her eyes and peered through the deluge at some of the structures as they passed. Most had seen better days a long, long time ago. Several were caving in on themselves and a few lots were occupied by nothing more than a pile of rubble. She wondered idly if anyone actually called this dreary place home. Then they came to a sudden stop outside of yellowish house, and she realized . . . he did.

  It was yellow-ish because most of the paint had peeled off, revealing the sodden, splintering wood underneath. The front steps, which had collapsed entirely on one side, led to an equally questionable-looking porch.

  “This is it.” It was the first time he’d spoken to her in almost twenty minutes and she was surprised to detect a note of embarrassment in his voice.

  She didn’t know what he could possibly have to be embarrassed about. He lived in a house. An actual house, defunct as it may have been. “It’s amazing.”

  He looked surprised and for just a moment she could have sworn the beginnings of a smile starting to form on his lips before it was gone again. “It’s not much, but it’s a roof over my head. Most of one, anyway. Come on, let’s get out of the rain.”

  He offered her a hand up onto the porch, which turned out to be necessary when he explained she’d need to skip the first step if she didn’t want to get her foot stuck in it, and then pointed out weak spots on the porch to avoid. Emerson meticulously followed his footsteps all the way to the front door, eager to avoid any more injuries or humiliating displays for the evening.

  The once red door hung awkwardly in the frame and all of the glass had been smashed out of the front windows. Below them, the inner walls and carpeting were overgrown with a thick layer of black, fuzzy mold.

  “We stay upstairs. There’s less mold up there, and that crap’s no good to breathe in.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, I squat with a couple other guys. If they’re still here, I’ll introduce you.”

  The staircase didn’t exactly inspire confidence. The banister was more of a hazard than anything else and the steps were all seriously warped and rotted in sections.

  “Stay close to the wall,” he advised her, offering a hand to guide the way. But when she hesitated to take it, it was gone again—shoved deep into the front pocket of his blue jeans—before she could think twice.

  The second floor was a vast improvement. Ahead of them stretched out a hard-wood hallway with no bulging or warping in sight. Better yet, no mold. Standing here she could almost imagine they were inside a normal house. Sure, maybe the paint job could have used a little TLC, but nothing glaringly obvious. Along the deceptive corridor sat four closed doors. Jay approached the first one to their right and pushed it open with a brisk knock.

  “These are the guys I squat with for now.” He ushered her into the doorway beside him. “That’s Ace by the window, and the one in the corner is Skunk.”

  A dark form, silhouetted in the boarded window, turned to face them and offered her a quick nod. Caught by surprise, Emerson flicked her wrist in an awkward wave, but he didn’t seem to notice. From what she could see, the guy was tall, maybe six and a half feet. Maybe more. And he was big in other ways, as well. He was . . . built. How he managed to maintain that kind of physique living on the streets, she had no idea.

  Another body lay prone on the floor not far from where they were standing. In the dark, it was difficult to make out more than just a lump of blankets, but if she looked closely she could see them steadily rising and falling.

  “Skunk?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, he swears it has something to do with skunks being dangerous predators, but that’s a load of crap. I’m pretty sure it’s because he smells so damn bad all the time.”

  Emerson scrunched up her nose, making a mental note to keep her distance from Skunk either way.

  “And I’m Jay, by the way. What’s your name?”

  She was pretty certain Ace and Skunk weren’t their real names, and even Jay was most likely short for something else. If she were smart, she wouldn’t go around giving her name to strangers, either.

  “Em. My name is Em.”

  “Em, huh? All right then, Em, come on.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jay

  Obviously Em wasn’t her real name—not the full one anyway—but he was impressed she had the forethought not to give it up. Names had power. Especially when you were trying to leave them behind.

  Continuing the tour, he turned to indicate the second door to the right of the hallway. “That’s the bathroom. Don’t go in there unless you really have to.” Em’s face scrunched up in confusion and Jay couldn’t help laughing at her naivety. “There’s no plumbing.”

  Her expression slowly shifted to understanding and then . . . disgust. “So . . . how do you? I mean . . . If I really have to . . .?”

  “There’s a bucket in there. Use it, take it out back, dump it. If you have to . . . ya know, number two? There’s a trowel. Dig a hole before you dump it and then make sure you cover it back up.”

  Her face said she was wishing her bladder had an impenetrable seal on it right about now and that just made him laugh harder.

  “So glad I can amuse you.” Em had some spunk in her. He hadn’t expected that.

  “Me too.” It was true. Jay couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d laughed about . . . well, anything. “Back there is a spare room, but part of the roof is caved in so I wouldn’t recommend it. And, this . . .” he drew up to the fourth and final door off the hallway, directly across from Ace and Skunk’s room, “is mine.”

  She followed him timidly inside the room,
and he watched her inspect the area. He followed her gaze—trying to see it through her eyes—over the slightly warped floorboards, past his bed of newspaper and blankets in the corner, over the boarded up window, and settling against the far wall where all that could be counted as his ‘stuff’ sat heaped on the floor. It wasn’t exactly like he’d been expecting company. A brown leather suitcase with a few shirts hanging out of it, a milk crate that doubled as a table, and a day old carton of rice. That was his ‘stuff’. Frustrated by the sight of it, he let his gaze wander back to the girl beside him and watched as a violent shiver ran through her body. No wonder, she was dripping a puddle on the floor beneath her. And so was he, come to think of it.

  “Here.” Jay snatched a few items from the suitcase and held them out to her. “You can wear these, until your things dry.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice barely registered above a whisper, nerves crushing that spunk he’d admired a few moments ago.

  Jay didn’t fail to notice the way she carefully avoided touching him when she took the clothes, either. A bolt of angry embarrassment shot through him, but he stuffed it down. Who cared what she thought? He made her nervous? Uncomfortable? Good.

  “I’m gonna change, too, so you can use the spare room . . . if you don’t mind.” He didn’t mean to sound bitter, but despite his silent declarations, her reaction still stung.

  “Right. Okay. Sure thing.” She backed out of the room, stammering, and pulled the door closed behind her.

  What the hell was he thinking?

  Chapter Eight

  Em

  The spare room was worse than Jay had let on. The roof had definitely collapsed. Not just in a small area, but the entire rear section along with an upper chunk of the back wall. The carpet was completely saturated and squelched under her feet. But, even a partial roof was better than no roof at all, and Jay had given this to her. He had brought her here—to his home—and trusted her enough to share the most priceless thing he had. And he didn’t even know her.