by Renee Strong
The sky outside had started to darken as we sat and smoked our cigarettes. Quickly fat drops began to fall and burst onto the windscreen.
I tossed the still half-smoked cigarette out of the car.
“Let’s head back to her apartment to see if we can figure this out.” I started the car and hit the wipers. The rain was coming down in sheets, a flash storm on a warm night. “Because we’ve fucking nothing else to go on.”
Adrenaline has powered me pretty far. I’d kicked back the kickstand and jumped on that stupid Vespa, with no helmet on and giving no shits that my skirt was blowing up as I roared away.
My cheeks stung with humiliation, my eyes with dust and frustration.
This evening was supposed to be a good evening. I had earned that much. I had earned one night where I got to play the princess and have someone tell me I was pretty and that I was special.
That would teach me to trust life not to decide to kick me hard and swiftly in the ass when things were going too well.
The drive was not a pleasant one in and of itself either. I had never ridden a Vespa before and I was in no way graceful on it, teetering dangerously any time I took a turn too quickly or leaned too heavily in one direction.
That would really cap off this momentous day, I thought—if I wiped out off the kind of baby-blue Vespa that teenage girls excitedly saved their allowance for.
I was getting closer to home—you could always tell by how thick and profane the graffiti was getting as you drove through Angel City. At most, I was five minutes away.
I had no idea what I’d do when I got there. When this infusion of shock- and adrenaline-fed energy ran out, I was going to wipe out hard. The scooter was making a knocking noise and I gave a glance down. Did it need gas? Was there a tire punctured or something?
As I gazed down, I heard a rumble and in a matter of seconds, I was getting soaked to the skin, the warm but heavy rain running in rivulets off my fingers, over the handlebars of the bike. I allowed myself a moment to close my eyes and let the stank of the day wash off me.
That was a big mistake. In a split second, I had lost the tenuous control I had over the scooter and was skidding quickly toward an oncoming car.
Chapter 8
Dominic
I flicked on my full beam headlights as I drove through toward Lexi’s house. I hadn’t seen one of these late summer storms in a while. The sky cracked with thunder and a few beats later, a flash of sheet lightning crashed across the dark clouds.
Vince was talking to me—I knew I should be listening since he was a man of few words; if he was saying something, it must be important—but I had tuned him out to keep my focus on the road.
The rain had come so hard and fast that it was blanketing the ground, already filling the gutters at the roadside and spilling over.
“Dominic,” Vince said but I didn’t respond. I had to concentrate on controlling the car.
“DOMINIC!” he yelled this time and I turned to him in irritation, ready to ask him what his goddamn problem was. “Watch out!” he said pointing through the glass.
I jerked my attention back to the road, and like a horror show in slow-motion I saw another road user start to spin out.
I slammed on my brakes so that I would avoid colliding with whoever it was, squinting to make out the shape of the person. It wasn’t uncommon for rival gangs to fake some big diversion to get your attention. Then, the second your head is turned in the opposite direction, bang! You get one to the head.
But as the figure started to come into focus in the halo of my lights, my mouth turned dry and my stomach knotted and twisted.
As much as I can see, it was Lexi—-and she was about to tumble from the scooter she was riding...and to skid right under my wheels.
I yanked the steering wheel to the left, careening toward a lamppost. In this rain, I could end up wrapping the front of my prized Merc around the lamppost but I didn’t give a shit. Lexi had come off her scooter and was now being catapulted toward the hard tarmac of the road.
With my foot planted firm on the brake, I brought the car to a complete and uneven stop, just inches from the curb and lamppost. I threw it into park, flung open my car door, and ran toward her.
Vince opened his door and climbed out, too. I could hear his footsteps behind me but I didn’t stop for a second. I raced over to Lexi and knelt down beside her.
The rain was soaking through the knees of my trousers and running straight off my nose and down my shirt but it didn’t bother me. All that mattered was knowing that she was breathing. I couldn’t tell if she was.
I bent over to put my head on her chest, her skin surprisingly warm on my cheek, and suddenly she coughed.
Her eyes opened a crack and she looked at me.
“Oh there you are,” she said with an innocent, dreamy smile, and then she closed her eyes again.
“Call the fucking doc, Vince.” He stood over me, his face frozen in barely concealed horror at her appearance.
“Fucking do it!” I screamed. “Tell him to get here in the next five minutes with a discreet assistant—I don’t give a fuck where he is—or else I’m coming for him.”
Vince pulled out his phone and dialed.
It was so strange. One second I was thinking of Dominic. The next, I was looking up at him. Handsome, lovely Dominic.
Maybe I was dreaming him. Maybe he wasn’t there.
My mouth felt funny—like I had a mouthful of cotton balls and pennies in there—and I had an owie on my head.
I wanted to talk to him some more but I was too sleepy. My eyes were too heavy to stay open so I shut them, just for a little while.
Doc Romano was there a minute clean of his deadline, along with a wide-eyed nurse I’d seen in his office. I don’t know if he was close by or if the threat I’d sent through Vince precipitated his quick arrival; the important thing was that he was there.
The rain was still coming down in sheets, the occasional crack of thunder and lightning still flashing across the sky. Though the chill was setting in from the rainwater soaking me to my bones, this much rain was a small mercy. It meant the street was too deserted for any witnesses to decide to be helpful and to call the cops.
The police showing up right now would add a layer of complication and aggravation that I just couldn’t deal with at present.
Lexi’s breathing was still steady and rhythmic but it might not be for too much longer if she kept lying there. I needed to get her out of the street. If her injuries didn’t get her, at this stage it would be pneumonia.
Doc had been the family’s go-to doctor for decades. He’d seen everything from bullet wounds to gushing head wounds. He was the only person I’d ever trusted to treat my mother.
When he got close to Lexi, his mouth dropped open.
“What happened to her?”
I swiveled around and snarled at him. “What are you, the fucking cops? You’re not here for story time. You’re here to cure whatever injuries she has. So get to it.”
He stepped back nervously, alarmed. A twinge of guilt bit at me. The doctor was a good man, a loyal man. He’d been good to me and my family. It wasn’t right to snap at him—or to threaten him to get him here so quickly—but at that moment, I would have pulled my gun and put a bullet into each non-essential body part in turn to get him moving and helping her.
“I’m going to put her in my car. Vince, give me a hand.”
Doc Romano seemed to snap back into his professional manner. “You can’t do that, Dominic. If she has a neck injury, you could paralyze her. We need to get an ambulance out.”
My breath caught in my chest and a nervous heat poured up through me. I didn’t know what to do here. I always knew what to do. For the first time in my life, I felt fucking useless and out of control.
“I can’t bring her to a hospital, Doc,” I said, standing up to look at him. “We don’t know who did this to her and whether they’re watching. She’s not safe outside of my sight.”
&n
bsp; I could feel myself spinning out, anxiety washing over me in wave after uncontrollable wave, and the world start to swim in front of my eyes.
Vince stepped forward and quietly put his arm on my shoulder.
“Doc, what should we do? Instruct us and we’ll do what you say.”
The doctor rubbed his face. There was a thick layer of stubble covering his cheeks and chin; a hint of tomato sauce in the corner of his mouth. I didn’t even know what time it was but it must be getting late now. The storm clouds were covering the sky but it must surely be night by now. He must have been eating his dinner—or a bedtime snack?—when Vince called.
Doc Romano sighed deeply.
“Margaret, go look in the trunk of my car. There should be a brace in there. Vince, see if you can find me something to lay her on. I can do basic X-rays at my office.”
Vince nodded and took off running the road. The nurse was back in a couple of moments with a brace and a doctor’s bag.
“What do I do?” I implored.
Doc Romano shook his head. “Just sit with her and hold her hand. We’ll take care of it.”
I did as I was told, dumbly and heavily plopping to the ground. I took her hand in mine and stroked her fingers.
“You’re going to be okay, Lexi. I promise you.”
I had no idea if I could keep that promise or if she could even hear it, but I needed to say it so that I could believe it.
Vince arrived back again, panting and slightly red-faced.
“I remembered there was a construction site down the road. I thought I might find a sheet of wood or something there, but it’s locked up tight. Doc, is there anywhere else I can get what we need?”
The doctor pursed his lips together and looked to Margaret.
“Where’s open right now that we could get a gurney? Have we one in the office?”
Margaret looked from the doctor to me and back again nervously.
“I’m not sure.”
Vince stepped toward her to take the doctor’s bag out of her hands and she let out a little yelp.
He gave her a pained look.
“I was just going to hold it open for you and the doc while you assessed her.”
Doc Romano shot her a look. It was the sort of look that said ‘Get your shit together.’ If she couldn’t, she was a liability.
“Just don’t hurt me,” she said in a hushed, panicked voice to me and Vince. “Don’t hurt me like you did her.”
I stood up, my anxiety gone now, that familiar feeling of fury returning to me.
“What the fuck do you think we are, lady? The kinds of people who go around beating on women?” I clenched my hands into fists again and released, clenched and released.
“I don’t want any trouble,” she said, backing up, her hands straight out in front of her in a defensive gesture.
“I don’t hurt women,” I roared at her, blood pounding in my ears. The pounding was deafening as I stared her down. “I never hurt women.”
I wasn’t my fucking father. I had worked long to make sure I was nothing like him. But this woman saw my hurt Lexi, a woman I would protect with my life, and she figured I was a common thug without any morals?
“Lady, I’m not going to hurt you but you need to back up away from me.” I ground my teeth together. “Now,” I hissed out.
Her face blanched and she backed up a step.
Vince grabbed my arm.
“Dom, look.” I reluctantly dragged my glare off Kelly. I turned to see Lexi sitting up and blinking at me in confusion.
“What’s happening?” she croaked out.
A graying man, in a vest, shirt, and tie, ran immediately over to me when I sat up. It took me a few seconds to realize where I was. My beautiful dress—that paycheck-destroying dress—wasn’t dusty any more but it was soaked all the way through with a medley of water, my blood, and deeply ingrained dirt. .
My head was beginning to pound and my mouth tingled with pain. I could feel a stinging on my left arm so I pulled it up in confusion to look at it. Why did that hurt? I stared at the long, mildly bleeding abrasion along the outside of my arm as I pieced it together.
I had been on that piece of shit scooter when it had started raining. That much I remembered. The Vespa had been making a weird noise. And then… And then…
The memory finally broke through the fog in my brain. I had skidded and been thrown off. I must have grazed my arm when I landed.
“Don’t try to get up,” the older man said. A young, blonde woman snatched a bag out of another Italian-looking guy’s hands and trailed behind the older man. She opened the bag up and held it out to him.
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” I said irritatedly. My whole body ached. I was in no rush to get up and start moving anywhere.
“Do you have any pain anywhere? In your neck or back in particular?”
I shook my head and the guy inhaled sharply.
“Both feel fine,” I said.
He let out a relieved-sounding sigh.
I held up my arm to him. “This is cut,” I said a touch stupidly. Anyone with eyes could see it was cut. It was an angry-looking streak of road rash. “My head hurts a little but that’s from earlier, I think. And my mouth and face hurts.”
I looked down.
“And my dress is ruined.”
I pouted and regretted it instantly as the tingling in my mouth intensified.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Dominic said.
I looked around to my left to where he was standing and my heart warmed. All I’d wanted today was to see him. Now, in the last few minutes of the day, I was finally getting that time. I felt like I’d seriously earned it.
“I’d like to go home,” I said and another memory broke through the fog. I couldn’t go home. The front door, at the very least, was destroyed. It was fairly likely that it had been ransacked by visiting scumbags to the building. There was no loyalty between neighbors in my building. Not these days.
“I’m going to need to examine you before I can let you go,” the older man said.
Finally I thought to ask, “Who are you?”
He bent down toward me, putting his hand out to the woman beside him, and she held out a small flashlight.
“I’m a doctor. Doctor Martin Romano.” He shone the light in my right eye and I blinked, my eyes adjusting painfully to the light. “Any blurred or double vision? Any nausea?”
“No,” I said, my voice scratchy. I cleared my throat. “No, all that’s okay.”
He pointed the flashlight in the other eye and I blinked less this time, my eyes used to the light. He turned to the blonde woman.
“Stethoscope, Margaret.” She reached into the bag and pulled one out. He put the ear tips in and pressed the cold metal to my chest. “Breathe in,” he instructed.
I took a deep breath easily and he listened a moment. “And out.”
I let the breath out. He went through the same process again a few more times.
“Any pain when you breathe in?”
I shook my head again. “No, that feels fine, too.” I looked at Dominic again and then back to the doctor. “Can I leave now?”
The doctor folded his arms and dipped his chin to his chest.
“You really should go to the hospital. I don’t think anything’s broken—you’d likely feel it if it were, though you could be in shock—but you could have a concussion or internal bleeding and I can’t tell without further examination.” He blew out sharply through his mouth and I could smell garlic on his breath. “Do you want to go to the hospital?”
I could see Dominic’s whole frame tense beside me and the other Italian guy who was beside Dom now looked nervy.
“That’s not really a good idea, is it? In case anyone starts asking questions?”
Dominic quirked an eyebrow in surprise. “Don’t worry about that. If you need to go to the hospital, we’ll take you to the hospital.”
I held up my hand to him. He grasped it and I pulled myself up, various
body parts creaking and aching as I moved. I got to my feet and steadied myself against his shoulder. My legs felt like jello.
“You’ve got the doctor’s number, right?”
Dominic nodded and reached out to brush a thick strand of hair, plastered to my face with sweat and wet, away. I took a second to enjoy the gentle gesture.
“So I can call if I feel funny at all.”
The doctor shook his head. “I don’t like this...but I can see I’m not going to change your mind.” The doctor nodded toward me. “Take her somewhere safe and keep a close eye on her.”
He took the bag out of Kelly’s hands, tossed the stethoscope in, and closed the clasp shut with a clap.
“Call me if she has problems breathing, with her vision, or any pain greater than a five. I’ll write you a script for some painkillers but…” He paused. “I can’t be held responsible if anything happens. You both have been advised of the risks.”
Dominic wrapped a strong arm around my back to keep me steady and extended the other one out to the doctor.
“Thank you, Doc,” he said. The doctor took it and nodded.
“And about earlier,” Dominic said heavily. “I’m sorry about… Well, you know.”
The doctor looked at me and gave a small smile. “I get it. Don’t worry about it.”
I rested my head on Dominic’s shoulder and breathed in the smell of his aftershave, which still lingered even though he was soaked from the rain. The downpour was starting to ease off now and the clouds were clearing to reveal a smattering of stars in the sky.
“I’m going to sit you in the car now, Lexi. I have some business to discuss with Vince real quick—” the other Italian-looking guy nodded to me at the mention of his name “—and then I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
I nodded and smiled gratefully. That sounded real good to me.
I settled Lexi in the car and took the spare suit jacket hanging in the back of the car and draped it over her shivering body. I turned the car over and cranked up the heat.
