Playing With Monsters

by Amelia Hutchins

  I turn away from his questioning glare and pick up the box of Pop Tarts, if only to fight the urge to wring my hands. “I’m going to restock these,” I murmur, stepping from around the counter.

  “Hey, Logan, why don’t you take off a little early? I can stick around to keep Eden company,” I hear Lily say as I stuff processed strawberry pastries into wire racks.

  “You sure? What if that guy comes back? Maybe I should stick around just in case…”

  “No, no. Us girls can take care of ourselves, I promise. And if he comes back, we have Eduardo’s taser behind the counter.”

  I don’t have to look up to know that Logan’s face is screwed in uncertainty. He wants to go; it’s Friday night. But he also wants to be a decent human being. At least that’s what he wants Lily to believe.

  “Well…ok. If you think you two will be alright.” The promise of a cheap beer and a joint win out over chivalry. I could make him stay if I really wanted to, but I won’t. I don’t like being in his head. I don’t like the bitter taste of his blood on my tongue.

  “We will. Now go and have a good time.”

  I take my time shelving junk food and barely lift my head when he bids us goodnight. I want to like Logan, but his soul is murky, his thoughts impure. I don’t know what they are specifically, but I can feel the intensity of them. Lust. Indulgence. Aggression. He wants to be a good guy, but this city’s consequences have poisoned his heart and compromised his morals. He is merely a prisoner of this man-made hell.

  “You feeling ok?”

  I swallow a shriek and grip my chest in surprise as I stagger backwards. “Shit, Lily! I didn’t even hear you. Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Sorry,” she chuckles. “Almost done?”

  “Yeah. Two minutes.”

  “Ok. Come up front when you’re done. Something I want to—”

  Her head whips to the glass double doors, but from my crouched position on the floor, I don’t see anything. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” But she doesn’t look my way. “Hey, do me a favor and run to the back for more potato chips. Do it now.”

  I glance over at the chip display. “It’s fully stocked. I think Logan beat me to it.”

  She doesn’t acknowledge my words. Instead, she moves swiftly to the front of the store. But before she can make it, the door chimes. Someone’s here.

  The voice is deep, the accent Russian. There’s a second set of footsteps following the first. Then a third. A cold dread sweeps through the store, a bone-chilling sensation that makes me shiver from my spot on the dingy linoleum. I force myself to my knees, hoping to get a view of the entrance. I’ve only had a couple run-ins with the Russian Mafia, and this can go only one of two ways: they respectfully pay for their stuff and leave, or they cause a ruckus, emboldened with vodka and recent violence, and get grabby with Lily.

  I look to my friend, who looks cool and calm as if a doting grandma was eyeing her from the doorway. “Anything I can help you gentlemen with?”

  The first one—the bigger, scarier one—replies to her in his native tongue. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  The man frowns, causing his bushy black eyebrows to hood his dark eyes. “The girl. Where is she?” he says in a thick accent.

  “I’m the only girl here,” Lily smiles, the lie painting her pink-glossed lips. She casually makes her way behind the counter without the slightest inkling of urgency in her step. “But if you’d like to leave a message—”

  “Don’t play with me, d’yavol. Give us the girl, and we might let you live.”

  Holy. Fuck.

  My eyes scan the small space around me, searching for anything that can be used as a weapon, when a set of Italian leather shoes come into view.

  “Hello, Eden.”

  Horror coils my stomach. But before I can run, fight back, respond—something—there are strong hands roughly gripping my arms and pulling me to my feet.

  “Here she is.”

  His hands yank me towards the front of the store, despite my violent protests. “Let me go, asshole!” I demand, putting all my strength into fighting out of his grasp.

  “You will come, су́ка. The master awaits.” The Russian thug drags me as if he doesn’t even register my one hundred and twenty pounds.

  “Let her go,” Lily orders, squaring her shoulders. “Or you won’t make it home for borscht. I can promise you that.”

  “Too late, d’yavol,” replies the slick-haired monster on the other side of the counter. “You had your chance to kill her. Now we’ve come to collect.”

  It happens so fast. Too fast for my unreliable, human eyes to fully believe.

  Lily flips completely over the enclosed counter, unsheathing razor sharp daggers in each hand. The Russian staggers back, but not before she slices him across the chest. Bright red blood spurts onto the bulletproof glass, but it doesn’t slow him down from producing a machine gun from inside his floor length wool coat and spraying bullets in Lily’s direction. Luckily, she swiftly takes cover behind a shelf, moving impossibly fast to avoid being hit. The other Russian mobsters also pull out their weapons, ready to do battle.

  “Come out, d’yavol. I have a big present for you.” Blood soaks the man’s entire torso, although there are no signs of him slowing down. He agilely steps around littered potato chips and puddles of soda, hoping to catch her, and essentially, kill her. I’m not sure whom I should be more afraid of.

  “Come on, Vlad. We have the girl. Let’s get out of here,” says the other goon. He holds his gun with a shaking hand. Out of the three, he’s the youngest, and most terrified.

  “No! We will finish the job,” the man called Vlad shouts, rounding the corner where Lily escaped. I’m only one aisle over, still trapped by some greasy pig bathed in cheap cologne. She has nowhere to run. And even if she did, she couldn’t possibly dodge their bullets.

  The sudden ear-splitting sound of breaking glass rattles my teeth as the entire storefront window explodes, raining down jagged, crystalized shards. The Russians train their attention and their guns on the entrance, but it’s too late. It’s him. The stranger. The dangerously handsome man who had been coming in every night for his fix of iced tea and mints.

  Without missing a beat, he rushes in with two guns drawn. He hits the younger thug before he can even get a round off, sending him to the ground, before putting a bullet between the eyes of the asshole in stinky cologne. His corpse slumps on top of me, his dead weight trapping my frame to the dingy floor. Blood gushes all over me, staining my clothes and skin. The smell is overwhelming, and I struggle franticly to turn my head, just in time to vomit.

  Strong hands yank me from the pool of blood and my own waste, and swiftly drag me deeper into the store. Between the sounds of gunshots, the sight of blood and the sickness in my roiling gut, I’m disoriented. Shock and panic rally my rattled senses, and I begin to scream at the top of my lungs like a crazed lunatic. I don’t even know what I’m saying or even why I’m screaming. I’m beyond reason, beyond feeling anything but intense dread. Hysteria is all I know.

  The blow comes before I can even see it, let alone prevent it. It jolts my skull for only a moment before a dark heaviness cloaks me in oblivion.

  Just before it takes me under completely, I look up to stare into twin pools of gray moonlight. Then everything shimmers before blurring into black.

 

 

 
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