Page 8 of Vicious Souls

The woman turns back to me in a sweeping pirouette and falls back on her heels with a thud. “Listen, thank you for your help back there,” she starts, indicating with her chin toward the restroom. “Unless you have a burning desire to steal my money now that you know how much I have in here,” and she lifts her hand with a flourish for dramatic effect, “please leave me alone so I can get on with my night.”

I extend my arms outward to indicate the deserted gas station. “Look around you – you’re in the middle of nowhere. I’m not going to leave you here alone… without a phone.”

“I saw you… in the club. Watching me. What do you want?”

“Let me give you a lift. And I wasn’t watching you.”

“You’re a good liar, too.”

“Lady, I have places to be. Let me drop you off where you need to be and we can both get on with our night.”

“You want the money?” she asks, holding out the bag in my direction.

“If I wanted the money, I’d have it already. I’m the one with the gun, remember?”

She goes quiet and looks at me, obviously assessing me and my reasons for helping.

“What do you want?” she asks.

I look at her carefully, not sure what she is seeing. Obviously, my charm isn’t enough to set her mind at ease. There isn’t an ounce of fear in her; caution yes, but she is absolutely fearless as she faces me with flat, emotionless eyes. They remind me of the eyes of a killer. Don’t ask me how I know what the eyes of a killer look like. When pushed far enough, there’s a killer in every one of us.

“To not read about you in tomorrow’s paper,” I respond, and she scoffs, hauling her carryall higher on her shoulder.

“Thanks again, but I’ve got this from here,” she says, taking slow tentative steps backward as she tries to make her exit. She doesn’t want to turn her back on me, which tells me she doesn’t trust easily. Which is a good thing, because I’m not a man that can be trusted.

8

MYSTERY WOMAN

The deafening roar of motorcycles fills the night like a vengeance as I slowly walk away from the handsome bastard that saved my life tonight. I keep my eyes trained on him, watching him so carefully I notice the moment he flicks his eyes from me to something over my shoulder and the crease that appears in the folds between his eyebrows. The sound of motorcycles becomes increasingly louder, and I whirl around to find six Harleys coming to a stop in perfect symmetry at the edge of the gas station, only a few feet away.

“Oh,shit!” I curse under my breath as I realize who’s hopping off the lead motorcycle and heading my way. The man with the big dick and even bigger ego is leading the pack, and the nunchucks on his hands tell me he is intent on getting what he came for.

“If you’re still offering, I could use that lift,” I throw over my shoulder at the lesser of two evils. The stranger who’d rescued me earlier is the only hope I have. That would be two lives I’d owe him now. And I didn’t even know his name, who he was or where he’d come from.

“Car’s in the lot at the back. Follow my lead. Walk back toward me slowly.”

I edge backward toward my only hope, keeping my eyes on the advancing bikers, loaded to the gills with metal and studs to leave as much damage as possible in their wake. When I reach the mystery man, my back to his front, he folds one arm over my shoulder and aims his gun at the bikers, who’ve picked up their pace. They’re menacing as they advance towards us, destruction the only thing on their minds.

“I’d stop right there if I were you,” Mystery Man warns, cocking his gun for the second time tonight. In truth, I don’t know if he even has the nerve to pull the trigger, and I don’t know how he plans to take out six bikers with one gun and a woman attached to his hip.

The bikers pause momentarily, but the front man keeps coming, ordering his men to advance.

“Sucker won’t shoot.”

“You willing to gamble on that?” Mystery Man asks, before lowering his lips to my ear. I feel his breath against my skin like a soft caress as he murmurs into my ear. It is the most erotic thing I’ve ever experienced, and the giddiness has me teetering dramatically on my heels. He winds his other arm around my waist and holds me upright. “As soon as this gun goes off, you run. Keys are in your pocket.” So that was the real purpose of his arm around my waist.

“Take your shot, big man,” the leader calls, a menacing grin on his face as he edges closer to us.

“Go!” Mystery Man hisses, and he unspools his arm from around my waist and forces me away from him as soon as a shot rings out. I don’t stop to look behind me as a second shot rings out, followed by a painful scream, then a series of pops as I shoot like a comet across the perimeter of the station and around the corner of the building. I reach the car in the back, right where he said it would be. Only, he didn’t say it’s a G wagon. I fumble with the keys as I slide into the driver’s seat and turn the ignition, rolling the car around the building quickly. I erase all thoughts of screeching out of the gas station without picking up the Mystery Man and slam to a stop in the gas station beside him. Mystery Man climbs in, reloading his gun as he does so, and I spare a moment to look in the rear view mirror before kicking up dirt as I speed off down the road. A couple of the bikers are already scrambling onto their bikes to give chase, and I press further into the gas, leaving behind an enviable cloud of dust for them to wade through.

“You know how to handle this baby?” Mystery Man asks, looking to the rear view mirror as the sound of motorcycles reaches us. I scoff and go faster as I speed down winding roads and darkened alleys trying to lose them.

“Are you kidding me? You should be more concerned that the car can handleme.”

Mystery Man gives me directions as he starts to tap on his phone. The motorcycles are getting louder, gaining on us even as I pick up speed.

“You going to tell me who you are?” I ask. I hadn’t ever seen him in the week I’d been coming to the club, and I’d never had anyone turn up at the gas station either. My would be rapist, I could understand. But why had this guy been there?

---