Page 88 of Hide and Seek
“Alright. I can squeeze you in, but if you tell anyone I let you in without an appointment, I’m turning this doll into a moldy cock.”
Thank fuck.
Making my way back to her station, Harlow and I get to chatting, and forty-five minutes later, I stride out of her studio with the most badass voodoo doll chick I’ve ever seen. Harlow only knows how to hit home runs. Failing isn’t in her vocabulary.
Feeling good about myself, I make my way back to my car when somebody calls out from down the path. “Yo,” a sickeningly familiar tone calls out, dragging my attention away from my car. “I know you.”
I let out a heavy breath and glance up to find the new night janitor that for whatever reason has taken over for Vincent. He stands with a few friends, each of them picking up their pace as they move toward me.
“No, you don’t,” I mutter, reaching for my keys and trying to pick up my pace.
The guys crowd me, and from the stench coming off them, they’re drunk and high. “Don’t be such a little bitch,” the Vincent wannabe says. “Say hi to my friends. They love a pretty girl.”
I clench my jaw, trying to keep myself from saying what I really want to say and making this situation a million times worse. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”
“Hey,” he snaps, getting in my face. “You think you’re fucking better than me?”
“I know I am.”
His hand flies toward me, and I dodge out of the way, but my natural instinct has my hand shooting straight up, slamming into his larynx, and dropping the fucker to his knees.
“The fuck?” one of his friends roars from behind me, gripping the back of my head, my hair knotted in his big hand.
“Get her,” the janitor says, and in the blink of an eye, the group of men are dragging me away from my car. I cry out, gripping onto the hand that pulls my hair, digging my nails into his flesh as I’m violently pulled, and dragged toward the alley beside the tattoo parlor.
“LET GO OF ME, YOU PIECE OF SHIT,” I roar, feeling the blood vessels in my throat burst.
The pavement burns my legs as they drag me, scratching up every inch of my skin, and as I’m thrown to the dirty ground, five men come down over me. Fists slamming against my face, boots kicking into my ribs. They grope and grab my body, pull my hair, and spit on me.
My head flies back with a kick directly to my mouth, and the pain shoots through me. Blood seeps from my split lip, and I do what I can to curl into a ball, shamelessly trying to protect myself.
“HEY!” I hear from a voice far away. “LEAVE HER ALONE. I’M CALLING THE COPS.”
The men scramble, grabbing my open bag off the ground and racing toward my car, as my phone falls from my bag to the pavement. I watch in horror as the men steal my car, the tires squealing as they race away, and I do what I can to pull myself up off the bloody ground. But there’s no use, I can’t get my feet under me.
Inch by inch, I move toward my phone, army crawling across the pavement, when a large man hurries toward me, scooping up my phone. “You good, girl?” he asks, scooping his arms beneath me and dragging me right back into the alley where he sits me up against the wall.
I shake my head, unable to form a single word, and when he crouches down and swipes his thumb across the screen of my phone, unlocking it, all I can do is watch as he then lifts it to his ear. “Yo, this girl is hurt. Just got jumped in the alley by five guys.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just straightens up and tosses my phone down onto my aching stomach. “Sorry, girl,” he says, giving me a tight smile. “This ain’t my fight.”
And with that, he takes off, dashing across the street and leaving me for dead as my world turns to darkness.
30
HARPER-RAYN
Asudden jolt forces consciousness through my foggy mind as I wake with a gasp. I’m cramped, lying across the backseat of someone’s car as they speed down the road. Pain rockets through my body, and I curl back up into a tight ball, groaning in agony.
Everything is blurry, and my head spins, but there’s something familiar about this car, about the smells around me.
I press my hand to my throbbing head, and my fingers come away with sticky blood. “Wha . . . What happened?” I grumble, feeling tears on my cheeks. “Where am I?”
Bits and pieces come flashing back. The janitor from work. His hand reaching out to me. Mine splintering across the front of his throat. Everything snowballed from there.
I try to sit up, but pain shoots through my torso, making me cry out in agony, only to double over and throw up everything in the pit of my stomach.
“Fuck,” a voice comes from the front seat.
