Too Fast
(Liam)
After spending so much of my life guarding my identity, I actually feel lighter from exposing myself on TV. Keeping a secret as big as my entire identity takes a lot of effort, and I feel free from the burden. Free to be who I am.
Until I walk out of the TV studio and am swarmed with people. They take photos and yell things at me.
“I’ll be your mystery woman!”
“How much money you got?”
I tune out the rest, and focus on barreling myself through the crowd and into a waiting cab.
Once inside, I turn and look out the back window. The crowd is so large, it overflows onto the street. I’m about to turn back and face out the front, when someone gets into the taxi behind me, and pulls out into traffic. In the lane behind me.
Suddenly I don’t feel as light as I just did.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I don’t need any reporters or paparazzi knowing where I live.
“Actually, can you drive around for a bit?” I tell the driver.
“Yes, sir. Whatever you wish, sir,” he says with a thick Hindi accent.
The way he looked at me when he said sir makes me wonder if he knows who I am.
Now I really am being paranoid.
Except we’ve turned several corners, and that taxi is still behind us. The person is obviously following me.
It’s probably a reporter, trying to get more info on me for their article. That was reasonably foreseeable when I decided to out myself on national TV.
My phone rings, and I yank it from my jacket pocket. My shoulders sink when I see Victor’s name. I’d hoped it was Darcy.
Maybe she doesn’t know about the interview yet.
I consider rejecting his call to phone Darcy, but end up accepting it. “Victor,” I say in my standard professional voice.
“Have you seen the news stories about you?” He asks, his Texan voice more animated than I’ve ever heard it before.
“No, nothing. I just left the TV studio and am in a cab on my way home.”
“Jesus, Liam, the country’s gone crazy for you. You are everywhere. The top story on every news site, including the Wall Street Journal. Not to mention the fact that my phone has been ringing off the hook from all your various CEOs. I’ve had to compose a mass email to every last one of your thousands and thousands of employees, explaining who they’re owned by, and that you’ve now decided to go public.”
“I expected the CEOs to react that way. Especially the ones who’ve met me.”
“Yeah, but I’m not kidding when I say you’ve set the internet on fire. Have a look on your phone if you don’t believe me. Though the website crashed and isn’t back up yet. You’re bigger than Kim Kardashian’s ass.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot I’m talking to the world’s biggest workaholic, and that you’ve completely missed a decade of pop culture.”
“Your point?” I snap.
“You’re all the rage.”
“It’ll blow over by tomorrow.”
“I don’t know about that. There’s a hunt for your mystery woman. #Iamher is the biggest trending hashtag.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, the world is looking for Darcy. Various websites are even offering rewards for information on her.”
“Fuck, that isn’t good,” I say, my chest constricting, making it difficult to breathe.
They can’t bother Darcy. I need them to leave her alone. I’d expected all the press to be about me, it didn’t occur to me that they’d go after her. Thank God, Chase is with her. Though I know realistically no one would ever figure out who she is. How could they?
Still, I rest easier knowing Chase is with her. Though I suppose I really am going to have to get my own bodyguard now.
“Anyway,” Victor says, “have you heard anything from her?”
“Not yet,” I say, my voice flat.
“Well, she’s probably still processing this.”
“If she saw it.”
“Trust me, she saw it. What part of ‘you broke the internet’ don’t you understand?”
“I’ve gotta go,” I say, and shove the phone in my pocket. I give a fifty to the driver and hop out at a red light.
I’d been watching the cab following me, and it didn’t make it through the light before we turned a corner. Half jogging, I whip around the next corner and hop in another taxi, heading the opposite direction.
After giving him my Central Park West address, I look around, on alert for the people who were following me. But they aren’t, and I relax back into my seat.
I take my phone out, but there are no new texts from Darcy. I need to be patient. She’ll contact me, I’m confident of it. With great restraint, I put the phone back in my pocket without texting her.
We pull up in front of my building, and I pay the driver before stepping out onto the sidewalk.
Before I know what’s happening. A black SUV takes the place of the taxi I’d just stepped out of and opens its back door.
A mountain of a man comes out of nowhere, and pushes me into the SUV’s back seat before my brain has had the chance to process what’s going on.
“Stay calm or I’ll put a bullet in you,” the mountain man says. His voice is gruff but I sense a hint of nervousness.
His words snap me out of my confusion, and bring me into the stark reality of the situation. Some fucker is trying to kidnap me. My veins race with adrenaline and my senses prickle.
The very thing I’ve spent my life hiding from is happening, less than an hour after I finally revealed my identity.
The putrid smell of my mentor’s finger, Phil’s father’s finger, fills my nostrils as if I were holding the box now.
At least it’s me and not Darcy.
But as if I’m going to stay calm. And as if a bullet is less appealing than being kidnapped and tortured. Everything happens so quickly that I react purely on the instinct to survive.
I have to move fast, something tells me it’s my only chance.
“Fuck you,” I snarl, and clock the mountain man as he shuts the car door behind him with me beside him in the backseat.
“Drive!” he screams at the driver, and we tear away from the curb, weaving through city traffic. The noise of blasting horns fills the SUV, both from our driver and the other cars on the road.
The mountain man doesn’t seem fazed at my punch. He hits back, his punch lands on my left cheek, and the pain radiates down my left side. I ignore it, and aim my elbow at his nose, taking as big a swing as the cramped backseat allows.
“Fuck!” he grunts, and lets go of me to put his hands to his nose. Hopefully it’s broken. Blood starts to pour down his face.
I quickly turn my focus to the driver. Wedging part of my body between the front seats, I get as close to him as I can. I shove his head into the window with one hand, and grab the wheel with my other hand. Yanking the wheel hard to the left, we cross into oncoming traffic.
The SUV crashes into an oncoming taxi, sending me flying from the backseat and into the airbag.