Callie
As I climb into Damien’s arms, I wonder how old he is. At least thirty, I guess. He has thick black hair and eyes just as black. They must be brown, or dark blue, but they look pitch-black. In the pocket of his leather jacket, a box of toothpicks sticks out. His face is strong, square in places and sharp in others, a handsome, capable face, the sort of face I can imagine running my fingers along. Though not now, with hell crashing down around us. His jaw is covered with a black peppering of beard, perhaps a couple of day’s growth. On his jacket, a sigil of a skull grins below the words Death Heads. So he’s in a club, then, but not the same club as the men who kidnapped me, I hope.
I hold on tight around his shoulders, gripping onto his neck. He is heavily-muscled. I can tell that just from his neck. It is ridged with muscle, and his chest and arms bulge even through his leather. His skin is slippery with sweat and yet dry with smoke and spitting embers. The sprinklers rain down on us, soaking me; I feel my breasts stick to my T-shirt and wish I’d put on the hoodie. Damien jogs with me in his arms, being careful not to run too fast lest he fall on one of the collapsed rafters or burning wall sections.
“Dammit.” He squints through the smoke.
“What is it?” I ask, as an interior window down the hallway shatters and flames surge outward.
“The way I came is blocked. Fuck.”
He turns, and heads in the opposite direction, bouncing me up and down as he runs. I do not trust men, and even as he runs down the hallways with me, I’m wondering if this is some kind of trick. Men will always find a way to trick you. Alice told me that on one of the rare nights when she’d drank too much whisky and let her tongue wag. She told me that men will sometimes appear to be doing you good but then, when you finally let your defenses down, they’ll come in with the haymaker and leave you reeling. As I bury my face in Damien’s leather jacket to stop the smoke from stinging my eyes and going down my throat, I wonder if he has a trick in store for me, some twist to this act of heroism. But right now I don’t have the luxury of choosing, so I just keep my face buried in his jacket and hope he can get us out of here.
He runs up and down, around the building, seemingly without direction. I want to ask him if he knows where he is going, but the smoke is so thick now I am scared to open my mouth. I imagine opening it, and hands of smoke reaching down my throat and plunging into my insides, choking me. Damien is strong, but I feel him slowing, hear his strained breaths. I look up briefly and through stinging eyes see that he has wrapped a piece of fabric around his mouth, what looks like a torn bit of his shirt. His pitch-black eyes glance around for a way out. Each time he sees that the way is blocked, he clenches his jaw, and his temples pulse.
“Fuck.”
He tries each hallway, and each hallway is blocked, so that he is forced to carry me up a flight of stairs to the second floor. I want to ask him what he’s doing, but speech is impossible for me. Even Damien’s, “Fuck,” was clothed in smoke, coughed more than said. He runs down the hallway until he comes to a tall window which looks down at the parking lot. It’s only when I twist around and look out at the setting spring sun, the sunlit trees which border the road, the yellow-lit parking lot, that I realize how smoky it is in here.
Damien leans down and says into my ear: “I’m jumping down, and then you’re going to jump and I’m going to catch you, alright?”
I’m about to tell him that jumping from a second story is absurd when I hear the hallway behind us being eaten by the fire, tearing walls and crumbling floors and collapsing ceilings and snapping rafters. He sets me down and I stand on the edge of the window as Damien brushes away broken glass with his sleeve. Then he looks down at the parking lot. A few men in leather jackets like Damien’s are sprinting over, but they won’t be here before the fire reaches us. The ground is only around eight to ten feet below us, but it looks much farther away. Damien grits his teeth, spits, and then turns to face me and backs out of the window.
“What the hell—” I say, or try to say. I cough, chest racking.
Then I see that he is lowering himself from the window-frame, gripping the edge and ignoring the glass which cuts into his hands, extending his body so that his feet are only around four feet from the ground. He drops, and then calls up to me: “Come on, Callie.”
I look down at him, a complete stranger with his arms open, more leather-jacket men crowding around now.
“Come on!” he snaps, gesturing with his arms.
I have no desire to put my life in the hands of these men. For all I know, these are the men who kidnapped me. But then I look into the parking lot and see way too many bikes. Perhaps this really is a different club? Still, if one group of men just tried to hurt me, surely another will do the same. I want to jump over their heads, sprout wings, and fly to a different State. I want to be gone. I want to turn into fire and flicker across a forest and then turn back into Callie and hike into hiding. But then I feel the heat of the fire at my back, and I have no choice but to leap.
I feel like a drop through the air for a long time. I feel heavy, too, with the water weighing me down, tugging on my shirt and my pants, my hair. I know that if I were to land on the ground like this, a heavy wet dropping stone, my knees would buckle and I would collapse onto my front, maybe break my nose, maybe do more damage. My mind is keyed for survival and already I am thinking about what I would do in that situation. I would have to try and persuade one of the men to pay a doctor to come out to me, under a fake name. A fake name! Even as I drop, I realize what a fool I was, telling Damien my real name.
And then he catches me smoothly, turns, and jogs away from the warehouse, the other men jogging around him. He carries me past the bikes in the parking lot and to another set of bikes on the other side of the road. The sun has almost set completely now, the sky orange-tinged, Kansas City a winking gilt hand in the background, each tall building a finger.
Damien lays me on the seat of his bike. I look around, eyes still stinging, at the men. Immediately, I suspect the worse. Now they will all start talking about how they want to take turns on me, how they want to hurt me. I wonder what I can do to defend myself. My body is tired to the point where even the idea of running makes my eyes heavy. But I will run if I have to.
Then a squat, ginger-haired man with a soft-featured face says: “Are you okay, miss?”
It takes me a moment to realize he is addressing me. I nod briefly, and then look down at the bike. It’s always best not to draw attention to yourself.
I glance up when Damien says: “Give her your jacket. She’s soaked through.”
I wonder who he is talking to, and then the big man steps forward and I can’t help but look up at him. He is huge, easily the biggest man I have ever laid eyes on, almost seven feet, and wide, with a squashed-featured face and emotionless eyes. His head is bald, covered with a sheen of sweat.
“Boss?” he says.
Damien stands opposite him, shorter, but almost as broad. He shows no fear of the larger man.
“I said give her your goddamn jacket.” There’s a bite in Damien’s voice.
I make to tell him that it’s okay, I don’t want to cause any trouble, but Damien just holds his hand up for me to be quiet.
“This is my jacket, Boss.”
“Do as you’re fuckin’ told or I am going to fuckin’ rip your throat out,” Damien says, a low growl in his throat. I can’t tell if it’s from the smoke, or if it’s from rage. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you killed that guard without my say-so. Jacket, now, or do we have a problem?”
So Damien must be the leader of these men, I reflect, if he can talk to this big man like that.
The man slowly removes his jacket, muttering something under his breath. Underneath, he is wearing a checkered shirt which stretches at the seams. Damien hands the jacket to the ginger-haired man, who drapes it over my shoulders. I tug it around me, thankful for the warmth, and to be able to hide my breasts; some of the men were looking.
Then the big man flashes his teeth at me in a grimace. “She’ll get more than my jacket, if she’s not careful.”
I shrink away from him. I’ve been around men enough to know that I’d stand little chance around a big man like this.
“And you’ll get more than this, if you’re not careful,” Damien says.
“More than what—”
Damien punches the big man in the stomach so hard that the big man keels over, gasping.
“Let’s roll out, boys,” Damien says. “And Ogre, if you ever fuckin’ disobey me again, you’re a dead man.”