Erica
“Oh, my God!” I gazed in astonishment in what I had done. The Hook was dead. There was no question about it. I could see bits of brain and fractured skull on the steel pipe I–I!–held in my hand! Part of me filled with horror so great that I considered leaning over and retching. But the rest of me–the stronger part of me–was fascinated, and, dare I say, a little proud.
Dominic blinked at me, all his suffering blurring his eyes, but he still managed to say, “You are the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing, bad-ass woman I have ever met.”
And then, he collapsed to the ground, unconscious. A trickle of blood flowed from his temple, joining the tableau of gore that covered the rest of his body.
“Oh, no, Dominic!” I cried, wrapping my arms around him to try to heave him to his feet. Above me, explosions shook the whole building, dashing dust and debris from the ceiling as gunshots joined the fray. Then, in the distance, the most terrifying sound of all:
Police sirens.
“Come on!” I insisted. “We have to get out of here! Thunder! Thunder!”
At last, Thunder appeared, limping and gasping and sweating with his broken ribs and his injuries, but in infinitely better condition than Dominic was in.
“Christ!” He swore, rushing over. “La Gancho! He’s dead!”
“Yes,” I grunted back. “And we will be two if you don’t help me.”
“Right!”
Together, we were able to heave Dominic up, and throw his arms around our shoulders. My heart broke as I touched him. His skin was sticky and hot, lying tattered across terrible, slicing wounds.
“My God,” I muttered. “What did that monster do to you?”
“Don’t worry,” Thunder grunted as we trudged along. “He can take it. Dominic is the strongest man I know.”
I nodded, accepting his comfort. Together, we were able to drag Dominic out the back exit, and up those slimy, slippery stairs.
We were just in time, too. From our new vantage point, I could see that much of the top floor of the Crooked Jaw compound was on fire. Broken Spires were everywhere, swarming about the building like excited flies on a dying carcass. In the distance, I could see a huddle of defeated Crooked Jaws, their hands raised in surrender as the Broken Spires bound them, one by one, where they would wait for the police to arrive. The sight of it did not fill me with horror, as I once would have thought, but with joy. Both the Crooked Jaws and the Broken Spires might be criminal, but the difference between the two was enormous.
“This is all well and good,” I complained, “but how are we going to get out of here?”
“There!” Thunder pointed. In a far alleyway were two motorcycles, waiting, their keys already in the ignition. Beside them, I could see the cause: a pair of Crooked Jaws, lying dead on the pavement. I recognized one of them as the man who had been holding Thunder. They’d been shot in their attempt to escape.
“Wonderful” Thunder cried, rushing over and stroking them as if they were prize stallions. Hurriedly, he heaved Dominic on one, then mounted the other, exclaiming, “Perfect!” As he did so.
“Perfect?” I demanded, approaching hesitantly. “How the hell do you expect me to ride that thing?”
Thunder frowned. In the distance, the sound of sirens grew louder.
“I’d just assumed you knew how to ride,” he confessed, shrugging. “You fit the part so well in everything else.”
“Thanks,” I responded sourly. “Can’t we all three ride on one?”
“Maybe, but with Dominic’s dead weight and your lack of experience, it would be dangerous.”
I scowled, thinking to myself. There was only one alternative.
“Leave me here,” I said at last.
Thunder gaped. “What?”
“Leave me here. You get Dominic and yourself to the Vet, or whoever you people go to for medical care. I’ll find a way home. Don’t worry.”
“No!” Thunder protested. “You’ll be arrested! Or worse, one of the fleeing Crooked Jaws will find you. Who knows what kind of revenge they’d seek. I can’t leave you, Erica!”
Strangely–for the first time since this whole ordeal started–I felt like crying. Not fake-crying, not tears of pain, but genuine sobs of terrible grief.
“Please,” I begged. “He’s bleeding! Look at him. He’ll die!”
Thunder shifted. I could tell it was tearing him up inside.
“Please,” I said again. “He was willing to give his life for me. I can risk walking home, in…in exchange for that.”
Thunder, too, looked like he might cry. I realized, with a pang of tenderness, that he and I had become good friends–the dearest friends. The kind that lasts a lifetime.
He got off his bike, ran over, and hugged me. “You’re a brave woman, Erica Carter,” he said. He took off his jacket and handed it to me. “Take this, at least,” he said. “We can’t have you riding around in your knickers.”
I chuckled. So much had happened that I had forgotten that I was nearly naked.
“Thanks,” I said, slipping it on. Immediately, I felt warmer. Safer. Thank God for black leather.
He kissed my cheek, mounted the motorcycle behind Dominic, and rode away.
# # #
Just as Thunder and Dominic disappeared into the distance, the building of the Crooked Jaws compound blew up. I felt the percussion of it rock the street, knocking me to my knees and dizzying me. As the smoke and rubble cleared, I heard the sound of someone approaching.
“Damn!” I swore, and scrabbled away. I found my feet and legs wouldn’t cooperate. Bits of debris had pierced my skin, with soot turning my skin black, so all I could do was scoot back like a crab behind a nearby dumpster. It was just in time to, for I vanished the moment someone appeared.
It was Blade, the whites of his eyes, wide and terrified, striking against his bruised and ash-covered skin. He looked around frantically, wheezing with fear, until his eyes fell upon the spare bike, its keys gleaming in the dim, smoky light.
He looked back. Behind him, cop cars screeched to a halt, gathering the bound Crooked Jaws and snatching up the remaining free ones in droves. Blade swore, clambered his way onto the bike, and started the ignition.
Like a toddler on his first set of training wheels, he teetered away.
“Coward,” I spat before emerging.
I needed to get out of here. If the cops found me, nearly naked and covered in blood and soot, they were bound to take me in for questioning. I couldn’t allow that. I might reveal something about Dominic, or Thunder, or the Broken Spires as a whole. After everything we had been through together, I could not bear to see them come to harm.
Deciding I needed more than just a jacket, bra, and underwear to avoid attention, I stole the boots and pants from the body of the nearby Crooked Jaw. It disgusted me to be touching them–and to slip the smelly, oversized, bloodstained things onto my body–but I realized that it was necessary, so I did it anyway. That was another thing Dominic had taught me: you always needs the strength to do what is necessary.
Clunking out of the alley, looking more like a biker chick than ever, I managed to make it to the river. There, I dipped my hands into the water and washed most of the blood and the debris from my face and hair. It would certainly have been suspicious, lurking around in the shadows looking the way I did. After that, I found a pile of storage crates on which I could hide, climbing them clumsily in my too-big boots. Once on top, I waited, and watched. Cops were everywhere. I figured it was too risky to be moving about right now, especially in daylight. And so I decided to linger there until dusk, and the bulk of the police disappeared.
As I waited, I thought about Dominic. About those horrible, gaping wounds that covered his front and especially his back. I wondered how much the Hook had to have tortured him, and how confused and desolate he must have felt when he thought Thunder and I were cheating on him. I did not blame him for his mistake. So confused and terrified he must have been, and so warped by the Hook’s machinations, that it was only natural. And yet, all it had taken to break that terrible spell of lies upon him was my confession of love.
I’d told him I loved him, and his eyes cleared. He was my Dominic once more.
Whatever happened the rest of my life, I knew that I would remember that moment forever.
I also wondered about Blade. Now that the Hook was dead, and the Crooked Jaws ruined, what was he going to do? Obviously, he could not go back to work. Too many people–too many witnesses–had seen him involved with the Crooked Jaw’s crimes. And I was sure–knowing their cowardly nature–that every single one of the members of that biker gang captured by the cops would be turning each other in, trying to cut deals to ease their sentence.
I wondered if they’d try to turn in Dominic. “No,” I realized. “The Hook is dead, but Dominic and the Broken Spires are alive and well. They’d know the Spires would hunt them down like beasts if they tattled.”
Dominic is alive and well.
God, I prayed that it was so. He’d lost so much blood, and that concussion. And who knew what kind of medical training the man they called, “The Vet” had? If there was one thing about this whole biker gang mess that annoyed me, it was that they could never seek medical care.
“Though, if they could,” I realized, “you and Dominic would never have ended up together.”
That, at least, makes me smile.
Dusk fell. My muscles aching, my poorly clothed body shivering with cold, I clambered down from atop my hiding place and made my way back towards my place. Fortunately, my long respite atop the crates had given me time to search the pockets of the jacket I’d stolen. There, I found a fat wad of twenty dollar bills and a half-full pack of cigarettes with a lighter. The cigarettes I’d smoked while I waited, relishing the idea of my mother finding me perched in that manner, smoking and clad in little more than leather.
The wad of twenties I’d used to grab a cab home. I knew there was some risk in that, but I figured, by that point, it would be more suspicious to have me wandering around after dark.
My apartment was warm and familiar after everything that had happened–and yet, it still felt lonely. I wondered where Dominic was, and how he was doing.
As soon as I entered, I kicked off the stolen boots, pants, and jacket and tossed them into the trash. As an afterthought, I removed the bra and panties as well and stuffed them in on top of them. After the Hook and Blade touching them, I never wanted to let them touch me again.
Then, I looked in the mirror. At first glance, what I found could have been comical. Despite my attempts to clean in the river, my whole body was still covered in dirt, sweat, and blood–all except where the bra and panties were. Instead, they’d left patches of white-pink skin, like a negative photograph of a woman in a bikini. The ludicrousness of it made me chuckle.
Beneath the filth, I also saw several cuts, and many large, painful looking bruises. Strangely, I did not find them ugly or disheartening. Instead, they made me feel fierce and beautiful. Like an Amazon warrior.
I said to my reflection, “Part of the reason we survived today was your courage and your plan. It worked on Blade. We’d all probably be dead if you hadn’t worked on Blade.” It was amazing to me. Almost unbelievable. I thought back to the woman I was not that long ago–the woman willing to trade her self-worth to grovel before a man like Brain.
If that woman had stood beside me in the mirror, I would not have recognized her.
At last, satisfied with my reflection, I stepped into the shower and let the warm, soothing water wash over me. It not only cleansed away the dirt, but the sharpness of the memory of Blade’s hands, of the Hook’s repugnant talon. Beneath all that, remained something strong and beautiful.
I stepped out of the shower and let myself air dry, just standing there, relishing the warmth and freedom on my skin. Then, still stark naked, I marched to the kitchen and fetched myself a bottle of wine Brian and I had been saving for our honeymoon. You know what? I thought. Tonight, I, alone, deserve it.
I popped the cork, filled myself my fanciest glass, and took a sip, the cool air coming from the window whispering across my skin. I smiled, took another sip, and sat down, crossing my legs like the most sophisticated of naked ladies.
That was when I heard my doorbell ring.
I did not jump. The old me would have jumped. She probably would have spilled that wine all over herself. Instead, I stiffened, poised for flight or fight, depending on who came through that door.
I waited. The doorbell rang again. “Come on!” I heard someone call. “It’s still hard for me to stand, you know!”
“Dominic!” I cried back.
Slamming my glass of wine down onto the table, I rushed to the door and opened it with a flourish. There, another heavy black jacket covering his thick padding of bandages, with a smile so broad that even his bruised and battered face failed to hide it, stood Dominic.
“Thank God!” I gasped, and threw myself upon him, completely heedless that anyone passing in the street could have seen my full nudity had they walked by. Dominic grunted, somewhere between a chuckle and a gasp of pain, and together we half walked, half stumbled into my house.
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” I exclaimed, kissing him, relishing his taste of cigarettes, my taste of wine.
“Me, too,” he responded solemnly. The severity of his tone disturbed me, and made me pull away.
“Wait, you are okay, right, Dominic?” I asked. He did not seem to want to meet my eye–and not because he was looking at my breasts, either.
“Yes, I am fine. The Vet stitched me up. Took some wicked painkillers and about four hours, but he managed.”
“Good, good,” I muttered, still sensing that something was wrong. “What about Thunder? Is he okay?”
Dominic chuckled. “He has a few broken ribs, and won’t be riding for a while, but he’ll be fine. In fact, he’s great. The Broken Spires are jubilant over their success at the Crooked Jaw compound, and they’re more-than-ready for him to take command.”
“That’s great, Dominic,” I murmured. “But what’s wrong? Tell me. There’s something wrong.”
He sighed, then gestured to the chairs surrounding the kitchen table. I sat, while he went to fetch a glass to pour himself some wine. I did not protest. He deserved it just as much as I did–and besides, our relationship was past having to ask for such a thing as that.
Right?
“Please, Dominic. What’s wrong?”
He sighed, filled his glass to the top, drank the entire thing, and then topped himself off again before answering.
“Erica,” he said. “We need to talk.”