Erica
“When I say so, run!”
His words fly from his mouth so quickly I cannot hear them. All I could see was the knife blade, driving down at us like a shard of ice. Then striking and flipping end-over-end into the chaos of feet in the bar crowd. Dominic grabbed my hand in his left fist. In his right, he held a gun.
“Jesus Christ!” I gasped. “What the hell is going on?”
The attacker, who’d been knocked off his feet by Dominic’s punch, regained his stance. Around him, other men erupted in anger, drawing from their leather jackets more knives and, in one case, a gun.
I was completely frozen. What new horror was I to be subjected to? This is not at all what I was looking for–
“Erica?”
Dominic’s voice. A hard squeeze of my hand.
“Ready…run!”
He bolted. I remained, stupidly, my ass glued to my seat. And yet, his grip on my hand held fast, for, a half a second later, I felt myself being whipped onto my feet and yanked, at a million miles an hour, along the length of the bar.
“Get them!” Someone from behind us cried, and I heard the sound of tables being thrown and glass shattering on the floor.
BOOM! A bullet flew overhead, digging a crater the size of a saucer into the far wall. I screamed and tried to bury my head in my hands, but Dominic kept dragging me along.
“No, you idiot, don’t shoot!” I heard someone cry. “We’ll hit each other! Knife them, boys! Knives!”
“Them?” I echoed stupidly. Why the hell did they want to hurt me?
All around me, people screamed, dashing for the exit. Dominic used the chaos to seize me around the arm and drag me underneath the bar, to hide, at least momentarily, from view.
“You okay?” He pressed, touching my shoulder. I realized I was breathing so rapidly I was nearly hyperventilating.
“No!” I gasped back, and he squeezed my hand.
“That’s okay,” he said. “Because I am, and I’m going to make sure we get out of here safe. You got it?”
I nodded, taking a moment, despite the danger, to admire just how cool and collected he was. He looked no different than a businessman at a difficult meeting.
“But if we’re gonna do that,” he continued, “You have to listen to every single thing I say. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Where are they?”
A hyena’s voice thundered across the bar. It was nearly empty now, save for us and the group of attackers––the Crooked Jaws, I think Dominic had called them. By poking my head out beyond the shadow of the bar, I could see them approaching. I did so quickly, making sure that I couldn’t be seen–
“There they are!”
Damn! By a blink of an eye, and a flit of the hair, one had spotted me.
“Jump!” Dominic bellowed, and together we burst from the ground.
In a single, fluid movement, Dominic threw himself sideways, up and over the bar. I clung to him, allowing him to guide me over, but in spite of this, I still wasn’t quick enough: my hip, shielded by nothing more than a single sheet of fabric, collided with the edge of the bar in a rolling impact of pain. Dizzy, I crumpled rather than slid to the other side of the bar, where I hid, trembling in fear.
Dominic, meanwhile, drew his gun and held it over the horizon of the bar. Boom! He fired. I saw a light burst in a shower of sparks. Boom! The jukebox exploded, the music suddenly silenced.
“Bad aim,” I thought, until I realized that he wasn’t aiming for the people. He was trying to scare them. And, by the way they now hesitated to approach the bar, I could tell it worked.
“Through the kitchens,” Dominic ordered, pointing towards the large, silver door at the far end of the bar. “Now!”
I bolted. Then, my stupid high heel caught on something, and I tripped, my ankle twisting agonizingly beneath me. I cried out, struggling to move, when, next thing I knew Dominic’s arm was around my waist and he was carrying me through the door.
The heavy metal barriers slammed shut behind us. “Help me!” Dominic cried as he grabbed the end of a heavy metal shelf and began dragging in front of the door frame. Swallowing the pain in my hip and ankle, I leapt up to help him.
Suddenly, I heard a cough behind us. We whirled to find a chef, his hands raised in trembling, his skin as pale as the dough which he served.
“Y-you can get out that way,” he stammered, pointing to the far end of the kitchen, where an emergency exit sign waited to guide our way like a holy symbol.
“Thanks,” grunted Dominic, pocketing his gun. Steady as could be, he grabbed my hand and led me, limping heavily, to the door.
It swung open, revealing a cool, dark alley.
“Let’s go!” He said, charging out. We looked left: a towering brick wall, lined with barb wire. We looked right: an empty alleyway, leading to the main road. It was to this that we darted.
“Freeze, Broken Spire!” The voice came almost as powerfully as a gunshot, ricocheting through the filth-strewn alley. Behind it, men appeared, filling up the exit, guns and knives leveled at us. And this time, I realized, they wouldn’t be afraid to shoot.
“Back to the kitchen!” Dominic roared, seizing me once again and whirling around. Crash! We slammed against the kitchen doors which, this time, remained closed. Through the misted glass I saw the face of the chef, now glowing with savage triumph, pumping a key in his fist.
“It’s a trap!” I cried. “They’ve led us here to shoot us!”
“No, no they won’t,” hissed Dominic, slowly backing away. “Gunfire draws cops, and even the Crooked Jaws are smart enough not to get cops involved. Isn’t that right, Tony?”
The guy leading the foray leered, grinning. “True, very true,” he growled. “But I’ve always found knives more fun. Get ‘em, boys!”
They lunged.
“Erica!” Dominic snapped. “That wall! Can you climb it?”
I tore my eyes away from the approaching men and gaped at it. It was made of rough-hewn brick, offering handholds that might benefit a professional rock climber. But me? I was proud if I managed to do my Pilates twice a week.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m not strong enough––ah!”
Without warning, Dominic suddenly scooped me up. I expected him to throw me on his back, but no, he hugged me against his chest, so that my legs closed around his chest and I clung to his neck with my hands. Then, he––amazingly, astoundingly, arousingly––began to climb.
I had little time to wonder why he did not put me on his back, for the Crooked Jaws soon revealed it: knives, like flashes of silver moonlight, flying through the air.
“Dominic, watch out!” I screamed, as the first one clanged against the brick wall inches from his ear. But he could not dodge: he could only keep climbing, faster, faster.
“You animals!” I screeched at the attackers, hoping to distract them. “You dirty fucking pigs! Mother-fuckers! Assholes! Ah!”
Dominic seized the top of the wall and hurled us over in a single wrenching of his great muscles. I heard barbed wire tearing at his leather outfit, and more blades striking against the brick. Then, in a whirl of color and nauseating light, we fell, fell, fell, through the air, and–
Whoomph! We hit the ground. Dominic had shielded me from the impact with his body, so I was––apart from my bruised hip and twisted ankle––okay.
For the first time, as I climbed off him, I heard Dominic moan.
“Dominic!” I hissed, seizing him by the shoulders. All of a sudden, now that the attackers were out of reach, I suddenly realized how crazy all of this was. “Dominic!” I managed to get him into a sitting position. “What the hell happened back there?”
Wincing and swearing under his breath, Dominic managed to return to his feet. Rather than answering me, however, he once again seized me by the hand and dragged me forward.
“No, Dominic! No!” I insisted, planting my feet. “I demand to know what’s going on!”
“I’ll…tell you…” He grunted, still obviously winded from his fall. “Once…we are safe…but for now, we need to run!”
I was about to open my mouth to retort when I heard, quite distinctly, a man on the other side of the wall cry, “Circle round! That road has limited exits! Block them all!”
“Jesus Christ,” I swore, this time taking Dominic’s hand. We looked at each other, nodded, and then––despite my throbbing ankle, despite my aching hip, even despite the sour liquor, churning in my stomach and threatening to rise––we began to run.