“Wait!”
I turn around, and see Pierce jogging out of the building. He’s in nothing but his fighting shorts. There’s a trickle of blood running down the side of his face, and as he approaches me, passing beneath a street lamp, I see that the stitches above his eye have split.
“What, Pierce?”
“Why are you leaving?”
I put my hands on my hips. “I told you not to do this fight.”
“I had to.”
“I knew you would,” I say, venom in my voice. “I knew you wouldn’t fucking listen to me.”
“Then why did you come? If you knew I’d be here, but you didn’t want to be here?”
“I don’t know!”
We stand in silence for a moment.
“Well, you sure got fucked up tonight,” I say.
“I couldn’t concentrate.”
“Why?”
“I’m falling for you, Pen.”
He just says it, and it catches me off-guard. I can’t say that it’s not what I wanted to hear. But still…
Sensing that I’m on higher ground, I ask him, “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
“Pen,” he says, and he steps toward me, grabs my arm.
“Hey! Don’t hold me like that.”
“Come with me,” he growls, yanking me with him. There’s a plane taking off nearby; the fight was held in a private hangar at the airport.
Pierce walks me quickly toward the gate in the fencing that lines the hangar. I can see him shivering.
“Damn it, Pierce,” I say, taking off my cardigan. I go to wrap it around his neck but he holds his hand out.
“I’m not cold. It’s just the adrenaline wearing off.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where’s your car?”
“I came here by taxi.”
“Fuck, I’m parked a mile from here. Can you run?”
I blink. “What the hell do you mean?”
“Can you run?”
“Yes, of course I can fucking run!” I cry, exasperated.
“Run with me,” he says.
We begin jogging toward the fence in the distance. Red lights blink intermittently on top of it. The access gate is unlocked.
“Fuck,” he says, and I follow his eyes. There’s somebody walking toward the gate. It’s hard to tell if he’s airport security or not.
We duck into the shadow between two hangars, and he turns me to face him. “We need to get out of here, Pen.”
“What the hell is going on?”
He puts his finger to his lips, and cranes his neck behind us. Blood is dripping down his face, mixed with sweat, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“What are you looking for?”
“Fallon’s goons.”
That’s when it clicks for me. Fuck. He ducked out of the fight, didn’t complete his end of the deal. They’re going to be after him now.
“You idiot!” I hiss. “Why didn’t you finish the fight?”
“Because you left!” he whispers angrily. Then his expression softens. “I wasn’t going to let you get away.”
I shake my head, wondering just what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into. But something feels off. He’s acting too skittish.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He looks me dead in the eye. “They didn’t threaten me. They threatened you.”
The sound of that plane taking off fades into nothingness. All I hear is a dull metallic sound, like a bomb has just gone off. I struggle to wrap my mind around it.
“They said they’d hurt me?”
“They implied it.”
“If you didn’t fight.”
“Yes.”
“You fucking idiot!” I say again, slapping his arm. “I can’t believe you left the fight!”
He puts a finger in front of his lips. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
“They’re looking for you,” I say. I point to the man now standing guard by the gate. “Is there another way out of here?”
“No.” He takes a deep breath. “Just stay behind me.”
He goes running off into the night, and I struggle to keep up. He’s keeping low, sticking to shadows formed by the enormous hanger, by parked airport vehicles.
In his tiny fighting shorts, he looks a bit ridiculous.
Without any warning to me he speeds up into a sprint, charges at the man by the gate and lands a punch so hard I swear I hear bone break. The man’s body goes limp immediately. He’s out cold.
“Hurry the fuck up!” he says, beckoning me urgently. I run through the gate, and he follows behind me.
“We need to get to my car, Pen.”
He takes me hand and we run next to the road. There are potted trees and tall plants, as well as a hedge that obscure us from passing traffic.
I hear the crunch of stones and twigs beneath my shoes, and know that he must be feeling it on his bare feet.
Some minutes later, I’m panting, holding onto my side. I’ve got a stitch, and I’m regretting eating that lasagna before coming.
We get to his car, and he throws the door open, pushes me inside. He climbs in after me, guns the engine, and we scream off down the road, racing for the on-ramp to the highway.
“I don’t think they’re following us,” I say, laughing with relief. “Holy shit.” I pull my hair to the side, follow it with my gaze, and that’s when I see the headlights.
All I hear is thunderous, screeching metal.
All I feel is my body being thrown into Pierce, his arms wrapping around me.
All I see is sprinkles of shattered glass glimmering.
Our car flips, rolls, hits a tree. Pierce is beneath me, calling my name, but his words are only a blur, a smudge in my brain.
The passenger door above me is yanked open, and two hands reach in and pull me out. My hair catches on the seatbelt, rips out of my head.
I’m too stunned to feel pain.
I’m being held from behind. Some man is lifting me up. My legs don’t touch the ground.
A man walks up to me with a roll of silver tape. He snaps out a length, tapes my mouth. The smell of plastic and pungent adhesive floods my nostrils.
A bag is shoved over my head. Everything goes black.
I’m forced into a car, and there feel a zip tie tightened around my wrists, binding them together.
“Take her to the chemical plant,” I hear. The voice is familiar. I’ve heard it before. “We’ll finish this there.”