Page 8 of Vicious Savage

It’s way past midnight and the creature of comfort is still holed up in the bar. My guess — she wasn’t willing to leave before us. So she stayed on, continuing to serve drinks and holler orders well into the night. It looked like she was needed, at any rate; for some reason, the crowd was only getting thicker, not thinning as the hours wore on. It seemed like the altercation earlier had only served to heighten everyone’s adrenaline.

We sit in the car, our eyes planted firmly on the door, waiting. Patrons fall from the doors at random intervals, making their way to their parked cars and leaving.

“Find out everything you can about the friend,” I tell him, as she stumbles out of the bar and makes her way to a red Mustang. I don’t know how much she’s had to drink, but the sheer number of people leaving the bar and heading to their cars beggars belief.

The cars have dwindled to a dozen or so when something catches our eye. The man from the bar — the one who’d gotten his ass kicked by a woman half his size — slinks from the shadows, flicking a cigarette to the ground. The light flickers against the damage to his face, the broken skin begging to heal itself. He looks towards the door of the bar, then steps back into the shadows as more patrons exit and walk to their cars.

The Jekyll moves to open his door, readying himself to go out and flatten the coward on the kerbside. I stop him with a hand to his arm.

“Let it be. We step in only if the asset is compromised.”

8

LUNA

The hair stands on the back of my neck as I step out into the night air. Nadia is long gone to the comfort of her own home, and I’m just at my truck when a shadow steps out of the night. I would’ve expected the twin flames that have been scorching the earth as they track me, but instead it’s the man from earlier in the bar. He steps out in front of me, blocking my movement and preventing me from reaching for the driver’s side door.

He looks like a mess. And he’s mad as hell as he locks his jaw and snickers in my direction. I don’t know how he thinks he stands a chance after the night he’s had and the proof that I can put him down now as easily as I did in front of an audience earlier. If nothing else, I have the undisputed upper hand because I haven’t consumed a lick of alcohol tonight like he has. I heave a bored sigh then roll my wrist for him to move out of my way.

“Huh,” he says, testy.

“What do you want?” I ask him, my hackles rising.

“To finish what I started.”

“I already did that for you,” I hiss, trying to push past him.

He reaches into his coat and produces a pistol. He fumbles with it clumsily, and I wonder if it’s even loaded, but I can’t take that risk. The man is drunk and angry and he did not come back here to make up and get silly.

I keep my expression calm, casual, as I try to think of an exit plan. The bar is deserted, the parking lot nearly vacant save for those intelligent people that decided to get an Uber home and left their cars behind.

“Little boy has a big toy,” I sigh. “You sure you know how to use that?”

A tic develops in his right temple as he immerses himself in his fury. I see the shake of his hand as he struggles to keep the gun raised; what people who haven’t handled a gun don’t know is it’s a pretty damn heavy load to carry in one hand. The more I stand with him in all his clumsiness, the more I realize his wavering hand could very well be the thing that kills me. And I really don’t have any desire to end my life without much fanfare.

Without warning, I fold my body into a squat, shoot out a leg, and swipe it past his until he’s falling onto his back. But not before he fires off a shot, one I’m noting as ‘accidental’, which goes flying through the air, whizzing past me, to land with a metallic clink in a nearby car. I straddle him, an arm at his throat as I wrangle the gun out of his hand and tuck it into the back of my pants.

“This is the last time I see you here,” I tell him. “Or by God, you will leave here in a bodybag.”

“Bitch!” He hisses. “You haven’t seen the last of me.”

I tighten my arm at his neck, momentarily cutting off his oxygen, until his eyes bulge and true fear appears on his face. I ease off — I don’t relish killing him tonight, then get up and tell him to leave.

He scrambles to his feet but doesn’t make a move to leave. I fill my lungs with night air, preparing to give him another dressing down, before we’re interrupted by the squeal of tires. I turn, my hand on the gun in my waistband, to see an SUV come hurtling around the corner, impatient in its movements, the lights infiltrating the night. I look back at the man, but he seems just as surprised as I am by the interlopers, his expression that of a deer caught in headlights.

The SUV is dangerously close to tipping over as it rolls on two wheels in its haste, before it comes to a sudden stop about forty feet away, its glaring headlights blinding me. The doors swing open, and heavy boots thunder to the ground as three men come towards us; a fourth man must be in the vehicle because the beams are suddenly switched off and we resort to the bar’s security lights for sight.

“Well, well, well…”

The three men stop walking. One claps slowly. My eyes swing to the vehicle, to the man sitting in the passenger seat, resting there as an unsettling fear envelopes me.

“Oh, fuck.” I mutter.

“Got yourself into more trouble, bitch?”

My adversary from tonight’s adventure finally has an ally in his corner. But his happiness is short lived, because one of the men lifts a gun, aims it with steady hands, and plants a bullet in the middle of the man’s forehead. It is so callous, so calculated and unnecessary that I feel like I want to hurl back the evil that has stampeded this night. But I right myself and push my shoulders back, a soldier to the end. No matter that he was an asshole tonight, no one deserves a death like that.

The men start to move forward toward me. They’re drawing out the showdown as much as they can, most likely thriving on the fear they probably see in my eyes. But this is what no one tells you. There’s fear, and then there’s its wealthy relation — adrenaline. It bursts through my seams, assaulting my veins, challenging me in ways that are not necessarily good for my health.

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