Page 20 of Penny for Your Saints

“Shhhh,” I soothe, her beautiful alabaster skin soft as silk velvet beneath my fingertips. Though I know I shouldn’t—that it’s the witchcraft of her sigma perfume, not quite sufficiently suppressed by her fading medication—I can’t help but be drawn to her. I want to press my lips to that pretty rose petal mouth so badly I have to make a conscious effort not to bring my face closer to hers as she cries into her steaming cup of mint tea.

All of my blossoming affection, my growing softness for her—my pity sublimates into the void as I watch her. As if in slow motion, as her hands close around the cup of scalding tea—her nimble hands toss the cup’s contents in a searing spray across my face.

Fuck.

These men with their egos—their complete inability to see me, a little sigma woman, as anything other than their inferior will reap what they have sown.

My hands close around the ceramic cup, the steaming tea inside burning my tender palms as I lift the cup from the folding metal chair and spray its contents into Sébastien’s face.

His hands move instinctively to his scalded face, and I take my opportunity to strike.

I am become blade.

My bound wrists reach out and over his head, already so close to mine; lured in by my feigned weakness. Sébastien cries out as the short chain that connects my handcuffs finds its way around his neck and I pull the loop made by my arms and the links of steel taut—forcing him into a basket hold with my legs. The chain bites into his tender brown throat as I subdue him with my makeshift garotte—the ball chain with its tiny steel key charm is just visible from my vantage point over his shoulder as he struggles to be free of me.

Without air, he strains to make a sound—his arms thrash wildly as his lungs and brain beg for oxygen.

“Be still, sleep now,” I hiss quietly in his ear. I don’t want to snap his neck—but if he doesn’t pass out soon, he’ll leave me no choice.

The sound of my own heartbeat in my ears grows louder and louder as the sounds of his panic fade with his waning consciousness.

Holding my own breath, I wait for his long, oil-black lashes to lay flush against his high cheekbones—his body settling into stillness. I allow a fraction of a second of loosened chain—a precise window for escape, if Sébastien was still awake to take it—but he just lays unconscious against me, his chest rising and falling with near imperceptible shallow breaths.

No time to check the strength of his pulse, my hands fly to the chain around his neck—pulling the key from its hiding place, releasing myself from my bonds—wrists oozing blood, a ring of raw, chafed flesh beneath my oversized t-shirt where the waist chain has rubbed against me through the spare fabric.

No time for shoes, no time for a coat—just bare feet pounding linoleum as I sprint for the door to the apartment.

I am become arrow—demanding aim, true.

The doors that stud the hallway smear from my peripheral vision as I take off for the entrance to the stairwell at the far end of the floor. My hands slam into the push plate—hurtling through the heavy metal door and down the stairs as I speed desperately toward the exit.

I burst onto the ground floor—bashing my fists against every door on my way to the bank of buzzers and mailboxes that herald my imminent escape.

“Holy Shit!” A woman with a flip phone wearing a fake fur bolero, sequined mini dress, and a scuffed pair of flamingo heels that had seen better days screams as I explode from the buildingentrance beside her—her heavily lined eyes with their clumped mascara lashes are wide as saucers as she looks me up and down—a half smoked capri dangling from her gently trembling fingers.

“Sorry, I need this,” I snap at the woman who is more likely than not a blameless sexworker in the wrong place at the wrong time as I grab the phone from her hands, ending her call as she watches on in horror—merely an unfortunate bystander simply trying to do her job.

“Hey—hey!” she screams after me as I turn away from her, already in motion.

I take off down a nearby alley—punching Dennis’ mobile number into the shitty burner phone as I run down the narrow brick passageway—a tall chain-link fence less than forty feet ahead and coming up fast.

Dennis’ voicemail recording doesn’t quite register in my brain—the sound of my own blood roaring in my ears as I strain to hear the computerized beep.

“D, I don’t know where they have me. I’m ditching this phone in the trash outside their flop—” I gasp into the receiver as the fence grows larger and larger in my field of vision.

“Don’t fucking touch me! She went that way!” I hear the woman scream behind me, and my stomach rises into my throat—stealing what little breath I have left.

Someone’s already on my heels. I don’t have much time.

I open the plastic lid of the dumpster at the far end of the alley and toss the phone inside, praying the shitty little clamshell phone hasn’t been tampered with, and that they’ll be able to pull a trace from the GPS.

My hands newly freed—I leap for the cold metal links and begin my ascent—the sound of footfalls on the pavement growing ever louder behind me.

I’m barely three feet off the ground when I feel his grip around my ankle—the blunt strength of fingers threatening to crush my delicate ankle bones in his brutish grasp. Pain tears through my fingers as I am unceremoniously stripped from the chain-link fence—my body lands on the asphalt with such force that it knocks all the air from my lungs.

I croak desperately for air as my arms cradle my aching ribcage, my body curling in on itself in a vain attempt at protection as the tall, pretty one looms over me—rancor rising from him like the tendrils of steam off his sweat slicked skin in the tawdry alley lights of the cold winter night.

“Now, now,” he grits through bared teeth. “What did we say aboutcooperation?” he tuts, that perfectly received pronunciation giving him an incongruously regal air as he glares at me—half my face in the gutter.

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