Page 53 of Wicked Me
“Did Hill send you?” I asked.
“I don’t know any Hills,” he growled.
So, thiswasjust an old-fashioned mugging. Shit. Shit, shit, shiiiiit.
“Dude,” I started, my mind spinning with a way out of this. “I don’t have anything you want. I’m just a bum on the street.”
“A bum with a two-hundred-dollar leather jacket. I know what you have inside it. Give it to me.”
“Here.” I lifted the collar as it to take the jacket off, my elbow digging into my side to keep Hill’s package from dropping at my feet in case my pouring sweat didn’t permanently glue it to my side. “Take the jacket.”
“I don’t want your mother fucking jacket. Give me the money or I’ll splatter the street with your head.”
I shut my eyes as the seconds ticked past and instantly saw my brain as sidewalk art behind my eyelids if I didn’t do something fast. Sweat rolled down my sides and drenched Hill’s package.
Icouldn’tgive him the money. But I didn’t feel like dying today, either. I worked my hand under my sweatshirt and jacket. As soon as I did, the barrel of the gun pushed harder. A threat. If I tried anything, I was dead. I was unarmed, though, and that made everything so much fucking better.
My fingers touched the bottom of the sweat-soaked bag. I eased it out, slow, controlled, unlike the rest of me. As soon as the paper crinkled out in the open, a gloved hand snatched the bag away, and the guy ran up Chestnut with probably about three hundred grand. Every last bill of Hill’s money.
Fuck.
I scrambled for my phone, but to do what? Call Hill? Explain the situation? Yeah, he was about as understanding as a skinned cat. I worked at Auto Tech for fuck’s sake. I didn’t have that kind of money. I could call Riley, beg him to skim money off the top of Dad’s campaign funds. He’d probably do it, too. When he wasn’t too busy being an asshat, he looked out for me in his own special, what’s-in-it-for-me kind of way.
But if Riley did get the money, by the time he delivered it, it would probably be too late. I could try to explain to the fine folks in the car who hadn’t pulled up yet that I got mugged by some punk, but that scenario ended with the driver aiming the gun in his lap at me. Because they did have guns. I found that out last time.
Another car sped down the street, splashing up puddles and kicking my heartbeat between my ears. Was that the car coming to collect what I didn’t have? Black with silver trim, it reminded of the cars from the other night.
I clicked the undone buttons on my jacket sleeves while I considered all my options. But really, I didn’t have any. Hill would make me pay for this in more ways than one, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t like any of them. Hill would probably make me pay in fingers and toes and teeth. My molars ached at the thought of being ripped from my head.
The car slowed, whether for the red light or for me, I didn’t know. I didn’t wait around to find out.
Like a pussy, I strode down Chestnut in the direction of my car, the same direction the punk had run. Maybe I would see him. If I did, I would use my wit and charm to get the money back because that had worked out so well for me with him before.
Until then, I was thoroughly screwed with a capital fuck.
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