Unibrow let go of my arm and yanked me into a headlock. Still, I wrenched and flailed. Pain like I’d never felt before—not even in childbirth—exploded from my center as the other guy punched me in the stomach. Surely something inside me had ruptured. But I couldn’t double over. I couldn’t breathe, and for a split second I might’ve blacked out. Then I was retching and gasping. Unibrow yanked up on my head and I felt a knife blade pressed to my throat. My wild panicked eyessearched for security cameras. The tunnels had them. But when I spotted the nearest one, I saw a round black sticker had been placed over the lens.
Mrs.Carson moved toward me like an alley cat stalking an overfed pigeon. As she got closer, I could see her actual eyebrows had been lasered off and replaced with aggressive penciling.
“I’m not happy about this, Tilly,” she said. “Miranda told me you two are all buddy-buddy these days. And this is going to make her so sad.”
“Tell them to let me go,” I said, my voice shrill with alarm.
“Sorry, sweetie,” Mrs.Carson said. “No can do.”
The knife blade bit into the skin of my neck. Unibrow pulled his forearm hard against my windpipe, cutting off my air. This guy was going to slaughter me like a hog. I would bleed out quickly and die in this grim tunnel. My kids would be all alone.
Panicked as a trapped animal, I struggled and kicked but it made no difference. I tried to speak but not even a gargled sound escaped. Mrs.Carson watched me with cold eyes as I clawed at Unibrow’s forearm. She made a slight motion and the goon released the pressure on my neck enough for me to suck in a lungful of air.
“I won’t tell,” I croaked. A warm trickle ran down my throat. I stopped thrashing for fear Unibrow would decide to get it over with. In another part of my reptilian brain, I was terrified the other brute would punch me again.
“Oh, sweetie,” Mrs.Carson said. “I don’t want to do this either. I’ve known you since you were a pimply teen who couldn’t find a prom date. I’d rather let Ralphie and Errol do the deed. But I can’t trust those incompetents to pull it off.” Mrs.Carson patted at her hair to assure herself every strand was in place. “I heard they’d be here today, causing a ruckus. Everyone will think one of their boys got to you.” Her voice softened. “But it really does make me feel so terrible for poor Miranda. She’ll be devastated. She really could use a friend. Other women are always so intimidated by her.” She shook her head as if to clear it of empathy for her own daughter. “Boys, you know what to do. I just can’t watch, okay?”
The edge of the knife pressed deeper as Mrs. Carson started to walk away, heels clicking sharply on the grimy concrete. I had taken too many things for granted. I would happily spend the rest of my days ringing up meatloaf plates for ill-tempered state senators working to eradicate my rights if it meant I could live to see my girls learn to do their multiplication tables.
But Belinda Carson stepped around the corner and out of sight. In one bold movement, her henchman dug the knife blade into my throat and yanked, cutting through my carotid artery and jugular, trachea, and esophagus, all the way down to my knobby vertebra. He lowered me to the ground as my dying heart pumped blood out through the gaping smile in my neck.
It hadn’t happened yet. But in five seconds, it would. I had to do something, anything to bring Mrs.Carson back, to keep her talking. To live a little longer.
“Miranda told me she appreciates you!” I yelled.
Mrs.Carson halted in her tracks and spun to face me. “What was that?”
“It’s true,” I said. “You’ve always been so hard on her. But she said you were actually incredibly helpful when she was trying to have a baby.”
“She said that?” Mrs.Carson’s eyes glistened as she walked toward me. I could sense pain there, longing. “She really said that?” Belinda Carson wore an armor of meanness. But I could see it now. Deep down, what she wanted more than anything was for her daughter to think she was a good mother. I could relate to that, in my way. Not to the unkindness. But to the fierce hope that despite all my parental blunders, in the end, my kids would love me, think of me fondly, grow up and tell a friend about some little or big thing I’d actually done right.
Mrs.Carson was closer now. Just a couple of steps from me. But not close enough.
“She did. She really did. She said she couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”
“It was awful to see her like that,” Mrs. Carson said. “Wanting something I couldn’t give her. And I don’t know why, but somehow, for once, I knew how to say the right thing.”
Deep sympathy for this sad, mean, profoundly unwell woman suffused me. But it didn’t matter, because right then Mrs.Carson stepped into my range. I picked up both feet and nailed her in the stomach with the stiletto ends of my pole shoes.
She teetered, arms windmilling for what felt like forever.
And then she fell.
The thug with the keloid scar rushed to help her. The knife grazed my neck as I wrenched away from a startled Unibrow, tripping on my six-inch platforms. The concrete floor roared up to meet me and I rolled into my fall, ending up on my back with the wind knocked out of me again. As Unibrow rushed at me with the bloody knife, I waved my legs in the air like a seizure-ridden octopus. He stopped short, unsettled by my Vagina Monster, my crotch pointed at him, legs flailing like the inflatable man outside a car dealership. When he lunged to grab one of my ankles, I nailed him in the nuts with the boxy platform of my other shoe.
He fell howling to the ground, the hunting knife blessedly careening across the floor, blood droplets flying. I scooted backward, back scraping concrete, ripping off first one pole shoe, then the other, and scrambling to my feet.
As the second goon lunged for me, I jogged backward and chucked a Sentient Stripper at him. He ducked it easily and kept coming. As I turned to run, he grabbed me by one arm. I whirled, the second stripper shoe gripped tightly in my free hand. A loud pop sounded as the six-inch stiletto punctured his cheek. He lurched backward, the shoe dangling from his perforated face.
I sprinted along the dim hallway, veering right down the side tunnel I knew exited up onto Eighth Street. I burst out to sunlight and that dazzling blue sky. I’d expected to emerge into a crowd, but the sidewalks lay empty. The dome of the capitol rose against the backdrop of the foothills.Parked cars lined the street but there was no one nearby. I was vulnerable, barefoot, nearly naked, dripping blood. An easy target. Prey.
A block away, the milling crowd of festivalgoers watched as firefighters doused the Kids’ Tent. EMTs checked out dazed children in the back of parked ambulances. In that throng of cop cars and flashing lights, I could find protection, safety, Nate.
When I glanced behind me, there was no sign of Mrs.Carson’s bagmen.
But as I turned back around, a familiar figure had stepped out from behind a parked car.
“You didn’t have to get all tarted up just for me, sweetheart,” Ralphie the Lizard said.
