“I know a guy who hangs bodies in the closet. You’re nothing,” I told him calmly. Then I slammed the chair into him again, knocking him out cold.
I dropped the chair and left the room. The hallway was splattered with blood, but was otherwise empty. I jogged to the front of the building where I heard the sound of a struggle and when I got there I saw The Bouncer trying to keep the girl from leaving through the boarded up window.
When he saw me, he shoved her away, causing her to hit the wall, where she slid down onto the floor. He came at me hard and fast and there was nowhere for me to go.
But up.
I grabbed a low hanging wooden beam and prayed it would hold my weight, and I pulled myself up, swinging my legs a bit for momentum. The Bouncer was charging so fast that when he tried to stop and turn back, he tripped and stumbled. I let my legs swing out toward him and kicked him dead center in the back. He sprawled out on the floor, and the beam I was holding broke and I fell onto the ground.
Rough hands grabbed me, yanking me to my feet, and I looked into the eyes of The Bouncer. The skin beneath them was already darkening from his broken nose.
I twisted in his grip, dropping back onto the floor, then springing up, bringing with me the beam I’d been hanging on. I swung it and it connected right across his abdomen. All the air whooshed out of him and he hit the ground.
The girl was watching us with wide frightened eyes, so I dropped the beam and hustled her out the window and onto the street. I walked fast, pulling her along with me until we were behind the convenience store in the dark.
“Why did you do that?” she cried. “He’s going to punish me now.”
“No, he won’t because you aren’t going back there. If you do, you’ll end up dead.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Do you want to die?”
She was silent a moment. “No.”
I knew she’d say that. No one ever wanted to die. Piper probably didn’t want to die either… I shook the thought and reached my hand into my pocket for the rest of my cash. “Here.”
She looked at the money with hungry eyes.
“Take it. Go home. And if you can’t go home, go somewhere that isn’t here.”
“Who are you?” she asked, still looking at the money.
“Let’s just say I know what it’s like to live on the streets.”
She took the money and turned away.
“Hey,” I said, gripping her elbow, spinning her back around. “I’m serious. Leave here. I won’t be here next time.”
She nodded and I released her.
“There’s a phone inside. Call someone to come get you.”
She went through the back door of the convenience store and I stood there for a long time, wondering what possessed me to behave that way. Antagonizing a well-known, highly feared drug dealer and his body guard, helping a girl who was living on the streets and too stupid to go home, then giving her all the cash in my pocket… something I never would’ve even thought about doing when these streets were my home.
But I didn’t live here anymore.
Those drug dealers didn’t scare me because they didn’t make my rules.
And the girl… I didn’t even know if she would listen to me. She hadn’t when I told her before. She might take that money, waste it, and then end up right back where I found her. But at least she had a chance now. It was more than anyone ever gave me.
If I wasn’t careful I might start thinking I was a decent guy. I stuck my cold hands deep into my pockets, one of them colliding with the bag of nightshade. My previous thought was blown out of the water. No, I wasn’t a decent guy. I was still the same as always.
* * *
Snowflakes rained from the sky, looking angry, and they blew with the wind and slashed into my windshield with the tenacity of a starving man at a buffet. I struggled to pay attention to the road because my mind wanted to go to other places. Like to everything that had happened back there on the streets.
Never once in my entire life had I stepped in like that to try and help someone else. Well, except for the night I died.
Look where that got me.
So why now? Why this girl? Why try and help someone I couldn’t care less about?
