Page 6 of Rough Trip

If only he knew what it took, she thought. He’d probably enjoy it if she had to sleep with him. She could tell when he first arrived that he was looking her up and down, sizing her up. She didn’t understand why at the time but the reason was about to become very obvious the closer he got to her. It’s not that he had found her attractive, she thought because he clearly didn’t. He was checking to see if she could fight him back. She knew she could not and he definitely knew that too.

Mia knew what it took to get the information they demanded, she just couldn’t do it.

She had always tried, she had tried to pick someone and just go with it but every time she would progress she pulled away. She could never sleep with someone for information and she knew it. She wasn’t a slut, she had never had to put herself in a position to act like one before and so she just couldn’t force herself to do it. She knew the risk though, it was staring at her now right there in front of her.

He started zoning in on her, pushing her up against one of the walls by her throat, tightening his one hand around her throat while his other hand rested against the wall. He pulled her off the wall only to push her back against it, making sure her head got a bit of a hit. He laughed as she winced from the pain coming from the back of her head.

“You’ve let Tyler down for the last time!” he yelled in her face, some of his spit landing on her cheek as she had turned her face to the side, not wanting to look at him that close. He couldn’t have been that much older than Mia, probably 26 or 27. He had a head of brown hair and brown eyes that looked black in the light. Mia took note of his face, which was half-covered with a beard. His face was rather round, although he was muscular, and he reeked of stale beer. Clearly, he had had a few beers before their meeting, though it didn’t alter his strength.

“You were warned when you agreed to be a spy, you knew your job and you still did nothing! You’re a useless little girl and Tyler doesn’t want you around anymore,” he said with an evil glimmer in his eyes. She could sense her pending death lingering in the air, she could almost taste it at the back of her mouth as her breathing had started to change due to the tightness around her neck.

The meeting had taken place in an alleyway in a rundown area of town. Extremely dodgy and well known for gang murders, this was an area she knew no one would care if they heard screaming for they had heard it all before. She had nowhere to go and she knew she could not defend herself. Her legs already felt like jelly as she hung just off the ground slowly losing her breath; she didn’t have a chance. Her head had already begun to spin after the first little blow to the wall and furthermore, with the lack of oxygen, she knew she wasn’t strong enough to take a beating. She had never had to learn how to fight before. He looked at her with a grin of victory and she knew she was dead meat. She closed her eyes and waited for the first blow.

He let her go as he brought his left arm forward for the first swing. He focused on the right side of her face, knocking her to the ground so he could then kick her in her rib cage. Pain shot through the side of her face, connecting with the pain she had already begun to feel in the back from the wall. Her head was pounding and she couldn’t focus on anything other than the pain that started radiating from her side. She had closed her eyes so tightly that when she tried to open them again to get a look around her, all she could see was literal stars and darkness. Had she gone blind, she asked herself.

“Please!” she yelled as the pain started becoming too overwhelming for her to handle.

“You have to deal with the consequences,” he said as he kicked her again, knocking the wind out of her completely this time.

She was almost so completely distracted by the pain and the blindness in her eyes that she had almost forgotten where she was until the second kick rocked her body. She then tried to curl up into a ball to make it harder for him to kick her again but that just pissed him off even more as he then brought another fist down on her face, still focusing on the right side as that was the side exposed after she had fallen to the ground. She brought her hand up to her face, trying to protect herself from another hit, she opened her eyes and just as she regained her eyesight she could see him getting his foot ready to kick her again.

She had come close to dying only once in her life and she had been grateful she had forgotten most of it. This, however, if she survived, she’d remember for the rest of her life. The pain had become unbearable. She wished she had just been knocked out so hard from the first blow that she wouldn’t have to experience getting beaten by a man who didn’t even know her; she didn’t even know his name.

Just as he began to swing his foot around to kick her for a third time, someone stepped out of the darkness and tackled him to the ground. It was Sage. How had he found her, she asked herself. She struggled to look up as she watched Sage beat the guy. He would kill him if he didn’t stop soon, she thought. Although she really shouldn’t have cared if he died or not, she couldn’t let Sage kill someone for her. That was a bit too much.

Sage proceeded to punch the guy numerous times, making him regret ever laying a hand on Mia.

“Sage, I think that’s enough,” Mia said as she slowly started to peel herself off of the ground, wincing every time she moved. He hadn’t slowed down with his punches even after the guy lay motionless. Sage took notice of what she had said and then jumped off the guy. Breathing heavily as he looked at his blood-covered hands.

He looked around at her and pulled a pained look. Did her face look that bad, she thought. He bent down and helped her up, allowing her to lean on him for support. She could barely walk. Sage attempted to pick her up and help her but she complained that it hurt more so she just hobbled next to him out of the alleyway, leaving the unknown Omen guy there to die.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go get you cleaned up.” She could only imagine what she looked like.

Sage took her back to his place where he cleaned up her cut lip and the gash on her face. She looked at herself in the mirror; she looked like a hot mess. She had blood pooled in her hair which she’d need a shower to wash out and half of her face was swollen and had already started to bruise. She looked at her neck which also had bruising in the form of fingers starting to develop around her entire neck. She knew she would have no luck hiding any of her injuries and she’d probably have to lay low for a bit until they faded.

“How are your ribs feeling?” he asked as he gently put pressure on her side.

She winced. “I don’t know if anything is broken because it hurts like hell.”

“Does it hurt when you breathe?” he asked.

“No, not really,” she said as she attempted to take a deep breath in. It hurt a little but not too bad.

“That’s a good sign then, you should be fine.”

“Sage, how did you know I was there?” Mia asked.

“I know everything.”

“Were you following me?”

“No… not exactly,” Sage looked down, avoiding eye contact with Mia.

“Then?”

“Well it’s a good thing I was there or who knows where you’d be right now,” he said completely brushing off the question at hand.

“Tell me!” Mia’s eyes were staring at Sage so hard that her eyeballs looked like they would pop out of her sockets.