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I thought they wanted me back alive.
It didn’t make sense then, but looking back, I knew my father was the kind of man that gambled with his money, taking unnecessary risks because, like me, he was bored. Still, it really stung, and my predicament, though thrilling, was something I didn’t want to relive.
“Get down!” Jack would say, time and time again. We ran for our lives, in sync with each another. “Jump!” he commanded, and I would.
Eventually, the King Mafia lost track of us. We stopped in the back of a small grocery store, just a few buildings over where we had originally been. It felt like we had been fleeing and fighting for our lives for hours.
“You ok?” he asked.
“Would be a lot better off if you hadn’t kidnapped me.”
Jack smiled. I cringed at his lack of tact with me.How could he smile when we had just faced death? Especially since it was his fault.
“Your father should have paid his bills.” He shrugged. “The Reeds don’t take kindly to cheapskates. Especially when they’re obscenely rich.”
I grew angrier with every word that came out of his mouth, but at least we were safe. I started to say something snarky to him when Jack’s nostrils flared.What a weirdo.
But then, I smelled what he was smelling. Something was burning.
Without a word, he tackled me, covering me with his whole body. I could smell all of him, the pungent sweat, the sweet smell of his cologne, and I could feel him too. We were blasted back; my ears rang and a blinding light surrounded us. To his credit, Jack was most of what I could see, hugging me tightly to his massive chest. He broke our fall surprisingly smoothly with one arm. He stayed kneeling over me, and what had happened sank in with the heat of the explosion, the dusty debris floating around us. We were silent for a while, and I was afraid that Jack might have been hurt. This man, who I reminded myself had kidnapped me, possessed a power over me that I was trying to fight. I hated myself for it, but I wanted him. After some time, Jack got up. The smoke began to clear, and I could see that we were trapped in a small bodega. Jack was assessing the situation. He seemed fine, and I was relieved.
He was built like someone out of an action movie, only I wasn’t sure if he was the hero or the bad guy, and his actions only made it more difficult for me to understand how I felt about him.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, hoping he would give me some semblance of humanity.
Jack walked around, pushing large pieces of the rubble.
Was this guy really going to ignore me after what we just went through?
I took a step closer to him, but stopped because there was still too much dust.
“What…are you…” I tried to finish my sentence, but I was coughing too much.
“Stay back,” was all he said, in a dead, careless tone.
He continued doing whatever it was he was doing. It looked to me like he was playing with rocks, shaking them back and forth. Occasionally, he would just stare at them and think.
“Maybe I can help?” I offered, after a while of boredom.
He didn’t look back at me, or even acknowledge I was talking.
When he did come back my way, part of me hoped he would be warm, and make me feel better about our situation. Unfortunately, I’d learned he was not the most nurturing type of man.
He grimaced. “We’re stuck in here. I don’t see a way to get out of this. We could die.” Then he merely shrugged and leaned against part of the collapsed wall.
“That’s it?” I asked, bewildered.
“Yeah.”
“I thought you were saving me,” I said. “You must have killed twenty guys.”
He chuckled.
“Really?” I rolled my eyes. “You protected me, even when that explosion hit us hard. You could have died. And now you’re saying we’re just going to die in here. You’re just giving up?”
“I can’t lie,” he said.
This man!
