Page 4 of Asking for Trouble
Aaron was fucked.
While the ringleader was distracted, I pressed the panic button and prayed the cops would arrive before the handsome stranger ate a bullet.
“Fucking hell, asshole,” he finally barked. “Stay on your goddamn feet. We clear back there?”
A man rose from behind the aisle, his head obscured by that nylon sock. He was wearing the original man’s grey zip-up sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his masked face. But I knew it was Aaron.
What kind of man took out an assailant with a gun and swapped places with him as easily as you please?
A shiver of dangerous arousal bit sharp teeth into the base of my back.
“Clear,” Aaron said, raising the long-barreled shotgun as he adjusted it. I had to wonder if he did it for my benefit, to show me he had a weapon now too.
The ringleader turned back to me as his two other cronies pilfered packages of chips and peanuts from the store. “Hurry the fuck up, you fat bitch.”
Heat rose at the back of my neck, the words igniting age-old embarrassment in me like a match to a strike strip. My ex and some of my old friends I’d met through him had always called me chubby or fat as if I didn’t know I wasn’t a size zero. It wasn’t that I cared about my weight. I was happier with myself now as a woman than I had been as an underfed, terrified girl, but my ex liked to harp on me about the few extra pounds I wore well on my hips, thighs, and tummy. Even though I’d grown aroundthe wounds from my past, it was hard to remain unmoved when someone really wanted to humiliate you, and the name-calling triggered old memories.
I could feel his leer as he watched me put the stacks of money––over three grand––in an Evergreen Gas Station paper bag.
“Nice tits, though,” one of the other men murmured as if he was reluctantly impressed.
Immediately, my right hand flew to my neckline even though I was conservatively covered in a long-sleeved navy-blue tee beneath my polyester uniform vest. I never wore anything remotely revealing when I was working. When I looked up into his expression, it was feral with entitled, savage interest.
“Pretty thing stuck in a glass cage,” the ringleader murmured as the other guys joined him in front of the counter. “Maybe I should break you out and take you with us, along with the cash. A little bonus for my crew.”
“I’m locked in,” I said, surprised by the levelness of my voice when inside, I felt seconds away from a panic attack. My chest was so tight, I couldn’t force air into my compressed lungs.
“Good thing we know a thing or two about breaking in,” he retorted, and I could see the faint impression of a smile beneath the dark nylon.
Fear clutched my heart with talon-tipped hands. I was suddenly a teenager again, stuck with men who wanted to break and bend me to their will, with no hope of escape. The edges of my visions crackled with static, the present colliding with the past in a way that short-circuited my brain and made me forget the difference between who I’d been and who I was.
“Not worth it,” Aaron grunted. It was obvious he was trying to modulate his voice. “Let’s get the cash and get out before the pigs come.” There was a jingle as he fished through the pockets of the hoodie he’d taken from the thug he’d knocked out andproduced a set of keys. “I’ll start the car so we can get the fuck outta here.”
The entire store seemed filled with static energy as the others waited for their leader to give the final verdict.
“No,” he said slowly as if the word had flavour, and he relished it on his tongue. “Let’s take the girl. I think I know someone who’d be happy to take her off our hands when we’re done with her.”
BLUE
Three things happened immediately.
I opened the moving closure in the box where he’d wedged the shotgun and used his momentary shock to tug hard at the gun's barrel. He wasn’t prepared for me to act offensively, and the weapon slid through his grip, wedging itself awkwardly inthe opening until it was stuck. Behind him, the two other men raised their guns to target me, and I ducked to the ground, pressing my chest to the floor as if to hug it.
The ringleader cursed savagely as he tried to unstick the gun from the cage, and in his haste to retrieve it, a bullet discharged over my head, blasting through the open window box. Sharp bits of material rained over my head.
And Aaron, the stranger with the scarred chin and pretty smile, cursed savagely under his breath. “Well, fuck. Now, you haven’t given me any fuckin’ choice.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as a cacophony of sounds erupted in the small space. The harsh exhalation of air as something thunked against flesh and then the heavy weight of something hitting the plexiglass door; male exclamations cut off by curses, then gurgling noises like someone trying to breathe underwater. Finally, the lowboomof a shotgun discharging punched through the air, followed by the tinkling rattle of glass exploding, shards of it falling to the linoleum floor.
Meanwhile, I rolled over onto my back and scrambled back against the L-joint of the counter, secured in the corner. There was a bat Grouch kept on the bottom shelf, and I grabbed it with both hands, laying it across my lap in case worse came to worse, and I had to fight each asshole off myself.
I was thrown back to the worst moments of my life. The roots of my hair still stung as I remembered being dragged down the hall by strong hands fisted in my locks, my throat raw from screaming. No one had come to save me, then. Not even my own father.
I blinked away the cold horror when a gunshot ricocheted through the store. When my gaze lifted, it was just in time to see an unmasked face pressed to the plexiglass door. The man’s cheek was cut open, the flesh distorted against the plastic, blood leaving a red smear behind as he slowly slid to the ground.
Behind him, breathing heavily, his nylon stocking discarded, nose bleeding, and jaw already bruising, stood Aaron.
We locked eyes through the bloody glass, both of us panting so powerfully that our shoulders rocked with the movement. There was righteous fury in those dark-as-soot eyes, but concern also bracketed his drawn mouth. When he moved forward slightly, I flinched. My nerves were drawn so tight I thought I’d break in two.