“Put your fuckin’ pants on, both of you,” J’Von said. “Don’t do nothin’ stupid. We goin’ for a drive.”
They didn’t argue. Both of them did as he said.
Alex didn’t like it, of course. More than being just unpleasant and dangerous, it seemed like going along was a dumb way to handle the situation. When seeing something like this on television, he would scream inwardly at the characters not to just obey the bad guy, but rather make a break for it or do something productive.
In the reality of it, though, he’d only ever been in two real fights, and one was just the other night. Those were three middle-aged guys taken by complete surprise. He’d been armed, more or less. And before that fight was over, he had an angel and a demon on his side, who in turn had been the ones to end it.
Neither of them was in sight. He didn’t know where Lorelei was, or how soon she’d be back. Rachel said she’d be watching him, but couldn’t see him when he was with Lorelei, and Alex didn’t know what specifically that meant. How far did they have to be apart? How often did Rachel try to look?
With his pants back on, Alex considered trying to tackle J’Von, but then Mike appeared in the hallway. Two of them now. Twice as unlikely to turn out well. Neither of them looked like strangers to violence, either.
As they quietly directed Alex and Taylor out of the dressing rooms and out of the store, joined by a third guy-this one white and skinnier than the other two-Alex cursed at himself for not taking Drew up on those kung fu classes months ago. They might not have helped much at all here, but anything was better than nothing, and that’s what he had. Nothing.
Taylor held it together fairly well. She took Alex’s hand when they were outside the store and walking to the elevators, but otherwise showed little fear.
“We gotta pay parking before we leave?” Tony asked as they waited.
“Don’t know,” J’Von shrugged. He nudged Alex from behind. “We gotta pay parking for that car of yours?”
Alex frowned. “The pass is in my pocket,” he mumbled.
“Good.” The elevator opened and all five of them went inside. As soon as the doors shut, J’Von demanded, “Phones, wallets and keys. Now.”
Both hostages-that’s what they were now, Alex understood-obeyed. Alex wished he had replaced that pepper spray. All he’d have to do was set it off in here to blind and incapacitate everyone. These guys seemed serious, but he didn’t think they’d be dumb enough to shoot blindly in an elevator.
No pepper spray. No black belt in kung fu. No guardian angel or fire-breathing demon. Too bad for that.
* * *
Her business with Rob completed, Lorelei headed out of the restaurant feeling confident and reassured. Alex’s second tryst seemed to have been completed a moment or two ago, too. It seemed to have ended a bit abruptly, but then, she did leave him in a popular store. No telling what sort of interruptions might take place there.
She contemplated hitting a couple of stores. Instead, Lorelei felt an urge to reunite with Alex and thank him, quite pornographically, for the joy that he had just shared with her. She strode to the escalators and then headed for the lingerie store.
Inside, she didn’t find him. There were, however, several worried-looking sales associates. Among them was Audrey, who seemed very stressed.
“Where is my companion?” Lorelei asked her. “Has he left?”
“He did.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“He just left all of a sudden with Taylor and three other guys. It didn’t look right, but we didn’t know if-”
Lorelei was already out the door.
* * *
It dawned on Alex that if he and Taylor got into a car with these guys, one or both of them were probably going to die. This was kidnapping. None of these guys had concealed their faces. One of them had even referred to the other two by name, so now Alex knew that they were J’Von, Mike and the White Guy.
They walked quietly through the parking garage. Shoppers on their way out zoomed through the garage one by one, none of them looking like they had a care in the world. Some drove a bit too fast.
“Gonna fuckin’ hit somebody, asshole,” Mike grumbled as he jumped out of the way of a Mustang.
“Don’t try nothin’ stupid,” J’Von warned the two hostages. “It’s not you we want, anyway.”
“What do you want?” Taylor asked.
“Shut up,” J’Von shot back. “Boy, where’s your car at?”
“It’s over there,” Tony said before Alex could speak. He apparently had a good eye for cars. Alex tried to think, fighting a rising panic. If they got into that car, they were dead. He couldn’t accept that. Not for himself. Definitely not for Taylor.
Alex had been in a mild scuffle or two in his life. He’d learned to punch from friends who genuinely knew how to fight, but that hardly amounted to proficiency. He was generally smart enough to stay out of trouble-at least until this week. Now his head didn’t seem like it’d be enough to get him out of this.
All he could think of was something Drew had said to him, that day they both got suspended for the only real fight he’d been in before this week. It had erupted in P.E. years ago when a couple of boys had made Oreo jokes about Drew. Alex didn’t leave his friend to face them alone, but he wasn’t much good in the ensuing brawl. Outside the principal’s office, Drew said, “You wanna fight right, you gotta be meaner than the other guy. Don’t matter if it’s ugly. Losing is uglier. You don’t know what’s gonna happen if you lose.”
Alex heard another car moving too fast up the winding parking garage. “Taylor,” he said softly, “I need my hand back.” She let go.
He had no interest in seeing what they might do to Taylor. He’d just have to be meaner than they were.
One second, everything was going fine for J’Von and his crew. In the next, Mike had suddenly been shoved right in front of an SUV.
He bounced off the hood, tumbled to the SUV’s side and down to the pavement as it passed by with its brakes squealing. Inexperienced at these things, Alex hesitated to see if it Mike would get up. J’Von didn’t, and planted a right cross squarely into the side of Alex’s jaw. Alex staggered, bounced off the parked car next to him, and realized that he might’ve done something smarter than this. Taylor yelped and jumped out of the way.
“Oh, shit!” Tony blurted. He didn’t know whether to check on Mike or back up J’Von. He decided on the latter, only to have Taylor trip him from behind.
In true Seattle form, the driver of the SUV took off rather than check on his victim.
Alex recovered and launched himself at J’Von but came up empty. He recovered quickly from that, too, and even blocked the first retaliatory punches J’Von threw. He didn’t block the elbow, though, or the knee in the stomach. Alex clutched at him, grabbed at his face, and pushed his thumb in the bigger man’s eye.
Tony tugged Taylor to the ground, following up with a solid punch to the gut. He left her winded on the pavement, jumping in to help J’Von just as Alex’s foot came up squarely into J’Von’s groin.
Tony got in a good shot at Alex’s kidney. Alex gasped, turned, and blocked another low blow. He swung an uppercut that Tony dodged entirely. This was bad. “Slow,” Tony taunted.
Alex threw a half-kick, half-stomp at the side of Tony’s knee. Something about the impact sounded very unpleasant; Tony went down wailing. “Gimp,” Alex retorted.
He spun to face J’Von, who was still bent over, but now had his gun out, carelessly pointed toward Taylor. Alex jumped in the way, hoping to grab the weapon. J’Von fired four times, wincing in pain, from only a couple yards away. Poor aim and stress sent three of his bullets wide as he squeezed too hard on his gun. The first bullet, though, caught Alex midway up his chest, just under his shirt pocket.
Only just now on her feet, Taylor screamed. Tony caught her pant leg before she could move to Alex. She tripped and fell, hitting her head on the pavement.
The world spun around Alex. He staggered sideways, twisted and fell back onto the side of Lorelei’s car. Then he slid down, sitting up against the door.