I sprinted down the sidewalk until I stopped at a four way intersection. My heart was hammering in my chest. Not from the running, but from the panic machine gunning in my stomach. I looked up and down the cross street. It had lots of bright streetlights in both directions. But straight ahead, the street was dark. I think I saw movement ahead.
Yup.
The small dot of Tiffany’s hair and white dress glowed faintly in the moonlight.
“Tiffany!” I shouted. The light was red, but I ran anyway. A car blared its horn and swerved around me. Luckily, it hadn’t been going very fast. I dodged clear and crossed to the other side of the street.
I sprinted down the sidewalk, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Tiffany!”
It was definitely jacket guy with her, his arm around her waist. They turned down a street before I caught up.
When I rounded the corner, jacket guy had Tiffany pinned against a brick wall. Her purse was on the ground. Tiffany was pushing at him with limp hands. She was too drunk to fight. She fell down on her knees. Jacket guy grabbed her by the sleeve and I jumped on his back, pounding the back of his head with everything I had. He stood up and stumbled backward, slamming me into the window of a parked car. White lighting shot up and down my back as pain exploded in my body.
I slid down the car. My butt thumped onto the sidewalk.
Jacket guy whirled around, looking surprised. His lips were peeled over crooked clenched teeth. He was hunched over like an animal. He swung his booted foot at my face, but I rolled to the side and scrambled to my feet. His boot clunked into the car door where my face had been, denting it. Then he lunged for me and I raked my nails across his cheek.
“You cut me, bitch!” he shouted.
I saw Damian Wolfram’s face fall into place over jacket guy’s. Anger blew up inside me like a neutron bomb and my vision went red. I swung my arms at him like helicopter blades, aiming my nails at his eyes. He stumbled back and tripped over Tiffany’s legs. I kept swinging my arms. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wasn’t going to stop.
My fingers peeled back skin from his other cheek. He scrabbled away like a squirrel on all fours. When he got to his feet, he stopped and glared at me. He touched his bloody cheek and examined the blood that came away on his fingertips.
“I’m going to cut you open, bitch,” he said as he pulled a knife out of his pocket. He flicked the serrated blade open with his thumb.
Oh no. I was screwed.
He advanced toward me. If I ran, he would never catch me. But I couldn’t leave Tiffany alone with him.
Jacket guy’s face was no longer Damian Wolfram’s. It was just ugly jacket guy who had fingernail gashes dripping red. I noticed spittle on his lower lip. I became obsessed with that spittle. It was so white in the darkness. I couldn’t stop looking at it, I think because I didn’t want to think about his knife. I didn’t know what to do. Someone was going to get stabbed but I wasn’t ready to accept that fact.
He took a step toward me.
Spittle. Spittle. Spittle.
He started to chuckle like a rusty hinge, waving the knife slowly through the air in lazy circles.
His eyes suddenly went wide, drawing my attention to them, breaking the spittle spell.
“You’re not cutting anybody,” Tiffany said. She was behind me. I turned and saw she sat on the ground, holding a small silver pistol in both hands. She was staring right at jacket guy. “Unless you want me to blow your balls off, asshole.”
“Put the gun down,” jacket guy said.
“Are you insane, douchebag?” Tiffany sneered. “I’m going to give you to the count of three to run away.” Tiffany slurred her words, obviously drunk, but she held the pistol surprisingly steady. “One…”
Jacket guy smiled like a cobra, “You’re not going to shoot.”
“Two…”
He took a confident step toward Tiffany, “You’re too drunk. You’ll miss me by a mile.”
“I’ve been taking shooting lessons since I was ten years old, you prick,” she chuckled. “Which ball do you want to keep, the right or the left? Ah, fuck it, I’m going to see if I can get both with one bullet.” She cocked the gun like they always did in the movies.
Cha-CHAK!
“Three…” Tiffany said.
Jacket guy ran away so fast, he was a blur.
I gulped, and felt my heart slide back down my throat.
“Asshole,” Tiffany said as she lowered the gun.
I knelt next to her, my legs quivering like jelly. I couldn’t stand up if I wanted to. My stomach was on spin cycle. “Are you okay?”
Tiffany took a good look at me. After a moment, recognition dawned on her face, which soured when she realized it was me. “I’m fine.” She carefully eased the hammer thing on the back of the gun. I knew that meant it wasn’t about to go off anymore. She slid the gun in her purse with a loud huff. She tried to stand up, but was having trouble.
“Do you need help?” I asked, hands resting on my thighs
“No,” she blurted.
I watched her struggle to all fours, but that was as far as she was getting. “Here,” I said, and looped my arms around her arms and stood her up.
Tiffany leaned against me.
Adrenalin still flickered in my veins. My hands shook, my knees wobbled, shit, even my hair was tingling. I was surprised I could stand, let alone hold her up too.
“Which way is your car?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she slurred, totally frustrated, like I was annoying her.
“Oh my god! Sam!” Romeo squeaked behind me. “What the hell happened?”
I turned Tiffany and myself around to face him.
“What the hells bells?” Romeo gawked. “Are you and Tiffany scissor sisters?”
“Yes, Romeo,” I said sarcastically. “We were just about to flick each other’s beans for awhile before locking crotches.”
“Can I watch?” he asked innocently.
I frowned. “I thought you were gay?”
“But this is a historic event,” he said, “and someone is going to have to document it. You’ll need proof. Otherwise, no one will ever believe it.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m totally taking a picture of you two.”
“Can I shoot him?” Tiffany asked.
“Please,” I giggled. It only took about three seconds for my giggles to turn into tears of relief.
Chapter 25
SAMANTHA
Two of my fingernails still hadn’t grown completely back after I’d ripped them down to the quick the night I’d saved Tiffany. They had throbbed like crazy for days.
But now, they were a minor nuisance.
I sat in a row of chairs in a hallway on the second floor of the History and Social Sciences building, which was near the Dean’s office, awaiting my SDU tribunal hearing for supposedly stealing Tiffany’s credit card months ago.
I wore the same outfit I’d worn to court the day Christos had been on trial. Black blazer, gray pencil skirt, white blouse, black hose, and black pumps. My makeup was light, just enough to look professional.
The outfit seemed appropriate because now I was the one about to be on trial.
A woman wearing a frumpy business suit opened one of the doors off the hallway and leaned out. “You can come in now,” she said.
She held the door for me as I walked into a conference room. At the far end of the big wooden conference table, Dean Livingston sat at the head, wearing a suit, flanked by an older woman and a middle aged guy. Both wore suits and I assumed they were SDU administrators. Tiffany sat near them, a few seats down. Mr. Selfridge, my old boss from the museum, sat across from Tiffany. With any luck, he would be able to say something that helped my case. The woman who had let me in sat near the door, behind a laptop set up on the conference table.