Topaz had taken over beating Glen with her chair leg on the back. Causing him to double over while slapping at her legs trying to unbalance her. All, while she smashed down as hard as she could with the splintered makeshift bat. With a pull, her leg was airborne and so was she. Ass over teakettle style, as she fell back and onto the dying Stimpy.
Onyx grabbed Glen by the arm and turned him enough to face him. Once again, a hard blow to the man’s face made him wonder how weakened he’d become during their beatdown. Even high as hell the man should be down by now. Instead, it took a swift punch to the man’s gut followed by loud pop as if Barry Bonds had just hit one out of the park and he looked up to see Topaz panting with the chair leg at her side.
Glen lay flat on the floor with blood pooling from the base of his skull and a large gash down to the white meat.
Stimpy struggled, pulling himself up with whatever possible life that was left in him. His shirt completely blood soaked and he wasn’t moving too fast. Finishing him would be less of a task and more of an inconvenience.
One step and an upper cut to the solar plexus doubled him over.
His hand raised in surrender. “Son of a bitch.” The man groaned, coughing up blood on to the floor with a splash.
Onyx had one final bash to the man’s nose and again in the mouth, finally knocking him to the floor next to his bestie.
Snagging Topaz by one hand and the poker with the other, he opened the door and they ran to freedom. “Come on, now’s our chance. Let’s go.” Once they stepped out—the vastness of the surrounding pines overtook him. They had a truck and when he pulled open the door, he tossed the fireplace poker on the seat then flipped down the visor. No keys fell, he checked the seat and then saw Topaz by the door, her fingers messing with the prima cord.
“What the fuck? Topaz?” he asked as he stood on the other side of the pick-up’s door.
“Shut up,” she said waving him off.
“You know I could have just bowled them over and ran, the point was to not die in the process,” he called as she finished her messing with the cord and came to the truck.
“What? It was a simple pad trigger. Nothing fancy.”
“Brick get bored in between dances?” he questioned, a ting of jealousy eating at him from a place unknown. “Start breaking down specks.”
“We’re not there yet,” she said rounding the truck and climbing in the passenger side.
“You wouldn’t have happened to snag the keys from old Glen and Stimpy in there would you?”
Her eyes instantly shot to the newly reengaged trigger she’d set up, then she scooted across the bench seat in the old pick up and popped the casing on the steering wheel. “I can hotwire,” she said, grabbing an empty can of beer from the floorboard and using the sharp edge of the opening to strip the wires.
“This part of Brick’s five easy steps to end your life early?”
Topaz’s blue eyes were darker, only having the interior truck lights to illuminate them as she narrowed them, then quirked her lips into a sexy, sweet smile.
“How about you drive?” Onyx ran around the truck and got in on the passenger side, still searching for the illusive keys and wishing the men hadn’t taken them inside.
The smell of electricity burning filled the cab of the pick-up as a few sparks arched below the dash. Movement in the cabin had him gripping the poker with one hand and bracing his other on the dashboard.
“Topaz,” he said, a warning tone coming from his voice as the pixie car thief groaned below.
“Give me a sec, I’ve been legit too damn long.”
“Don’t care, how good are your detonation skills?”
Topaz poked her head up over the dashboard right as the handle to the cabin moved.
Onyx’s heart stopped. His eyes bracing for the explosion, praying in a way it would never come. The boom instantly made his ears ring as fire shot up in the air and he leaned down, covering Topaz with his body as they both were now tucked practically to the floorboards. The sound of bits of wood and metal bouncing off the truck. The shower from the cabin coming back to earth had him squeezing the best he could to her.
Damn, she was tiny. Curled up under the steering wheel, the cab of the truck warming as the flames wrapped around for a quick flash, then disappeared. A heavy thud on the bed of the truck caused it to bounce as they both sat, motionless until the only debris were small bits dinging on the outside of the truck.
“So, you wanna see if the keys are out there?” she joked.
He let out a roar of laughter then sitting up in the truck, he buried his head in his hands. Pressed his palms to his face and allowed the emotions, the stress of it all go like a sheet broke free of a drying line on a windy day. Floating as the immediate threat disappeared and the two of them sat side by side in the cab of the truck while staring at their former prison. Charred wood outlined the base of the cabin with only the tilted over fireplace to mark that anyone had been there.
Glen and Stimpy were gone, parts littering the grass, no longer able to see who belonged to what as Topaz and Onyx were froze. Taking in the sight of the demolished cabin. For Onyx, the vision was one he’d seen before in a way. The narrow escape. A
