I looked down at my gut and there was a foreign object jutting out from my stomach. I touched it, it was hard and felt like metal.
“Ugh, well… fuck me.” I fell to my knees, my eyes never leaving the weapon. They stabbed me, talk about an overreaction.
I fell back and I looked at the stars in the sky. I wanted to be angry but I was so happy. I was going back to Laura. The pain was gone and it was thanks to these women.
“I have never seen him, I don’t see anyone else, do you think they know we are here?” One of the girls spoke and the way her voice trembled with fear made part of me want to reach out and just tell them that they had nothing to fear, at least from me. They were obviously afraid of someone enough to kill a virtual stranger.
Alex...no.
I could hear Laura. Instead of the voice getting louder like I thought it would when I was this close to joining her, it actually sounded like she was getting further and further away. She sounded sad, almost like she was disappointed.
“Come on, let’s go, we have to go.” The oldest of the three pulled the two girls away.
Alex.
“Laura? My Laura.” I could feel myself going, I knew this was it for me. This was my end I was going to be a goner laying in my own dirty ass clothes in a piss filled alley. My fall was complete.
“Em? What are you doing? Let’s go!” One of the girls whispered in a harsh tone.
“Vida, I don’t think he is one of them, he doesn’t look like he is. I think…”
It sounded like I was being dragged under water. The voices around me popped in and out.
“How are we going to do that?”
I could vaguely hear a little girl crying, I knew it was the young girl that I scared when I jumped over the fence.
“He’s not a bad man? I’m sorry, Mikki, I’m sorry.” The little girl slurred out between sobs. I finally started to float into a deep sleep and then pain.
“Fuck!” I screamed out in agony as the two bigger woman tried to lift me to my feet. “What the shit! Leave me alone!” I tried to push them off, even though every little jerk felt like the blade in my gut was spewing out acid.
“Look, here mister, I don’t know who you are but we can’t leave you here. You will die. We can take you to the hospital.”
“No, just leave me here. Let me fucking die in peace.” I tried again weakly to lay back down on the filthy pavement.
For a moment they stopped moving and there was peace, until the spell was broken and there was pain again.
“No, you are going to come with us. It was an accident, we thought you were trying to take us back. We can’t go back. I can fix you up. You just have to help us, please.”
I opened my eyes and for the first time since I left my family it felt like the sun was warming my face. Something about the way she was staring at me, pleading with me, holding on to me made me focus a little harder. I shook off the feeling. She was right. I couldn’t die here, if I did whomever was looking for her in the first place would come searching for them. My last act was not going to be a failure to protect someone else. If I was going to die, I would die where no one would find me. Let my body rot and stink before someone realized that I was gone.
“Fine, shit, but take the fucking knife out first.” I tried to grab the handle of the knife and pull out but the woman they called Mikki stopped.
“No, no we can’t do that now.”
“Why the fuck not?” I asked pouting and grimacing in pain.
“Mister, you curse a lot.” The little girl that I originally scared said from behind the other woman who I could see know was nothing more than a teenager.
I looked down to her and as much as I wanted to tell her to mind her fucking business, I wouldn’t. She looked like an angel. Her curly hair was dirty and blowing in the wind.
“Pardon me, angel.”
Her eyes got wider as she hid behind the teenager more.
“How the fuck did you know her name?” The woman in front of me, grabbed the knife and I could see that she was ready to rip it out. If what they had already done to me didn’t kill me, ripping it out surely would.
“What?”
“You just called her Angel, if they didn’t send you for us, how the fuck did you know her name?”
I could feel my eyebrows raise up on my face, “Well hell, that was just fucking lucky. She looks like an angel. It was the first thing that came in mind when I looked at her. I swear to you I don’t have a clue who the hell you are. I was just coming from my storage container when I ran into her. I am not here to take you anywhere.”
She looked into my eyes and must have seen something that reassured her, she let go of the knife and moved beneath my arm.
“You know, that’s not the first time that’s happened.” She started to move slowly and step by agonizing step I did my best not to put too much weight on her. Before we even made it out of the alley I was ready to fall back down.
“Mikki, there is no way that we are going to make it the hospital and you know they are going to be there waiting for us.”
“You’re right.” The woman turned back to me, “Mister, I am going to take you back to our place, if
