Airel - Aaron Patterson [62]
The parking lot was full now. Cars had been parked all the way out nearly to where Michael had obsessively taken up four spaces with his truck near the end of the row. As we walked toward it, I heard the fluttering of wings in the back of my mind. She moved. Something about it made me stop. It was different this time—a warning. Something wasn’t right, and my mind instantly raced back to earlier in the evening when I had felt only a fraction of alarm compared to now.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just have a weird feeling, like we’re being watched or something.”
He looked around. “I wouldn’t doubt it. You look amazing. Anyone within a mile of that dress would definitely be watching.” He smiled and I smiled weakly back, but still something inside made me uneasy. Was there a chink in the armor of my hero? No, that’s not it. His compliment was cliché, but he meant it, and what’s more I wanted it, so it was okay.
I looked up and down the parking lot and noticed that no one was in our row. People milled about going into the mall, coming out with their shopping, but our row was like a no-fly zone or something—devoid of any life at all.
I kept looking around as we began walking again. A creeping fear moved from my heels to my back and over my head like a hood. As I began to wear it, everything in me wanted to bolt like a deer in the woods.
Then I heard She say something I will never forget, “Do not be afraid.” I was scared, frightened, concerned. But not nearly enough. It’s almost as if I heard destiny calling, giving everything a kind of symmetry.
The next thing I remember Michael fell like a corpse, hitting the pavement so hard I heard his head crack against the hard blacktop. As I turned toward him, I saw a man standing next to a black Yukon with a gun in his hand, aimed at me.
I could not see his face in the dark. A light pop sound came from his gun and I felt a sharp pain in my neck. I reached for it and felt a tiny dart sticking out of my neck. I yanked it free and, crazy with rage, I rushed him.
He met me expertly as I passed between the Yukon and the blue truck next to it. He had me by the shoulders and twisted me around as if I was a rag doll, easily getting me into a headlock. My purse and cell phone went flying and the sound of it hitting the pavement stuck in my memory.
I began to realize that I was acting rather foolishly, charging a man with a gun. He was obviously not worried about being seen, and not worried about 98 pounds of me, kickboxing lessons and all, taking him down.
His arm was like iron around my neck. I took hold of it and dead-weighted, throwing him off balance for a split second. I pulled his arm forward as hard as I could. I didn’t think it would work, but shockingly, he flew over my shoulder and slammed into the blue truck, upside-down, with a dull crumpling sound.
I stood there like an idiot. He was instantly on his feet and back at me. He charged me, shoving me against the Yukon with so much force that it knocked the wind out of me. He spun me, getting behind me again, and took me down, his knee in my back and his arm around my neck. The noose was tightening, my windpipe was cut off, and blood rushed to my head. He had me in the very sleeper hold that my dad had tried to teach me a few years back. If done correctly, I would be unconscious in less than four seconds.
Chapter VI
I know what you are. The words reverberated through unconscious randomness inside of me. I had heard stories of comatose people having dreams, sometimes hearing what their loved ones were saying, but being unable to respond. That, to me, was hell, assuredly: to be trapped and screaming, “Hey! I’m alive, don’t give up on me!”
“I know what you are,” came the words again, voiced vaguely, the tone probably resembling my dad, but mixed with every memory I ever had and somehow, not Dad at all. Was someone