I stepped forward. “Hey, that’s enough.”
“Stay out of this,” Helen said over her shoulder, giving Angie another slap. Angie was trying to curl into a ball, her arms covering her face and head.
“Stop, please. I’m sorry.” Angie’s muffled voice sounded terrified.
I glanced at the door. Where the hell was the house staff? Couldn’t anyone hear this? No cameras in the room either. Shit, I really didn’t want to get involved but I couldn’t stand by while this woman got her ass kicked.
Helen bent over and grabbed the top of Angie’s hair, lifting her off the floor. Angie cried out and scrabbled at Helen’s hand. Helen spun her around, threw her facedown onto the bed. Her knee in the middle of her back, she pressed Angie’s face into the pillow. Angie was crying hard now, making muffled pleas.
“Come on, Helen. Cool it,” I said.
She turned, her knee still on Angie’s back. “What did you just say?”
I had to be smart now, had to try to head this off without a fight. “If you fuck her up, she’s not going to be able to pay you back, right?” I smiled, trying to show we were all good, I was on her side. But I sat on the edge of my bed and gripped my shoe as if I were loosening the laces to put it on. If she rushed me, I could rear up and smash my head into the bottom of her chin.
“This isn’t your problem,” Helen said.
I loosened a lace. “When it’s in my room, you make it my problem.”
Helen’s hand lifted from the back of Angie’s head. Angie turned her face to the side, gasped for air. Her eyes met mine.
“You want to take me on?” Helen said.
“I just want to unpack my shit and have a nice day.” I kept my voice calm. “First day out of the joint, you know how it is.” I gave her another easy smile.
Helen got off Angie. Took a step toward me. Her face was calculating, like she was trying to figure me out. Close up she was even taller and bigger than I’d thought, and I had a feeling that if I tried to jam my head into her chin, I’d be blocked before I made it halfway up her body. I got to my feet so I’d have a better chance of fighting. The shoe was still in my hand.
She walked over, until we were barely a foot apart. Her gaze roved over my body, my small breasts, my tattoos. It wasn’t sexual—it was intimidation.
“I remember you.” She smiled, and it wasn’t friendly. “You hung with Margaret and her girls, thinking your shit don’t stink, thinking you’re all that. Here I run the house, and my bitches don’t run around causing problems. Got it?”
“Got it.” I was trying to keep my cool, but her trash talk about my girls, disrespecting Margaret, pissed me off. She was so close I could smell her—onions and something muskier, sweat covered by perfume.
Her lips curled. “What, you don’t like me talking about your bitches? One of them your girlfriend or something?” She lingered on the word girlfriend, trying to make it sound dirty.
A voice in the back of my head was saying, Toni, let it go, she’s not worth it. But something about the way she was standing there, so confident, like she could get away with anything, made me want to take her down a peg.
“You need to back the fuck off,” I said.
The second the words were out of my mouth and the mean smile spread across her face, I regretted saying anything. I’d just given her exactly what she wanted—an opening. I felt her step closer and braced. Was she going for it?
“I don’t like your attitude,” she said.
“That makes two of us.”
“You fucking stupid?” Helen said. She gave me a hard push.
I stumbled back a few paces, almost hitting the edge of my bed. “Touch me again and I’ll break your hand.”
She rushed me, trying to grab me in a bear hug. I put my hands up to my forehead, my arms tight to my body, then pushed out fast with all my strength, breaking her hold. I reached up and clapped the shoe hard against her ear. Her eyes were stunned, but she shook off the pain like a dog shaking off water and punched me hard in the gut, making me double over. She came in for another blow. I jabbed my elbows into her lower ribs, forcing her breath out in a whoosh, then kneed her hard in the inner leg, then the outer leg, then her groin. Quick hard blows. She grunted but she was still coming at me, her face red and sweaty, striking me in the kidneys, ribs, thighs, anywhere it wouldn’t make a mark. I reached up and dug my fingers deep into the notch below her trachea, into the tender spot. She gasped and fell to her knees. I pressed down harder.
A noise behind me, the door opening, another woman’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing?”
It startled me, and my hand loosened for a moment. Helen reared up, slammed her shoulder into my gut, grabbed me around my knees, and knocked me onto my back. I hit the floor with a thud. She flipped me onto my stomach and sprawled her massive body over me, pinning my arm behind my back.