The supplies lay everywhere, the backpacks empty, collapsed on the street in a sad heap of fabric. With difficulty, I got to my feet and snatched up one backpack, stuffed everything in reach inside. But I didn’t get it even a quarter of the way full when the comments made by the men about me “going somewhere” and “they were right” rang in my head like an air raid siren. They? Who were they exactly, and what all did they know?
“Thais…”
I took off running toward my building, letting my legs carry me in large strides, despite the pain fighting to bring me back to my knees.
THAIS
My teeth clamped down on the brute’s wrist when he grabbed me.
“Go ahead and bite me,” he taunted, as he strode across the room with me kicking and screaming, “but you should know I like that kind of shit.”
“Let me go! I’ll kill myself before I let you touch me! Let me go!”
As the brute made it to the door, the stairwell door across the hall swung open.
Atticus moved so fast toward the brute that all I saw was the floor rushing toward me as I fell from his grasp; I struck the tile hard on my side.
The sound of furniture crashing in the room behind me made me turn swiftly. I watched in horror as a bloodied Atticus pummeled the brute with his fists; blow after blow after bloody blow rained down on the giant’s head. The brute, stung by the sudden attack, flailed his big arms out at his sides like a pinwheel, swiping this way and that way like a giant swatting at a fly.
Atticus took a blow the chin, but was unfazed by it; he pushed the brute across the room, knocking the desk chair onto its side, and shoved his massive body against the desk. Everything went flying: pens and pencils and writing tablets and trinkets and dishes; the unfolded map of the United States of America crumpled beneath the brute’s weight, ripped at the seams. The painful sound of Atticus’ fists pounding the brute’s face twisted my stomach in knots.
The brute pushed Atticus off him, just long enough to raise himself from the desk and get to his feet again. But in a flash, Atticus was on him once more. He had the brute in front of the window now, his large body pressed against the opening. The brute was no longer moving, just enough to show he was still alive; his bald head swayed precariously on a limp neck and broad shoulders; his bloody fingers tightened and loosened on Atticus’ arms; his massive chest rose and fell with desperation.
I moved closer; both hands covered my mouth; my eyes grew wider as the distance shortened between us and the sight of the brute’s face came into view. Tiny blood bubbles formed in his nostrils; both black eyes were swollen shut; blood drained from his mouth, covered his busted lips that no longer hid his gapped teeth—his teeth were gone, leaving only a black, glistening hole for a mouth. I didn’t know who was more the monster anymore: the brute, or Atticus.
Atticus buried his fist once more into the brute’s face with a sharp crack! and finally the body went limp.
I watched in horror as Atticus fitted his arms underneath the body and heaved it over the edge. “AhhUhnnnn!” he howled, as the brute disappeared over the windowsill. The sound of his head cracking open on the sidewalk eight floors below nearly made me faint. I was equally shocked that I could hear it that far up, but I did. Maybe it was only my imagination, but I’d heard nothing more bloodcurdling in my life.
Everything went silent.
Atticus stood there, his arms down at his sides, his bloody fists clenched, and in the moonlight bathing him from the window I watched his shoulders rise and fall with heavy, rapid breaths.
Slowly I backed my way toward the door; I wanted to run, but away from him I knew was in the wrong direction. I needed him. But he was a different man standing there, covered in blood and bruises and rage, saying nothing, doing nothing, acknowledging nothing. I was afraid of him, of his state of mind, but not of the person who I hoped was still inside there somewhere—I was beginning to worry.
I stepped toward him instead.
“Atticus?” I reached out a trembling hand and went to lay it on his shoulder, but he startled me when he turned swiftly, and I jerked my hand away.
“I have to get you out of here now,” he said, and when he raised his head to the moonlight, I got my first glimpse of how badly his own face had been battered. My hand flew over my mouth.
“Get your stuff,” he demanded and stormed past me. “NOW, THAIS!”
I gasped sharply, and froze. Then a scream rang out in the street below the window. The shock wore off when realization sank in; and as Atticus grabbed one backpack, and another gun he had hidden in a drawer, I fought my arms into the straps of the backpack I’d packed while he was gone.
Atticus grabbed his jacket from the floor and the torn map from the desk before we stormed out of the room.
22
ATTICUS
We weaved our way between buildings and down alleyways. Thais was having a difficult time keeping up; I noticed the heavy backpack she carried, and then I stopped her long enough to help her arms out of the straps, slid the backpack onto my own back; the smaller one I carried in my hand.
“Let’s go! One more block!” I pulled her along.
Shooting out into the street, I yanked Thais backward into the shadows again. Two patrolmen on horses were coming from the east, moving slowly down the middle of the intersection. They went past on their horses. Twenty-eight seconds felt like minutes, and all the time I didn’t think either of us breathed.
Once the patrolmen were gone, we dashed into a dark parking garage on the other side of the street.
“Stay here,” I told her as I slid one backpack off. “I’ve gotta get the horse.” I dropped both bags at her feet and then disappeared around the corner.
The old man who owned the horses was not at the stables. But the mare was there waiting for me, munching on grass that grew between the blacktop lots. I made my way over to her; a rope dangled from her neck, tied to a light pole. Carefully I unwound it, patting her on the backside to ease her, and then led her away from the lot. I went past a rust-covered car and noticed a quilt in the backseat. I reached through the broken window for it, and then draped it over the horse’s back to use in lieu of a saddle.
When I made it back to the parking garage, Edgar, Overlord Wolf’s brown-nosing leech, was waiting for me.
“Put her on a horse,” Edgar said, stepping from the shadows on the other side of the street, “and they’ll spot her a lot easier.”
Storming my way over to Edgar, I drew my gun and pointed it at his head.
“Thais,” I said, just as she emerged from the parking garage, “take the horse—now.”
I dropped the rope and cleared the last few feet between me and Edgar, seized his elbow and shoved him out of the street and into the parking garage, too.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Edgar put up his hands in front of him; the barrel of the gun was pressed dead-center in his forehead. “L-Look, I’m not here for the reason you think I am!”
“Keep your voice down!” I hissed. “Thais, bring the horse in here so no one sees us.”
Thais moved quickly.
“What are you here for then?” I demanded.
“I came to help.”
“Fucking liar.” My jaw stiffened; my finger danced on the trigger.