Ten
Paisley
B y the time I made my way back to the shore, most of the swimmers were gone, and the loungers had emptied. I regretted not bringing a towel, feeling foolish as I grabbed my tote and waved goodbye to the woman I’d paid for my lattes earlier.
My phone’s battery was drained, but luckily, I wasn’t far away from the apartment.
As I walked down the cobblestone, my flimsy sandals clicking on the stones, I felt further away from reality than ever. I walked past now closed shop fronts, vowing to take another look in the morning, once I’d slept off my jet lag. It was finally catching up to me.
As I walked through town onto our street, I felt more and more alone, my steps echoing in the empty street. Better than the alternative, I told myself. I wouldn’t have wanted to run into anyone in the middle of the night. Especially not in the dark.
I should have checked how safe it was to walk around Palermo alone.
I pulled out my keys, my fingers tightening around the keychain that was left for us in the letterbox for the apartment. I saw our building right before me, and the tension slowly eased from my shoulders as I rushed across the street.
Suddenly, a grey van screeched onto the street, and I yelped, jumping back on the pavement just in time before the car came crashing into me. A streetlight flickered above me as the car’s brakes screeched again. Smoke rolled off the asphalt as the doors opened, and I stumbled back. I half-expected some well-natured Italian to check on me after nearly killing me, but as soon as I saw two burly, tattooed men get out, my stomach roiled.
“You fucking crazy?” one of the men hissed at the other, looking around the street as he pushed the other guy back by his shoulders. “No damaging the fucking goods.”
His voice was accented, like the locals.
I swallowed thickly, my hand feeling in my tote for the pepper spray I always carried. I took several steps back when I realized I didn’t bring the spray with me. Of course I didn’t - I was on holiday. I’d expected Travis to be with me every step of the way. Plus, I was pretty sure pepper spray was illegal in Europe.
Trying to sink into the shadows, I watched the two men advance on me. I couldn’t even scream, but I managed to bolt across the road, past their van, and onto the other side of the street. My keys jangled in my hand as I struggled to get them in the lock, but my hands were trembling so much, I dropped them to the ground. I let out a scream.
I glanced down, horrified when I realized the keys were sitting on top of a grate. If I made one wrong move, they’d slip past the iron and be too deep for me to reach them. Calculating what to do next, I rang every doorbell imaginable, panickedly glancing back at the street.
“Come on, come on!” I screamed. “Help me!”
The two men stopped talking to each other, advancing on me with menacing speed. I struggled to press every doorbell, screaming for help again, but nobody was answering.
“Shut her the fuck up already, would you?” the shorter guy threw at his friend while I scrambled for the keys on all fours.
Before I managed to pick them up, a steel-capped boot kicked them out of my reach. I watched helplessly as the keychain slipped through the grate and into the hole beneath. Another chance to get away, fucking lost.
Now I was really starting to panic, but as the taller guy pulled me to my feet by my hair, I forgot all about it as the pain took over. I screamed for help at the top of my lungs, but the other man was holding something familiar…
A cattle prod.