Chapter 6 Lily
The rest of that shift passes in a blur I can barely account for, plates delivered on autopilot, orders I don’t remember taking, my manager asking twice if I’m feeling all right before I finally clock out.
I walk home with my lips still tingling and my knees not entirely steady under me, replaying the alley, the knife, the way his voice dropped when he said you and I aren’t done.
Mom’s door is shut, either asleep or pretending to be, so there’s no one to tell and nothing to do but lie awake turning it over until the sky outside my window starts going gray.
I’m at my part time job the following day, recalling the earth shattering kiss he gave me. It made me so weak in the knees. I’d do anything to have him beside me right now, touching me in ways no one has ever done.
I can’t believe he spoke to me and then kissed me like his life depended on it.
I’m thankful that he saved me from that awful man yesterday.
I shudder when I think about what could have happened had Noah not been there.
I had to touch myself to relieve the ache he left but my hands weren’t enough.
It was a restless sleep to say the least.
When my phone rings, fifteen minutes to the end of my shift. I know we aren’t supposed to have our phones on us while we work but it is a slow night.
Swiping my phone to accept the call, mom’s voice comes out hysterical.
It’s like she is in a full blown panic. I try to listen to what she is saying on the line but her voice keeps breaking.
I only get bits and pieces. Something about some men after her and she owes them something.
I get it. I try to calm her down so I can get the full picture.
“We’ll talk again when I get back,” I say once more. “Don’t do anything dumb okay? Just hang tight, we’ll talk when I get back.”
She doesn’t acknowledge me, just keeps on crying. So I step outside, shutting the back door to the restaurant quietly. Once I’m about ten feet away, my feet stop so that I can take a deep breath.
God, what’s going on? My Mom borrowed money from the wrong people. Now they are after her?”
This isn’t the first time. There was the incident with the landlord two years ago, and before that a “business opportunity” from one of her boyfriends that cost us nearly everything in savings I didn’t even know we had.
But something about the pitch of her voice tonight is different, sharper, like whatever she’s tangled herself up in this time has teeth the others didn’t.
I should call Priya. I should call someone. Instead I just stand there another minute, phone clutched so tight my knuckles ache, trying to decide if tonight is the night I finally stop bailing my mother out of messes that were never mine to clean up in the first place.
There’s nothing I can do about it right now, so taking another deep breath, I start walking. The streets are practically empty and I assume that people in the neighborhood are tucked inside the safety of their homes.
Sucking it up, I grip the strap of my purse tighter and settle in for a walk.
Normally, the bus would be my thing, but it only comes every two hours during the weekend as our town is relatively so small, so my own two feet to get me home tonight.
Besides, a nice, brisk walk might be just what I need.
Any encounter with my Mom is crazy and exhausting, and hopefully the stroll will help me get my act together for a long workday ahead.
On the sidewalk, I round the corner and begin trudging north towards our street.
There’s no one around, it’s a Saturday after all, and we don’t exactly live in the safe part of town.
I’ve walked this stretch a hundred times without thinking twice about it, phone in hand, keys already laced through my fingers the way Priya taught me freshman year like it was some kind of self defense class trick that actually worked.
Tonight, though, something feels off, a prickling at the back of my neck I chalk up to nerves from Mom’s call rather than anything real.
But still, the air is relatively fresh and I take a deep breath, expanding my lungs, trying to shake away mom’s issues. At that moment, an unfamiliar black car creeps up the street at a slow crawl. The vehicle seems to have appeared from thin air, rounding the corner out of nowhere.
That’s weird. It’s almost like the car is stalking me. There’s a dark figure at the wheel, but I can’t see what they look like despite squinting.
Putting my head down, I keep walking and try to focus on something else. The last thing I need is another item on my list of crap.
Maybe the person is just new to the neighborhood and decided to take a ride to learn his or her new surroundings.
Maybe they’re lost and are driving aimlessly, trying to find their way back or whom am I kidding, it could be shady people that mom owes money to.
Maybe they think I have the cash. Whatever it is, I pick up the pace, gripping my purse strap tighter.
Just then the car speeds up, making my nerves prickle. Suddenly, the driver comes to a screeching halt behind me. Someone jumps out of the car.
Shit.
Spinning quickly, I begin to run, but it’s too late. A few, long strides are all it takes for them to catch up with me.
There’s a dark presence near my back and chills erupt down my spine. Again, I try to get away but this time my wrists are seized before I can take a full step.
My purse slips off my shoulder and hits the pavement, spilling my keys and the little pepper spray canister I never remember to actually carry in my hand instead of buried at the bottom of my bag.
I lunge for it anyway, fingers scraping concrete, but a boot comes down on it first, grinding it under the man’s heel.
“Not today, sweetheart,” a second voice says, closer than I expect, and that’s when I realize there are two of them, maybe more, closing in from both directions like they’d been waiting for exactly this stretch of empty street.
“Let me go!” I demand vehemently, panicking a lot now. “Don’t touch me!” I scream.
My heart slams furiously against my chest.
Behind me, someone reaches around to fasten a gag just as I open my mouth to let out an ear splitting scream.
I still attempt to yell even though the sound is muffled by a rag covering my mouth. Terror pumps through my veins as my arms flail trying to hit something.
It doesn’t work. The person behind me is much bigger. At least twice my size, and they’re clearly prepared for a struggle.
I’m not even able to turn my head and get a look at the person’s face because he shoves my head forward forcibly every time I try.
Somehow, I know it’s a man. There’s no other explanation for the brute force holding me in check every time I try to break free. As if to confirm this, my captor swears harshly under his breath as I continue to struggle against his hold.
His deep voice comes out as an aggravated rumble.
“Hold still, bitch.”
“Your mother’s worth nothing to us broke,” he mutters against my ear, like he can read the question on my face. “But a pretty little collateral we can hold until she pays what she owes? That’s worth something. Boss figures a mother finds the money real quick when it’s her own kid on the line.”
“Who’s your boss?” I gasp out, more from instinct than any real hope of an answer.
He laughs, low and ugly. “Sorrentino doesn’t introduce himself to collateral, sweetheart. You’ll meet him if your mother’s slow paying up. Otherwise keep your mouth shut and this goes easier for both of us.”
With my arms pinned to my side and my back pressed flush against his chest, he begins walking back to the car he abandoned a little further down the street.
The man makes quick work of dragging me the entire way, my feet dangling precariously above the concrete sidewalk because he’s lifted me off the ground. I feel tiny pulled against him, like a limp rag doll.
Dread seizes me and vomit rises in my throat, thick and ugly.
There are absolutely no other pedestrians or cars on the street to witness my horrendous predicament.
Oh my god.
I’m being kidnapped.
But why? Who could possibly want me? Why am I asking myself this?
I already know who is behind this. Mom has finally led me to my early grave.
All those late night phone calls she thought I couldn’t hear through the thin apartment walls, the hushed, panicked voice she’d use before catching herself and switching back to her usual careless tone.
I’d told myself it was nothing, another one of her messes she’d wriggle out of the way she always did.
I never once thought it would end up with someone’s hand crushing bruises into my arm on my own street.
When we get to the car, he drops me to my feet and I stumble forward almost hitting my head against the rising hunk of metal. With the trunk fully open, my captor gives me a slight shove. I’ve planted my feet on the street, still clinging to my last ounce of freedom.
Realizing I still have my bag on me, I use the heavy metal that decorates the front of the bag to hit his dick.
He howls. I don’t bother waiting for the other goons to catch up with me seeing as they already entered the vehicle.
They must not have expected a girl half their size to actually fight back, too confident in the easy job they thought this would be, and that half second of shock buys me everything I need.
I don’t look back to see if they’re following.
I just run, lungs already screaming, toward the only cover I can see: the dark tree line at the edge of the block.
Sorrentino. I don’t know the name yet, won’t know it for days still, but it lodges somewhere in the back of my mind anyway, ugly and foreign sounding, a password to a world I never asked to be part of.
Whatever my mother owes, whoever she owes it to, I’m apparently collateral now.
The thought should terrify me more than the running does.
Somehow it’s the running that gets all my attention, one foot after the other, branches tearing at my arms, my whole future narrowed down to the width of the next step.