The next few minutes were a blur. The glaring light stung my eyes after the darkness in the tunnel. I screamed for my abductor to stop, I needed to get back to Annie. We moved so fast I couldn’t even tell where we were. Noise of a party invaded my ears. I supposed we were in one of the joints, but I had no idea which one. Or maybe it was a house party. I didn’t have the strength or desire to bother taking any of it in. My mind was only on Annie. Her absolute fearlessness, her beauty, the way she would never bat her eyes at anyone ever again.
I pounded on the man, begging him to let me go so I could get back to her.
But we kept storming further and further away from the best friend I’d ever had. My only friend, really. All the rest of the girls only wanted to be my friend because of my father. My father’s power. I often imagined how their parents probably sat them down and instructed them to ‘be real nice’ to that Mayor’s daughter. Ugh. Annie was the only one who didn’t seem to pay my father any attention.
She didn’t need to feed off anyone else’s power, she had enough all on her own. Commanding respect just by walking into a room. No one would ever try to tell her what to do, probably because she could crush anyone senseless with one penetrating glance.
And now she was gone. Because of my father and his shady dealings.
I had nothing left in me to fight. The man grabbed me tighter as my body went limp, too exhausted to even hold myself up anymore.
And then as suddenly as I’d been forced into the glaring light, I was out of it again, this time into the darkness outside with only a few feeble streetlamps trying to penetrate the midnight sky.
Around the corner of the building we went, and the second we reached the alley, which was even darker than the street, voices broke the silence. My heart found the will to start beating a little faster as I realized the police had already caught up to us. The man carrying me propped me up against the building and leaned close. Very close.
Frankie.
He wasn’t abducting me, he was rescuing me. Again.
“Fra…” I started, but was cut off by his lips pressing against mine. Hard.
The exhaustion got the better of me and all I could do was stand there, Frankie kissing me, and me not really kissing back. I didn’t have the heart or energy to even try. Wetness from my tears streamed down my cheeks, getting trapped between Frankie and me, cool and itchy on my skin.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “You there!”
At least Frankie had the sense to pretend to be distracted, and a bit annoyed, at the men yelling at us. “What?” he growled.
“You see a girl come past here?” the man leading the pack of officers asked.
My heart about stopped as I regained my wits a little. I was finally realizing that even though Frankie had taken me away from Annie, he was actually saving me from certain arrest, or worse, the wrath of my parents, especially the good Mayor McKay.
“Well sir, it wouldn’t really say much for my girl here if I was busy lookin’ out for other ladies, now would it?” Frankie said, smooth and calm as could be.
The man actually chuckled and said, “no. No friend, I guess it wouldn’t. You all should be getting along though. There are some dangerous sorts around these kinds of… places.”
“You sure we aren’t in any trouble sir?” Frankie was so bold to ask, and quite innocently at that. I wondered when he’d had time to ditch his jacket, hat and vest. If I hadn’t known better, I would have mistaken him for a local too.
“Oh no, you seem like fine, upstanding folks. But just be careful. Mayor McKay has it out for these joints and he’s looking for heads to roll. We shut one of ‘em down already tonight. Unfortunately there were some fine folks just like yourselves that got caught in the crossfire and a bunch more on their way to the station right now.”
“Gosh,” Frankie said, his performance worthy of the movie pictures. “Well, thanks for the heads up. We only wanted to see what all the fuss was about with these places, we sure won’t make the same mistake twice.” He was laying on the charm real thick.
“Glad to hear it son,” the older gentleman said. “Off with you now. You best be getting home.”
“Right away sir,” Frankie said, “and thanks again.” He gently put his arm around me, cleverly hiding my tearstained face from the men.
Somehow, I found the will to walk a few steps as if it was any old, normal night and I hadn’t a care in the world.
As the men rushed off to find their ‘dangerous people,’ everything around me spun, the whole world fading to black.