2

Did he say ‘we’? How many more are there I wonder. I can’t see in the dark and the hand covering my mouth keeps my head from turning.
“I-I don’t have any money. Just what’s in my purse, you can take that. Please,” I try to say against the hand on my mouth, pleading. I just want them to leave. And leave me alone.
“Shut up, bitch! Don’t lie to us. Give me the bag with the money in it and I’ll let you go,” he says again.
“I-I told you, there’s no money, it’s just old manuscripts.” I hug them to my chest purely out of comfort, like a security blanket.
“Told you, chief, I knew there’d be nothing here,.” another male voice speaks up to my right, out of my line of sight.
Please, God, just let me get out of this alive. I silently pray to a God I’ve never spoken to before this moment.
“I don’t believe her.” The man holding me jabs his weapon harder against my ribs and I whimper as I feel the blade break through my skin, it stings. “I’m not afraid to hurt you, but I won’t if you give me the money.”
I can feel my shirt grow damp where he’s jabbed me, and the thought of blood is making me feel faint. I drop the bag on the ground, more out of dizziness than surrender.
“Thattagirl,” the voice says, the sound grating in my ears. He kicks the bag to the right as he continues to hold me tight, pulling back on the knife in my back. A tiny whisper of relief ripples through me.
“P-please. Just let me go,” I beg. Please, I beg again in my mind.
I hear a shuffling as the bag is ripped open and the second thief rifles through it.
“There’s no money in here, chief. Just some old papers and shit.”
“Check again, or else we’re going to have to get this pretty lady to take us to the ATM and take out all her money for being such a bother to us.” The relief turns to ice fear at the thought of being taken to another location. I remember seeing on Oprah once, no matter what, don’t let them take you to a second location. The statistics of being found decrease dramatically.
“There’s nothin’ here!” the other guy repeats, throwing the bag against the wall, hard. It lands with a thud and the papers scatter.
“Fucking bitch!!!” my attacker screams in my ear before turning me around to face him and slapping me hard across the my right cheek.
I fall to the ground from the force of the strike. I can barely breathe from the pain, stars dancing in my eyes, blinding me. I feel myself dragged to my feet again and pushed hard against the door, knocking the wind out of me. He pushes the knife up against my throat and all I can see is the reflection of my scared face in his almost black eyes, the rest of his face covered by the black balaclava.
“Never mind. You can make it up to us. What’s your PIN, bitch?” he snarls.
I can’t even remember my own name in that moment.
“I’m not kidding, bitch, you’ve wasted our time here tonight and we intend on being compensated. Now, what’s your fucking PIN?!”
He pulls the blade of his knife along my collarbone, slashing gently, cutting skin and releasing a stream of blood. There’s a sting as the cold air blows over the blood dripping down my chest. I’m just glad I can’t see it.
“Tell me, or next cut’s going to be along your neck, and then you won’t be able to tell anyone anything ever again.” He moves his knife to press against my pulse and I forget how to breathe.
“I-I don’t know… please… I don’t know…”
I stare him in the eyes, hoping for the human connection to invoke some sympathy. But I get nothing back. There’s something in the grin he gives me as he reaches for my skirt that terrifies me more than anything that’s come before.
“Please, just let me go,” I plead one last time.
He shakes his head, and then, suddenly, there’s a loud yell. In the dark, I can just make out something, someone striking the back of his head. He falls hard against me, instantly unconscious, the knife against my throat falling from his hand. The dead weight of his body pulls me down onto the ground with him, causing my head to bang hard against the paving stones. It feels like my skull has shattered.
Through the pain and purely out of instinct, I push his body off me as I hear the same yell again, followed by a thud. I can see the second thief crumpled on the ground in another unconscious heap.
“Help me, please,” I whisper to whoever might be listening, as I faint away.
The last thing I remember is a hooded stranger scooping me up and carrying me out of the alleyway, and his voice, soft, warm, low, promising me that I am going to be okay.
HIM
“I don’t care. Find her a private room or I’m going to take her somewhere else.” I turn from the nurses’ station before they can argue with me again. Pulling my hood tighter around me, I step behind the curtain to where the woman lies, hooked up to a saline IV and oxygen monitor. The ER department is a freaking shambles here and it’s taken over two hours for her to get all her tests done. I’m just glad that she is still unconscious, making it easier on her, the doctors… and me.
The ride here wasn’t as easy. She kept waking up and asking questions, the same ones, over and over. The more she asked them, the more I was afraid that her head injury was the worst of her wounds. That is until I saw the blood stain she left on my sweater from when I held her.
Fuck! I am an idiot, I curse myself. I hadn’t even thought to check her for injuries and maybe I could’ve lessened the severity if I’d stopped the blood loss from her back as well as her collarbone. I cringe at the memory of pulling her dress up to examine her wound. The knife had cut deep and long.
“Hhmmummmuhmmm,” she mumbles in her sleep, and I get up to make sure she is okay. Her face is so bruised, a black eye spreading across almost her entire forehead and down her right cheek. The blood is still caked in her hair from her fall, Bordeaux red against her thick, chestnut brown curly locks.
She looks so peaceful in her sleep, and I am glad. I don’t know if I’ll ever forget the look on her face when I came jogging into that dark alley and saw the knife against her throat, her attacker threatening her life. Her large brown eyes wide with fear and shiny with tears. Her soft cry for help before she fainted. And then, in my arms, she fell against my chest, murmuring gently, “thank you for saving me,” and then slept.