CRUSADERS’
NIGHT
By
April
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, but, if Brendan Fehr was offering himself to
me for the night, I would gladly accept.
Summary: On a completely normal day in the quiet town of
Category: Michael and Maria
Rating: PG-13-R
Author’s Note: Just to let you know, Max isn’t very nice in this at first,
but he’ll get nicer. This is my first AU fic that I didn’t do in response to
a challenge, so there are no rules. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I
enjoyed writing it.
**********************************
When the sun goes down and the moon comes
into view, I awake. I become me, the person I really am. I blend into the night
until I am one with it, until you can no longer tell that I am a real, living,
breathing person.
I look dark, because I am. I look dangerous, because I am. This may frighten
you. I hope that it doesn’t. I want you to come with me. I want you to join me
with the night. It’s exhilarating. It gives you a certain rush, a high, that
you would never feel in the day. Come with me.
It’s dark. It’s dangerous. It’s criminal.
It’s everything you never thought your life would be.
Come with me . . .
This is our night.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sleep was coming. He could feel it. It was still daytime, true, but daytime was,
after all, when he usually slept. His eyelids were becoming heavy—almost too
heavy to keep open—and his body was growing weak and limp. He knew he would
succumb to the beauty of sleep’s peace soon. There was no denying it.
It was this way every day. A ritual, of some sorts. Michael Guerin would climb
into the van with Max Evans and Kyle VaLenti, his two best friends, and they
would take off down the road. Usually, Max was in the driver’s seat on deer
alert. Michael had tried to tell him that deer didn’t usually come out during
the day, but he didn’t listen to any of that. Kyle managed to climb into the
backseat all of time where he could stretch out all he wanted and sleep
peacefully, and Michael always got stuck in the passenger’s seat where Max
could always keep and eye on him and scold him if he fell asleep while he was
supposed to be watching for deer.
But, eventually, Max would give in and Michael would fall asleep. It always
turned out this way, and Michael knew he was going to be asleep very quickly
now.
He had almost escaped the daytime and fallen into dreams when Max suddenly
reached over and switched the radio station to a hard rock channel. Some dude
began to scream out right away, causing Michael to snap his eyes open. Kyle
jolted awake from the backseat practically screaming himself.
“Guys, calm down,” Max said. “It’s just a little rock.”
“But I was asleep!” Kyle protested. “You don’t turn something like that
on while a guy is asleep!”
“Well, that’s just too bad,” Max said, glancing out the window cautiously
for any signs of deer.
Michael remained silent in his seat and closed his eyes again. He knew he
wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep with rock on. Rock energized him and
made him want to get up and move, so he just closed his eyes and sat there deep
in thought while Max and Kyle continued to bicker about resting hours.
Kyle and Michael were night-owls, and Max wasn’t. It was as simple as that,
and over the past year or so, Kyle and Michael had become almost nocturnal,
staying up during the night and resting during the day, but Max was just the
opposite. He was wide awake from morning until dusk, usually driving, but once
the moon rose, a wave of exhaustion seemed to take him over, just when Kyle and
Michael were getting up.
“This is going to have to change.” Max was saying, cutting into Michael’s
thoughts. “You two can’t be staying up all night! Then there’s no one to
help me watch for deer!” Suddenly, he was hitting Michael on the shoulder,
urging him to stay awake.
“Trust me, I’m awake.” Michael told him, turning down the volume on the
radio.
“Good,” Max commented. “Stay that way.”
“Max, why are you so terrified of deer?” Kyle asked. “I mean, sure, the
can run fast and they have big antlers, but they’re not that bad.”
“Yes, they are.” Max protested.
They continued to argue, and Michael let out a big sigh. He busied himself with
watching the outside world fly past him so fast that it was barely recognizable.
They were going a little too fast, it seemed, so he spoke up, interrupting his
friends’ argument.
“Um, Max, you might wanna let up on the gas a little.” he advised. “The
last thing we need is a cop pulling us over.”
Max visibly slowed down—so much, in fact, that if someone had been right
behind them, they wouldn’t have been able to slow down in time to prevent a
crash. But lucky for them, they seemed to be the only ones on the deserted
desert road.
They were on their way to
Robbery.
The life they lived was dark and dangerous, and most people didn’t want to
live such a life, but Max and Kyle did. They had chosen it by themselves, Max in
an effort to scrape up some money, and Kyle in an effort to run away from home.
But Michael hadn’t chosen it. He had been born into it. His father had been a
master criminal, and his mother had been taken along for the ride. His father
had handed him his first gun at the age of five. Michael had even helped take
part in his first bank robbery at the age of seven, and, since then, he had been
hooked. It was like a gang. Once you got in, you didn’t get out. The first
moment you held a gun in your hands and pointed it at an innocent civilian, you
were roped in for life.
And, now, to this very day, he was doing the same thing, only without his mother
and father. They were gone now, both having died in a car accident somewhere
around
He often wondered if it was too late to get out, to break free and just live a
normal, simple life like everyone else did, but he knew that he couldn’t. They
had caused too much damage now. Even if he did try to break free, he would be
caught and thrown in jail. Now, all he could do was run and keep on doing what
he was doing. He had no choice.
“Michael, open your eyes!” Max shouted, taking him out of his thoughts.
Michael realized that he had let his eyes drift closed again, and now Max was
freaking out because no one was going to help him watch for deer.
“Sorry.” he apologized. He turned the volume on the radio back up so that
the car was blaring. He knew Max didn’t want him to fall asleep, and sometimes
the only thing that would keep him awake was noise.
“Like I was saying,” Max continued over the blaring music. “You two
can’t keep living in the night. Live during the day like normal people.”
Michael didn’t like the thought. The day? Was Max being serious? After at
least a year of crime, being crammed into the same bus as both Michael and Kyle
for hours at a time, didn’t he know that they both hated the day, and that
they would never willingly change?
“You can’t ask us to do something like that, Max.” Michael told him.
“It’s our choice.”
Max grunted. “Michael, what do you guys do all night, anyway?”
“I look for strippers.” Kyle announced, suddenly awake again.
“You can still do that during the day.” Max pointed out.
Michael didn’t have an answer. He usually didn’t do anything during the
night. He would sit in his hotel room and watch TV, sometimes casting a
sidewards glance out at the moon, other times just thinking about what his life
could have been like if he hadn’t been forced down this path at such an early
age. His life wasn’t that exciting, except for an occasional robbery or two,
but it had gotten to the point where even that was routine and boring.
He wanted something more. He just didn’t know where to find it, whatever it
was.
Maybe Max was right. Though he did hate the daytime and everything about
it—the sun, the heat, the light—there was no reason that he shouldn’t be
able to change.
“You’re right, Max.” he agreed reluctantly. “We should be awake with
you, just in case something goes wrong.”
“Exactly.” Max seemed pleased.
Kyle sighed, seeming a little less willing. “Oh, fine.” he finally agreed.
“I’ll try it.”
“Good.” Max focused his attention back out on the road then, still looking
for deer or anything else that might decide to pop out in front of him. “Now,
don’t even think about falling asleep again. We’re almost to
Michael leaned his head against the window and forced his eyes to stay open. He
was going to have a tough time adjusting to his new living situation—he knew
that already—but he would do it for Max, because Max was his friend, and
because, sometimes, his friends were all he had.
The alarm clock set off a shrill ring as it
always did in the morning and jolted Maria DeLuca awake. She rubbed her eyes
sleepily as she tried to adjust to the morning light. The sun always seemed to
be shining directly into her eyes, and she hated it.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she slid out of bed and down onto the floor. She
wasn’t a morning person. She never had been. She had always looked forward to
summers as a young girl, because she usually got to sleep in. But now, however,
summers seemed to be just the same as any other day, because she did have to get
up early and go work. Ever since her mother had lost her job, Maria had to help
cover the bills by working two jobs. She worked as the cashier at the Lift-Off
gas station during the day and as a waitress for the Crashdown Café during the
evening. At night, she would come home and collapse on her bed and fall asleep
almost immediately only to be rudely awakened the next morning to start the
whole routine over again.
Maria ran her hands through her hair and yawned. She felt dirty, and she wanted
to shower, but their hot water wasn’t working, and she didn’t feel like
running all the way over to her best friend Liz Parker’s house early in the
morning just to shower. Knowing she would only get dirtier and greasier at the
gas station, she stood up and skipped the whole thing altogether and headed
downstairs for breakfast.
Her mother wasn’t up yet. Now days, that wasn’t anything new. Her mother
slept really late in the morning and never seemed to get up past nine o’
clock, so Maria had to make breakfast for herself. She sometimes envied those
families that she saw on TV or on commercials where the children would get up
and their mother would have a splendid breakfast of scrambled eggs and French
toast sitting out ready for them, just waiting to be eaten.
Maria searched through the somewhat empty cupboards and found a box of Poptarts.
She took one out and ate it cold without even sitting down. She didn’t pour
herself a glass of milk or juice, either. She just took a tiny sip of water
directly from the faucet, not even bothering to pour it into a glass.
And that was breakfast.
It didn’t take her long to get ready. It never did anymore. She had learned to
move quickly when she was expected somewhere, and her boss, Randy Newman, always
seemed to want her at the station before she was due.
The beautiful clothes in her closet never got worn anymore. Now she only wore
her Lift-Off gas station uniform or her Crashdown uniform. Whatever was
required.
The brilliant make-up that had once covered the sink in her bathroom never was
worn anymore, either. Now, it was stashed away in the cupboards as well. She
didn’t have time for any of it.
Her curling iron and blow-dryer were never used anymore. They probably didn’t
even work now. Nowadays, she just let her hair be. She pulled it back in a
shaggy pony-tail and let it stay the whole day.
It was hard to imagine that she had once been a normal teenage girl with normal
hopes and dreams. Now she was just a poor girl with only two good friends whom
she barely even saw anymore and one boyfriend who she wasn’t even that
attracted to.
Billy. Billy Jarden was her boyfriend. He wasn’t appealing to the eye, or not
to her eye, at least, and he wasn’t popular. He didn’t play sports. He
played music. He got made fun of a lot, but he was kind, and he had always been
kind to Maria, so she stayed with him. She didn’t see their relationship as
moving beyond where they were, but Billy clearly did. Just a few days ago, he
had told her he loved her.
She had run away then, leaving him all alone in his car after saying the three
most important words of his life. He had most likely been expecting, or at least
hoping, that she would return them back to him, but that was just something she
couldn’t do, because she didn’t love him, and she couldn’t lie to him.
They hadn’t spoken since.
She often wondered if she would see him sitting in the Crashdown, and if he
would motion towards her, wanting to talk to her. She had invented all sorts of
scenarios of how it would happen. He would wave to her, and she would go sit
down across from him. She would apologize, and he would smile and tell her that
he didn’t mean to push things, and that he wasn’t expecting anything from
her, that she could take her time falling in love.
But she had no way of knowing if it would really turn out that way. She hadn’t
seen Billy, and she took that to mean that he was sad, perhaps even in sorrow.
She pictured him crying on his bed, muffling the sounds in his pillow so that no
one would hear him.
She didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t love him. Not in the way that he
loved her, anyway. She loved him as a friend, and she would always love him as a
friend, but anything more than that was almost inconceivable.
Maria, noticing that her thoughts were causing her to run “late”, almost ran
out the door after stopping in her mother’s room to kiss her good-bye. Not
that it mattered, anyway. Her mother didn’t feel it, and she only continued to
sleep and dream.
Dreams were pleasant. Life was not. Life was like one big nightmare that never
ended, that you could never get away from, no matter how hard you tried.
Maria hopped in her car and took off down the empty little roads of
Nothing ever happened in
She finally reached the Lift-Off at the edge of town. Randy gave her a big
lecture on how important it was to be on time, and she pretended to listen, and
then she went back behind the counter as the station opened. At first, no one
came. Then, though, the door swung open and Alex Whitman walked inside.
Alex. Good old Alex. He was Maria’s best friend, not counting Liz. He was
always there when she needed him, and he always put others’ needs before his
own.
“Alex!” Maria chirped excitedly.
“Hey,” he greeted, holding onto his guitar precariously in one hand while
waving hello to her with the other. Alex, like Billy, loved music, and it was
how they had all gravitated towards each other. Liz . . . Liz was just so
likable that they couldn’t help but include her.
“Oh, Alex, I’m so glad you’re here.” Maria told him. “I really needed
to talk to you about something yesterday, but I didn’t get the chance, so I
really need to talk to you now.”
“Talk on.” he told her, eyeing the candy under the counter. Alex had a
weakness for candy of any kind.
“Okay, so, you see, Billy and I were outside the station during my break a few
days ago just talking about all this random crap when he blurted out ‘I love
you.’.”
Alex’s attention was no longer on the candy, then, but on her. “Billy, as in
Billy Jarden, your boyfriend?” He seemed shocked. “Wow. I didn’t know the
guy had it in him.”
“Had what in him?” Maria didn’t understand.
“The nerve.” he elaborated. “Maria, you’ve gotta give him some credit
for just coming out and saying it.”
She knew he was right. “Yeah,” she agreed.
“But let me guess,” Alex continued. “You couldn’t tell him you loved him
back, so you ran off.”
Maria was shocked. “How did you know?” she asked.
“I was in here at the time.” he explained. “I saw you.”
“Oh.” she felt embarrassed, knowing that she must have looked really stupid.
“I wasn’t spying or anything.” he told her. “Just watching intently.”
She laughed. “Why do you watch, Alex?” she inquired. “Billy and I have no
chemistry.”
“He seems to think differently.”
She knew he was right again. Alex seemed to know everything about everyone and
all of their feelings.
“You should just tell him.” Alex suggested. “Tell him you don’t feel the
same way he does. Or else you’ll end up hurting him even more, Maria, by lying
to him.”
She sighed. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I know. But I can’t, Alex. He’s so
sweet and kind to me, and I wanna stay friends with him.”
“You can still be his friend.” he told her. “Just because you break up
doesn’t mean that it’s all over.”
As always, he was right.
Alex moved aside as a mother and her young boy entered the establishment, and
Maria let herself fall away into her normal routine. It was normal, and it was a
routine, because it was repetitive. She did it everyday, nonstop. There was no
end to it, and somewhere, she had forgotten that there had even been a
beginning. She had forgotten everything that had been grand in her life, because
now, all there was in her life was misery and painful, hard decisions.
She didn’t think about what she was doing. That wasn’t necessary, because
nothing new or exciting or even semi-important happened in
Kyle looked entranced as he watched the
woman dancing above him. His eyes had grown huge, and only continued to grow
bigger as the woman removed her top, revealing a barely-there bra and huge
breasts. Kyle was definitely a boob man, and he seemed to be losing control. His
mouth was open to, and he was practically drooling.
Max had found a cute little red-head and had taken her into a dark corner for
some “extra money”. His hands were all over her ass, and the expression on
his face was priceless when the woman started to unzip his pants.
Michael sat alone. He didn’t want any of it. Kyle and Max always liked to stop
at strip-clubs when they got the chance, and Michael was always dragged along
inside, even though he thought that it was sick.
Well, sometimes it was nice. These girls were dangerous. They weren’t afraid
to take a walk on the wild side.
A blonde-haired woman wearing only a black thong met his eyes and came down from
the stage. She walked through the crowd, ignoring everyone else but Michael. He
didn’t flinch, even as she brought her fingers up to run through his untamable
hair.
“You look like you need some good lovin’, Sugar.” she commented in a real
southern accent.
“No thanks.” he told her. She was definitely dangerous, yes, but not the
type of dangerous he liked. She was only a slut, nothing more.
“Oh, come on.” she practically begged. “I’ll take you back in a corner
and show you the real meaning of living for a few extra dollars.”
It was really sad that these women had to do this for money. It was clearly
their last resort.
But he wasn’t much different from them, was he? Either was Max. Either was
Kyle. Of course they didn’t work in bars and take their clothes off just to go
back in the corner and have a quicky with some random person, but they robbed
banks and gas stations and those kind of places for money. They stole cars and
sold them a few days later for big bucks. Their life certainly wasn’t
honorable.
“Sugar, c’mon.” The woman continued to try to persuade him, even being so
daring to lean forward and try to rub her breasts in his face.
“Sorry,” he apologized, getting up from the chair. He moved away from her as
fast as he could and out of her sight, only to be stopped by another girl, a
brunette this time.
“What’s a sexy man like you doing all alone tonight?” she asked, playing
with the buttons on his shirt. She was more attractive than the blonde. She was
still clothed—well, she was still wearing a bra and underwear—and she
wasn’t as headstrong. For a moment, he contemplated taking her back into a
dark corner like Max had done with that red-head, just to see what it would feel
like to be with someone for such a short period of time. It would be dangerous,
that’s for sure.
“I can’t.” he said, though he was still wondering if he could.
She sighed. “Alright, if you’re sure.”
He wasn’t sure. His fingers were itching with the desire to yank her bra away
and tear her underwear off. His lips were tingling with the need to run his lips
across hers. And his . . . well, that was doing something, too.
But he didn’t. He bolted away from her as fast as he could and forced himself
not to look back. He wasn’t Max. He wasn’t Kyle. He didn’t want to turn
into them. He didn’t use girls for a few minutes like that. He would carry a
gun. He would rob banks. He absolutely would not take on an offer like that, no
matter how tempting it was.
He met up with Max and Kyle by the door, watching the women on stage and
watching some of them as the pranced on by. Max looked tired from what he had
just done. Kyle looked envious.
“Hey, guys.” Michael greeted.
“Hey,” Max returned, grabbing a bottle of beer from the bar counter. He
didn’t pay. He didn’t even care that it had probably belonged to someone who
had. He chugged it down, obviously eager to cool off.
“We should probably be going now.” Michael told them. He hated to always
have to break the fun, but if Max and Kyle had their way, they would stay out
all night with the strippers. But Michael was tired. He was used to staying
awake during the night, but not during the day as well, and he needed sleep, no
matter what time it was.
“But I haven’t even gotten any yet!” Kyle whined. “I’m not going until
I get my hands on one of these ladies . . .” He trailed off and let his eyes
linger on the same blonde that Michael had turned down.
“We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.” Michael reminded them. “If
we wanna be able to pull off the robbery, we’ve gotta be in top shape.”
“No, we don’t.” Max shot back. “I could pull off a robbery in my
sleep.”
“Sleep,” Michael echoed. “Sounds good, don’t you think?”
Max surveyed the bar and then turned back to Michael. “I guess.” he said.
“I’ve already gotten my fair share for tonight. Kyle?”
Kyle, however, was less willing. “No!” he shouted. “I’m gonna break my
pants if I don’t just . . .” He trailed off again and Michael noticed his
eyes on the brunette he had been so tempted to take. He let his eyes drift to
the ground as he watched Kyle walk over to her and run his hands up and down her
bare arms.
“Are you with anyone tonight?” he asked.
She shook her head.
And then they were walking off together.
“Make it quick!” Michael called after him. “Meet us in the car!”
No answer.
So Michael walked out the door and waited for Max to follow. It took Max a
little longer. He was clearly on the verge of getting drunk, and he still held
two bottles in his hands. He tripped over something on the way to the car and
fell down on the ground laughing. Michael had to help him up again and help him
into the passenger side of the van.
“I never realized that there were so many girls on the planet that would just
let you fuck them.” he muttered. “I mean, it’s just so easy. You say one
word to them and they’re all over you. It’s
just . . . cool. It’s so cool!”
Michael didn’t know what to say to that. It was hard enough to carry on a
conversation with Max when he was sober. It was almost impossibly when he was
drunk.
About ten minutes later, Kyle tumbled out of the strip-club, clearly a little
drunk as well. He, too, clutched a bottle of beer in his hands, and he barely
made it to the car. But he made it in, and he practically collapsed in the back.
“That was great!” he announced. “God, if you haven’t had her, you’re
missin’ out.”
Michael started the car up, knowing that he could have had her.
“She can hold out forever. Makes you really have to work at it.”
“So that’s why you were in there so long?” Max asked from the front. He
threw an empty bottle out the window into the parking lot and opened up the next
one and began to chug it right away.
“No,” Kyle replied with a laugh. “I just wanted a few more minutes.”
Both Max and Kyle began to laugh, sounding stupid and completely drunk.
“That’s funny.” Max commented. “You’re funny, Kyle.”
“No, Max,” Kyle told him. “You funny!”
They began to laugh again.
“You funny!”
“You funny!”
Finally, they stopped repeating themselves enough for Max to notice that they
were still sitting in the parking lot. “Well, let’s go, Michael.” he said,
hitting him on the arm. “We’ve got places to go.”
“Right.” he agreed. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove a little ways
to a local hotel He got only one room, trying to save as much money as possible
and figuring that his friends might need him to keep a watch over them in their
drunken state, and registered under fake names, just in case someone was looking
for them.
It took forever for Kyle and Max to fall asleep. They stayed awake for at least
an hour making stupid jokes and playing around like little kids. A man from the
room next door even came to knock on their door in frustration.
“I’m trying to sleep.” he said. “It’s kind of hard, though, when you
and your buddies are making all this racket.”
“Sorry.” Michael apologized, glaring at the man dead-on. He wasn’t the
type of person to back down, and he didn’t like to apologize a lot.
“They’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Yeah!” Kyle shouted from inside.
“Lots of beer!” Max added.
The man shook his head disapprovingly and then left.
It took awhile for his friends to fall asleep, so Michael stayed up with them.
When they finally did fall asleep, they had taken both the beds. He made himself
as comfortable as he could on the floor and closed his eyes, prepared for the
slumber that he had been waiting for since the very early hours of that morning,
only to find that it was time for them to start moving again.
Sleep did not come that night. It was
impossible. He had fallen asleep too late and had to get up too early. Now, they
were in the car again, all three of them, as they always seemed to be. Kyle and
Max both had killer hangovers, and Michael was left driving again. He drove
slow, even though he preferred going fast. If a cop stopped them, they would be
toast, as in through. Done. They had guns in their hands loaded with bullets if
they ever needed protection, and there were a two broken beer bottles scattered
on the floor, too.
“We’re almost there.” Michael announced as they neared their destination.
The streets were becoming more crowded as they neared the tiny but profitable
town of
Max groaned from the passenger seat. “I don’t think I can do this today.”
he complained. “I feel like shit.”
“I wonder why.” Michael didn’t bother to hide his feelings. “You two
screwed around with strippers the whole night and got drunk. You think you’d
feel better.”
“You don’t know how it feels, Michael.” Kyle told him from the back. He
was sprawled out on the backseat looking like he was going to throw up.
“Hey, I was up all last night with you two!” he shouted. “I wanted to make
sure you guys would be okay! I didn’t get any rest, either, you know!”
Max let out a huge burp and then groaned again. “Let’s just postpone it for
tomorrow.” he suggested.
“No.” Michael decided. He put on gas, even though he knew it was best not
to. “You said you could pull off a robbery in your sleep, Max. Now we’ll get
the chance to see if you really can.”
Max grunted. “I’m not asleep.”
“You might as well be.”
So they rode in silence for a few more minutes, the only sounds coming from
Kyle. He was mumbling something that was barely audible, and that Michael did
not want to take the time to understand.
“What’s that, Kyle?” Max finally asked.
“Oh, I was just thinking about last night.” Kyle answered. “That girl.
That stripper. She was sure a firecracker.”
Michael pressed down the gas harder. Why did Kyle always have to mention that
girl? It wasn’t like she was that special. It wasn’t like he wanted to see
her again. It was just a longing feeling deep inside of him for someone that he
could just spend a few minutes of pleasure with and then spit right back out
again and never remember her.
He wanted someone like that. He wanted to be like his friends and just be able
to discard a girl just like that, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“I wanted to take her with us.” Kyle continued.
“That good, huh?” Max asked as his eyes began to close. It was obvious Max
was feeling like shit. He was closing his eyes, and it was still daytime.
“Stay awake, Max!” Michael shouted slapping him on the shoulder in the same
way that he had done to him the day before. “Live in the day like normal
people!”
“Shut up, Michael!” Max shouted back.
“Hey, you guys have gotta stay awake and help me watch for deer!” Michael
continued to mimic Max’s earlier words.
“I said shut up!” Max shouted again. “Keep your eyes on the road!”
So Michael gave in and continued the struggle to keep his own eyes open while
Kyle and Max continued to talk about the stripper.
“I would do anything for a bitch like that, that I could just get my hands on
during any time of the day.” Kyle continued.
“Yeah,” Max agreed. “I sure wanna mess around with that red-head again
tonight.”
“Too bad we don’t have a girl around here.” Kyle complained.
“Yeah.”
Michael was becoming fed up. He couldn’t listen to it anymore. “If you guys
really want a girl that bad, all you’ve gotta do is kidnap one.” he told
them. “My dad did it a lot when he got tired of my mom.”
At first, his friends were silent, but then, Max spoke. “You know, Michael,”
he said, “that’s not really a bad idea. There’s plenty of hot girls in
“Yeah, that could work.” Kyle sounded excited again, and Michael knew that
he was getting the same greedy expression on his face that he got whenever he
was thinking or talking about a girl.
“Gee, Michael, I didn’t think you were into the whole kidnaping thing.”
Michael sighed and reminded his friends that he had been doing this years longer
than they had.
They talked it over a little more and decided that they would go for a blonde if
possible, even though Kyle wanted a girl resembling the brunette and Max wanted
a girl resembling the red-head. They decided that it was only fair that they go
with a blonde since they couldn’t agree. For the most part, Michael stayed out
of it. He had already come up with the idea. He didn’t want to take part in
anymore of it. Inside, a part of him felt terrible. He was going to be tearing
this girl, whoever it turned out to be, apart from her family and friends and
the only life she had ever known. But another part of him was anticipating it
all. Maybe this would be the girl he had been waiting for, the one that could
satisfy his hunger and clench his thirst, just for a little while.
He felt awful for thinking such thoughts. This wasn’t him. It never had been
him.
But it was now.
What was he becoming?
“Hey, right here.” Kyle said, pointing to a gas station that was, as
expected, alien-themed.
“The Lift-Off gas station,” Max read aloud. “Catchy.”
“Okay,” Michael said, pulling the ban to a stop just outside. “This is it.
We’ve gotta move fast and carefully.
“Relax, this isn’t gonna be any different than every other robbery we’ve
ever gone through with.” Max said, slipping on his ski-mask. “Except for the
girl.”
“Yeah,” Kyle agreed. “Who’s gonna get her?”
They all were silent for awhile, wondering who would get the best girl, or who
would be able to do it the fastest. Then, both Kyle and Max turned to Michael.
Neither said a word, but he both knew what they were thinking.
“Me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Kyle replied. “Like you said, you’ve been doing this longer than
we have.”
That was true.
Michael slipped on his ski mask, knowing deep down inside that his life would
never be the same again.
Everything was normal, as everything always
was, until it happened. Alex had been sitting in one of the booths in the corner
gently strumming his guitar, and Randy had been yelling another employee out for
being late, or so it sounded, and a few customers had just come in to pay for
their gas, while a few others came in just to get some snacks for the drives
ahead that awaited them. Maria had just finished handing a woman back her change
when she looked out the window.
She saw three men rushing inside dressed all in black. They held guns in their
hands, and ski-masks covered their faces. Before she could do or say anything,
they were inside.
“Everyone down!” one of them shouted, pointing his gun out at everyone.
“On the floor now!”
Maria was almost too shocked to do anything. She felt frozen in place, but when
she felt Randy tugging on her arm, she got down as quickly as she could and laid
down on her stomach.
“Give us all you’ve got!” two of the men shouted. They ran around and
began to collect what the people in the station had on them. Sometimes, it was
only a few dollars. Other times, hundreds. Some were forced to hand over their
credit cards and jewelry.
“You!”
Maria looked up and found the tallest man towering over her, pointing the gun
directly down at her. “Give me all of the money out of the cash register,
now!”
Maria struggled to stand. Her legs were shaky and wobbly, and she felt like she
couldn’t do anything. She fumbled with the lock on the register, trying to
insert the key and get it open.
“Come on! Hurry!” he pressed.
She finally pulled it open and let him reach in. He took almost every penny so
quickly that she hardly even noticed it was gone. When he was done, he only
stared at her. All she could see was his eyes, but they bore down into hers like
daggers, and she felt her heart pounding rapidly inside her chest. Was he going
to hurt her?
“Michael, we’ve gotta go!” one of the two other men urged after they had
finished collecting from the customers.
The man, obviously Michael, suddenly jumped over the counter and grabbed her by
the arm. “You’re coming with
They zoomed down the streets fast, almost too fast for Maria. She felt herself
spinning out of control. Her hands were shaking, and her arms was hurting. The
man still held her tightly, not willing to let go in case she decided to try
something fancy. The sound of police cars could be heard close by, so the man at
the wheel sped up. Soon, they weren’t driving, but flying, and Maria began to
feel like she was going to be sick.
The last thing she remembered was watching the police car disappear behind her
before she blacked out.
When she came to again, Maria was surprised
to find that it was nighttime. They were far away from
The man who had been at the wheel when they had left the Lift-Off was still
there. She could tell by his structure. He had dark hair cut in a clean fashion,
and his ears were a little large. They stuck out from his head, and his eyes
seemed to be a little too small for his face.
The man in the passenger’s seat looked like a cowboy. His hair had that kind
of wave in it that made it look like he had just worn a cowboy hat. He was
nice-looking. Very clean cut. He didn’t look very old, though. Not as old as
the dark haired one did.
And then she looked beside her at the man who had grabbed her arm and pulled her
away. He was staring out the window and his eyes were almost closed. He looked
tired, like he hadn’t gotten a decent rest in days. His hair was just the
opposite of the other two men’s. His hair was untamed and unruly. It shot up
from his head almost to the ceiling of the van, but it worked for him. There was
a hint of stubble on his chin, too, like he hadn’t gotten a chance to shave
for awhile, or had chosen not to.
They all looked normal.
She debated whether to say anything, and decided against it. She was too
terrified to say anything, let alone to these guys. She could still see a gun in
the cowboy’s hand, and she shivered at the thought of the damage that it could
cause.
The man in the seat beside her—Michael, or whatever—seemed to notice that
she was awake, because he glanced in her direction and then clamped his hand
down on her arm again. “Don’t you think about going anywhere.” he warned
her.
“I wasn’t.” she reassured him.
“Good.” He made no effort to loosen his grip on her arm, and she made no
effort to say anything more.
“Is she awake?” the cowboy asked from the passenger’s seat.
“Yeah,” Michael told them.
The cowboy turned around and smiled at her. “Well, hell-o.” he greeted,
cutting the word up into two syllables. “I’m Kyle VaLenti.” He turned to
Michael, then, and smiled. “You sure got a good one.” he said a little more
quietly.
Michael remained silent and continued to stare out the window.
“I’m Max.” the dark-haired man told her. “The better looking of the
three.”
“You are not.” Kyle protested.
“Well, you sure aren’t.” Max shot back.
“Maybe we should just let the little lady choose for herself.” Kyle
suggested. “What do you think?” He asked the question directly to Maria, and
she didn’t know how to respond.
“I . . . I don’t think I could choose.” she stuttered.
Both Max and Kyle began to laugh from the front. “You can’t choose, huh?”
Max said. “Well, then, maybe you’d just like both of us.”
Maria didn’t understand. Like both of them for what?
“You guys don’t even know her name.” Michael suddenly piped up.
“Either do you.” Kyle told him.
“Yeah, I do.” he said. “It’s . . . it’s . . .” He looked down at
Maria for help. “What is it?”
“Maria.” she choked out.
“Maria what?” Max asked.
“Maria DeLuca.” She didn’t like the idea of letting these people in on
what her name was. She didn’t want to give out a lot of personal information,
but she didn’t see that she really had that much of a choice.
“Maria DeLuca,” Kyle echoed. “Well, Maria, sorry if we scared you back
there. We’re just kinda desperate for a woman.”
She didn’t like the sound of that.
“Not now, you guys.” Michael told them quietly.
Max pulled the van over to rest on the side of the road and got out, motioning
for Kyle to step out as well. “Stay with her.” he told Michael.
Maria watched Max and Kyle for a few seconds, trying to figure out what was so
important that they didn’t want to discuss it in front of her. When she
decided it was impossible to tell what they were talking about, she gave up
watching them and just sat there and thought. Michael had begun to loosen his
grip on her arm now, and the pain was subsiding.
She let herself think. She asked herself questions that she was scared to get
answers to. One question, in particular, floated around her head, threatening to
break loose at any moment. She turned to Michael and wondered if she should dare
ask him. What would he do to her if he found it offensive in some sort of way
for her to be speaking without permission?
He was staring out the window, a lost, tired expression plastered on his face.
He looked like he was in deep thought, as well, so she blurted it out, hoping
for the best.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
He brought his eyes away from the outside world and looked down at her. She let
her own gaze travel down to the floor, afraid to look him in the eyes again. She
had already done that back at the Lift-Off, and now look where she was.
He was silent for a long time, and she wondered what he was thinking, what he
wanted to do to her at the moment, and then he replied, “I haven’t.”
She let out a deep sigh, feeling relieved. But then another thought occurred to
her, and she risked it again by asking it aloud. “But Max and Kyle . . .”
She trailed off, hoping he would understand what it was she was trying to get
out.
And he did. “They have.” he replied, like it was nothing. The relief she had
felt sweep over her just a few seconds over her was replaced by a dark cloud of
fear. If they had killed before, what was to stop them from killing her?
“Was it an accident or did they just . . .”
He didn’t let her finish. “You better just shut up, now.” he advised her.
She nodded in agreement and ran her free hand through her hair. So much had
happened so fast, and now she was riding in a car with three criminals, two of
which had killed. She didn’t know what they wanted with her, or why they had
taken her to begin with. All she knew was that she was scared, and that she
wanted to go home. She wanted to be in her mother’s arms, crying on her
shoulder. She wanted to be with Liz and Alex, just goofing around, and she
wanted to tell Billy that she was sorry for how she had treated him, because she
knew now that she might never get the chance.
She didn’t want to be here, out in the middle of the desert with these people
with no clue where they were going or what was to become of her.
She felt Michael let go of her arm completely, and she began to cry. She tried
to muffle the sounds she made, but she knew that he could hear her. He tried to
pretend that he didn’t, but she could see by the expression on his face that
he knew, and that he chose to do nothing about it.
Michael almost fell asleep on the drive to
the hotel. Almost. Not quite. Sleep was not possible with the girl in the
backseat beside him—Maria, or whatever the hell her name was. She was crying.
Really crying. She was trying to be quiet, and she was actually doing a pretty
good job, until she let loose one huge sob that seemed to wrack the whole car.
Max and Kyle didn’t notice. They had the music blaring up in front, but
Michael could tell. He ignored it for a little while.
But, soon, as they neared the hotel right along the
“Would you shut up?” he spat, clamping his hands down hard on her arms
again.
She looked up at him with watery, scared eyes, and Max turned down the volume of
the radio. Both he and Kyle turned around to the back to see what was going on.
“Keep your eyes on the road, Max.” Michael instructed.
Max sighed and returned his gaze to the road.
“Michael, calm down.” Kyle told him.
Michael almost yelled at him, too. He wanted to tell him that he didn’t feel
the guilt that he was feeling at the moment, the overwhelming guilt, but he soon
thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. Kyle knew what guilt was. He had
killed someone. They had been somewhere in
Michael let go of Maria’s arms again and continued to looking out the window.
Her crying ceased to exist after that, and she was only silent. She made no move
to try to get out of the car, so he made no move to hold onto her.
They reached the hotel a short while after. It was
“Snazzy,” Kyle commented, getting out of the car and looking over the hotel.
He was right. It was very big and very fancy, and probably very expensive, but
they could afford it. After all, they had just pulled off another big robbery
today. It was amazing how much money tourist carried around with them,
especially to tiny towns like
Michael stepped out of the car and motioned for Maria to follow him. He
immediately latched onto her arm again once the door was closed, because they
were outside now in the open with no car to keep her in. He surveyed the hotel
himself, noticing how it was built in a Mexican style with all the rooms
surrounding one enclosed fountain and garden area. He could faintly make out the
sound of salsa music from inside, obviously from some kind of party. The aroma
of spicy food drifted through the air, calling to him. He was so hungry. He
decided that he would have to get something to eat before turning in for the
night.
“Kyle, talk to Michael.” Max ordered, taking Maria from Michael’s grasp.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she stiffened visibly under his
hold, but she walked into the hotel with him as calmly and collectively as she
could.
“Okay, so, Max and I came up with a plan back there in the desert.” Kyle
began when they were out of earshot. “We decided that since it was your idea
to kidnap this girl in the first place that you should get to have her first.”
Michael sighed. He didn’t know if he really wanted her anymore. There was
still a need, a want, a hunger lurking deep down inside him, but it had begun to
fade now, replaced by that awful feeling of guilt. “I’m really tired. Maybe
you should have her first.” he suggested.
“No, no, you deserve her.” Kyle protested. “Believe me, dude, I want her,
but she’s yours first. Take her for tonight and screw her as long as you
please, just so you get her ready for Max and I. Escort her over to our place
whenever you’re done and we’ll take our turn.”
Michael stuffed his hands in his pockets, mentally searching for a way out.
“Just look at her, man.” Kyle said, pointing to the backside of the girl as
she and Max entered the hotel. “You know you want her.”
Did he? His feelings were so mixed up and turbulent at the moment that he
didn’t know what he wanted. He needed something to dull the pain inside of
him, some sort of drug.
She was just what he needed. A few minutes of hot sex with her would surely numb
him up so that he wouldn’t have to go through such turmoil again.
“Fine.” he agreed at last. “I’ll bring her over to your room when I’m
done.”
Kyle nodded. “Great. Now, you gotta work her up real good for us, but not too
much. We still gotta have a little bit of a challenge.”
He watched his friend walk at a brisk pace into the building to tell Max the
news. Max would never believe that Michael had agreed to this. He had never done
anything of the sort in his life.
He trailed behind. When he did get inside, two rooms were waiting for them.
“Here’s your key.” Max handed Michael a tiny little card to one of the
rooms as they walked down the hallway. “Maria, you’ll be staying with
Michael for awhile.” He winked at Michael and smiled at Kyle. Kyle smiled
back. Michael did nothing. He didn’t know what to do. But he would. Soon, he
would. Because, soon, he would be just like his friends. He wouldn’t worry
about what was right or wrong. He would just live a life of darkness and not
care about it.
At least Max and Kyle had fun and enjoyed living the way they did. With help,
maybe Michael could be like that, too. Just one quick little tryst . . .
Michael stopped at the door that was pointed out by the card and watched as Max
and Kyle headed one door down to their room. He fumbled with the key, wondering
why the damn lock was made so complex in the first place, and noticed that Maria
was standing beside him. She was there physically, but her mind seemed to be
somewhere else entirely, and she was staring down the empty hallway with a
thoughtful expression on her face.
“Don’t even think about trying to run off.” he warned her. “I’ve got a
gun in my pocket and I’m not afraid to use it.”
“You said you’ve never killed anyone.” she reminded him, turning her head
to look into his eyes.
“Not yet.”
She didn’t seem scared. “You wouldn’t shoot me in a hotel.” She said,
sure of herself.
“Smart, smart girl.” He finally forced the door open and walked in,
motioning for her to follow. She did, and left that silly hallway thought
behind. She was right. He wouldn’t have shot her. Either would Kyle. But Max
might have.
She tried the light-switch right away, only to find that it wasn’t working.
“Great.” she mumbled.
“That’s alright.” he said. “We’re just gonna go to sleep, anyway,
aren’t we?”
“Yeah,”
She sat down on the edge of one of the two beds, testing it for comfortableness.
She bounced up and down a bit and then laid back on her back.
“You taking that one?” he asked.
She nodded. She looked so tired, like she was capable of falling asleep right
then and there. He couldn’t let that happen.
After throwing his jacket down on the floor, Michael lifted his shirt over his
head, hoping to catch her attention with his tan chest and rock hard muscles.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even seem to realize that he was now standing
with no shirt less than three feet away from her.
“You’ll learn to like it.” he told her, sitting down on the edge of the
bed beside her. “Max loves it. Kyle does, too.”
“Do you?”
He was surprised by her question. She was outgoing for such a tiny little thing.
She had a mind of her own, and she wasn’t afraid to voice her thoughts.
“Sometimes.” he replied.
She sat up beside him, then, running her fingers through her hair. “I could
never like this.” she said. “It’s not who I am.”
He sighed. “It wasn’t who I wanted to be.”
She looked at him with a confused and puzzled expression. “What does that
mean?” she asked.
“Nothing.” he replied quickly. He didn’t need to get all sappy with a girl
that he barely knew.
She clearly knew that it had meant something, but she didn’t push the issue
any farther. They sat on the edge of the bed in what was a very uncomfortable
silence to Michael for a few more seconds until he felt the urge to speak again.
“It’s not all that bad.” he continued. “All those movies on TV that
depict what this life is really like . . . they don’t depict it accurately.
Max and Kyle and I, we have a lot of fun together. They’re like my family now.
I don’t know what I’d do without them.” He reached up and placed his hand
on her shoulder. “You’ll be fine with us.” he reassured her. “Trust
me.”
She grunted. “How can I trust you?” she shrieked, rising to her feet. “I
don’t even know you! I mean, you kidnaped me and took me away from my family
and my friends and the only home I’ve ever known in one horrible moment, and
now we’re God only knows how far away and I’m freakin’ terrified that
I’m gonna get hurt or killed or worse!”
“What could be worse?” he asked, surprised that she was being this outspoken
to him, the man who had, as she had established earlier, kidnaped her.
“That’s not the point!” she shot back.
“Well, what is the point?”
“I don’t know.” she seemed to be weakening in her argument. “I can
hardly even think right now.” She ran her hand across her forehead and sighed.
“Sit down,” he said, reaching up and grabbing her hand. She let him, and
willingly sat down beside him again.
“I just wanna go home.” she admitted.
He felt the guilt rising inside of him again, and he knew he had to do something
about it fast. He turned her towards him and gazed down into her eyes. She
avoided her gaze by looking at the carpet. He used his thumb to tilt her chin up
so that he could meet her eyes. They were sparkling with tears again,
threatening to spill over. He ran his fingers through her hair and leaned down
slowly, preparing to touch his lips to hers.
“What are you doing?” she asked when they were only inches apart.
“I’m trying to kiss you.” he replied. He leaned in again, only to have her
push him away with surprising strength.
“Don’t.” she told him sternly.
“Just come here.” he told her, grabbing her arm again, which he suspected
was now very bruised by the way people had been grabbing her.
“Stop it!” she shouted, hitting him on his shoulder with her tiny fists.
“Come on.” He encircled his arms around her waist and brought her down on
the bed, falling on top of her.
“Get off of me!” she shouted, hitting him some more.
He forced her arms above her head and held them together with one of his hands
so that she couldn’t hit him anymore. He straddled her hips with his legs so
that she could not resist. “I don’t think so.” he said, throwing her shoes
to the floor and bringing his free hand up to the uniform she was still wearing
from the gas station. He undid the buttons quickly and then tore it off of her,
ripping it into shreds. She screamed out in horror as the air hit the exposed
parts of her body.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please, don’t!”
Something about her words caught his attention. He hadn’t known the girl very
long, but it just didn’t sound like her. In fact, it sounded so unlike Maria
that he forced himself to look at her face.
She didn’t look scared. She looked terrified, like she had said she was. She
was crying, almost as much as she had been in the car. Her body shook with each
sob beneath him, and he let go of her wrist bound above her head. She slowly
brought them down her sides to rest over her naked stomach. “Please,” she
whispered again.
He surveyed the scene. This innocent girl was laying underneath him with barely
any clothes on at all. She would have looked fit to be one of the girls at the
strip club had she not been crying and had she not looked so frightened.
What had he become?
Slowly, he got up off of her. He offered her his hand, willing to help her up,
as well, but she refused. She stood up on her own and wrapped her arms around
herself.
He had to get her out of there. She wasn’t safe there with him.
Remembering what he and Kyle had talked about, he grabbed her arm again, but not
as forcefully this time. She gasped when he touched her and didn’t even bother
to fight back. He pulled her with him out the door and into the brightly lit
hallway. He opened the door to Max’s and Kyle’s room, which they had left
unlocked just for certain purposed, and threw her inside.
“Stay in there.” he ordered. He reached in and pulled the door shut so that
he was on one side of the door and she was on the other. It didn’t matter what
happened to her now, because she wasn’t with him. He wasn’t a monster, and
he wasn’t going to put her through that, but it wasn’t his fault if someone
else did.
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling
more vulnerable and naked than she ever had before. Max and Kyle were laying in
their beds talking and laughing, and they each held a glass of wine in their
hands, a sign that they had spent some more of the money that they had taken
from the innocent bystanders at the Lift-Off, and ordered room service to bring
some up.
Maria felt wrong here in this place with these people. Here she was, standing in
a tiny, dark hotel room with two men who she had just recently learned had
killed, and she was hardly wearing anything. Because Michael had tried to rape
her. He had sat down and talked to her, and, for only a minute, she thought that
he might be trying to communicate with her. She had been wrong.
“Well, well, well, look what we have here.” Kyle was the first to notice
Maria’s presence. “Did Michael throw you out.”
She didn’t feel like she could speak.
“Did you have a good time?” Max asked, taking another sip of his wine and
then setting it down on the table beside his bed. “Michael’s kinda new at
that kind of thing.”
She shuddered. They had been in on it. They had known. When Max and Kyle had
stepped out of the car to talk in the desert, they had been devising a plan. It
all made sense now. She should have known.
She wished, now, that she would have taken a chance and run down that hallway
while Michael had been fiddling with the door. At least, that way, she might
have had a chance at escape. But she had let him intimidate her with his fancy
talk and piercing eyes.
She took a quick glance at the door to the room. She wondered if she could make
it if she tried. Max and Kyle were in their beds. They wouldn’t have time to
jump up and come after her if she did get away, right? She could try for it now.
But what if something went wrong and she couldn’t get the door open or she
tripped in the hall or some stupid thing like that?
“But Max and Kyle . . .”
“They have.”
They had killed, and she knew somewhere deep down that they wouldn’t hesitate
to do it again. Or at least Max wouldn’t. She could see it in her eyes. He
wouldn’t even stop to think about it. He would do anything if it was for his
own good.
Kyle might not be so quick to act. He seemed different than Max, or at least a
little different.
She resisted the urge to take the chance.
“You look like you’ve gone through something pretty rough in there.” Max
said. He threw his covers aside and rose to his feet. Kyle did so, too, and they
began to walk slowly towards her. “Maybe we can make you feel better.”
Maria wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “No,” she whimpered.
“Oh, come on. We’re real good at it.” Kyle tried to persuade her. He
reached out and placed a rough and calloused hand on her shoulder, and
shuddered. Max’s hand soon came up to touch her other shoulder, and she tried
to back away.
“Please, don’t do this to
“We can make you forget about all your troubles.” Kyle promised.
“No!” she shouted. She jerked away from them completely only to run into the
wall behind her.
“Don’t think you’re leavin’ us.” Max hissed. His eyes seemed to glow
with an eerie yellow, and he sounded like a snake when he spoke. He moved
forward and gripped her arms with his hands, hurting her again, squeezing her
close together. She cried out in pain, but he ignored her. “You’re ours
tonight.”
Maria tried to collect herself as much as possible and took two deep breaths.
Then, with all that she could master inside of her, she screamed as loud as she
possibly could.
But Max only put an end to her screaming by bringing his lips down to cover hers
so that she could make no sounds. She squirmed under his hold and tried to pull
away, but his lips held onto hers like suction.
She felt Kyle’s hands tracing up and down her legs, eventually to her thighs.
He let his fingers linger along the thin strap and then trailed them up her
stomach and to the center in her chest where her breast were joined.
She tried to fight back as they hauled her to the bed and laid her down. She
felt her head hit something soft and realized that it was Kyle’s lap. He
placed his hands on both sides of her head to keep her from looking either
direction. “Shh,” he whispered as Max got on the bed and straddled her hips
in the same fashion Michael had done. “It’ll all be over soon.”
She saw Max lean down, and she soon felt his lips on her stomach, his tongue
circling in and out of her bellybutton. She had always thought that a guy
kissing her stomach would be romantic, and she had often fantasized about it.
But not about this. This was not what she wanted. Not from him. Not like this.
She began to weaken and give up as they touched her and kissed her. She knew she
didn’t stand a chance against two big, strong men who weighed twice as much as
her and could do anything they wanted to her wherever they wanted. There was no
point. She was only wasting her energy.
She let out one final cry for help until Kyle’s hand clamped down over her
mouth, and she had no choice but to let them do what they chose.
Michael leaned against the wall, listening
to the sounds coming from the next room. Maria made occasional sounds, though
none were of pleasure. All of them were of pain an agony, and she finally ceased
altogether. Once in a while, Kyle or Max would say something, too, not as loud,
of course, but there sounds were different. They were having a good time.
The guilt arose deep within him again. Not only had he kidnaped that girl, but
he had tried to rape her, and, when he had failed, he had tossed her over to Max
and Kyle so that they could have their ways with her, because she didn’t
matter to him anymore. She never had. She was just a stupid girl that would have
to deal with some pain in life like everyone else did. Nothing more. Nothing
less.
That wasn’t like him at all.
He didn’t like what he was turning into.
He had to do something.
Michael quickly bolted away from the wall and over the bed. He tore through the
door and came to Max’s and Kyle’s. It wasn’t locked, just the way he had
left it. He swung it open and a horrendous scene was revealed on the other side.
Maria was trapped on the bed. Kyle was in the process of unzipping his pants
from behind her, and Max was kissing his way down her thigh in the front.
Kyle’s hand was placed over her mouth so that she couldn’t scream. But he
wasn’t too late, because she was still wearing what he had left her with, and
though she already looked worn out, she was still there.
He moved forward, and his friends stopped what they were doing at once. They
looked up at him. Kyle smiled. “Wanna join the fun, Michael?” he asked.
Max only glared at him as if he sensed what was coming.
“Get away from her.” he ordered.
Kyle grunted. “Hell no.”
Michael took a quick glance at Maria. She was shaking as she sobbed, and the
sobs shook her whole body. Her eyes were closed, as if she couldn’t bare to
see anymore. “Just leave her alone.” he tried again. She opened her eyes
when she heard his voice and stared at him with a questioning expression on her
face. There was fear in her eyes, and something told him that she didn’t
particularly trust him, either.
“You already got your turn.” Max said. “Now it’s ours.” He bent down
again and placed a hard kiss on the inside of Maria’s thigh. She moaned, but
not from ecstasy, from discomfort.
“I said get off of her!” Michael shouted. He grabbed Max by his bared neck,
for his shirt had ended up on the floor by now, and lifted him up with superior
strength to meet his eyes.
“Not a chance in hell.” Max bent down again to start torturing her some
more, but Michael reached down, too, and stopped him again. He brought his face
up to look at him and then swung his fist out in the air, slamming it onto his
face with a loud thud. He flew to the ground.
“Whoa, dude!” Kyle exclaimed.
“You, too.” Michael ordered.
Kyle took one look down at Max, who now had a bloody lip and an already puffy
eye, and saw him holding his jaw. He seemed to have no problem getting away from
Maria, then. He re-zipped his pants and moved as far away from her as he could
get. “She’s yours.” he said, throwing his hands up in the air offensively.
Michael returned his attention to Maria, then, who was still laying flat on her
back on the bed. Her eyes were open now, though. “Come on.” he told her,
extending his hand.
She remained motionless, and the only thing her eyes showed was fear. Complete
and utter fear. Michael didn’t blame her. She was having to choose between two
evils. Stay with the bad boys who were trying to have a threesome with her
against her will, or go with the man who had tried to take advantage of her only
minutes before?
Slowly and reluctantly, she reached up and took her hand. He pulled her up
gently, noticing that her arms were bruised from all of the rough contact. He
guided her out of the room and away from Max and Kyle as fast as he could.
He opened the door to their room again, then, and told her to step on inside.
She seemed reluctant again, but she soon stepped in agreeably. The fire and
passion that he had once seen was gone from her, only to be replaced with sorrow
and quiet. She didn’t even fight back on anything anymore. She made no effort
to look down the hall to contemplate running away. She walked in and sat down on
the bed, but not the one that she had sat down on before. She looked so cold. He
searched the floor for her uniform, but it was dark, and he could barely see. He
felt around, though, and found it eventually, but it was torn to shreds. He had
torn it to shreds.
He found his jacket on the floor in a big heap where he had left it, and brought
it over to her. He laid it out in front of her, and she reached up and took it
hesitantly. She put it on almost at once, covering her exposed body up and
enjoying its warmth. She didn’t say a word, so he did.
“I’m not gonna hurt you.” he told her. “I promise.”
“How can you expect me to believe that?” she choked out. Her voice was
scratchy, due to all of the crying.
“I can’t.” he said. “But I want you to.”
“Well, I don’t. So why don’t you just make it easy on me and undress me
and get it over with already.” She opened the jacket up so that he would have
had free access to her if he had wanted it. A lot of guys would have wanted it,
too. Some men would kill just to have a girlfriend with such a gorgeous body.
“I’m not like Max and Kyle.” he tried to tell her.
The fire returned in her, then, blazing at full force. “Oh, you’re not,
huh?” she shrieked, rising to her feet. “You tried to rape me, too, you
know, and you were the one who threw me in with them in the first place!”
“But I was also the one who got you out.”
“That doesn’t matter!” She closed the jacket around herself again and
grunted. The fear was edged out of her eyes, replaced by anger and rage.
“You’re not a hero, so don’t try to be one.”
“I know I’m not a hero.” he acknowledged. “But I don’t wanna be like
them! They’re my friends, practically my brothers, and I love them, but I
don’t wanna be like them!”
Something softened in her eyes, but the rage was not completely wiped away.
“This wasn’t me!” he continued, trying desperately to get her to
understand. “The person that you saw tonight isn’t the person that I am!”
“Then who was it?” she asked.
“I . . .” He didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know.”
She closed her eyes and turned around so that her back was to him. “I just
don’t understand this.” she cried. “Why did you have to take me? Why
me?”
He didn’t have an answer to that one, either. “I’m so sorry.” he
apologized.
She choked back a sob and turned around to face him again. Her eyes were
shimmering with tears. “I wanna believe that.” she said. “But I
can’t.”
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “What can I do,” he asked,
“to show you that, that isn’t who I am, to show you that I’m not really
like that.”
“You can let me go.” she said immediately, without hesitation.
He glanced at the door and then back at her. “I can’t.” he told her sadly.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
She raised her eyebrows in confusion.
“Max and Kyle would kill
“Oh, I understand.” she said. “You couldn’t have possibly forgotten what
was going on in there.”
He hadn’t. He had a feeling he never would.
“I know what he’s like sometimes.” she said. “I’ve experienced it.”
He sighed. “I want to.” he said. “I wanna let you go. I really do. But I
can’t.”
“Then you’re selfish.” she concluded. “You put your own life ahead of
others’.”
“Who wouldn’t?” he spat. “Everyone looks out for themselves, Maria.
That’s just the way things are.”
She seemed surprised that he had actually said her name. To his recollection, he
hadn’t said it once, and she was probably thinking the same thing.
“I guess you’re right.” she finally gave in. The fire diminished once
again from her eyes and she sat down on the bed. “I guess I’m just stuck
here forever with all of you, then.”
“Not forever.” he told her.
“Well, how long?” she asked, curious. “I’m just wondering, you know. I
had a life back in
He didn’t bother to ask what she had been sorry for. “You don’t need to
talk about them in the past tense.” he told her. “You’ll see them
again.”
“No I won’t.” She sounded sure. “I know I won’t. You don’t have to
lie to
“I’m not lying.” he told her.
She didn’t seem to believe him, yet, and why should she? He had given her no
reason to after what he had tried to pull.
“I’m not going to sleep tonight.” she announced in an abrupt change of
conversation. “I never know what you might try to do to me in my sleep.”
“Maria . . .” He said her name again.
“Michael . . .” she mimicked. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and
sat up straight. “I guess I’ll just have to stay up all night to make sure
that you don’t try anything.”
He sighed and crossed his own arms in front of his chest in the same way she
had. “Fine.” he agreed. “Then I guess I’ll just have to stay up all
night to make sure that you don’t try to sneak out. Can’t have that. I’d
be dead.”
“Good.” she mumbled.
So they sat there like that until the early hours of dawn. They didn’t make
eye-contact. That always seemed to end up with something bad happening. So they
avoided each other’s eyes as they fought to stay awake, until they each fell
asleep just before the sun began to rise.
The sun was bright, and it came in through
the window, slanting in a certain direction that it hit her eyes exactly. That
was how Maria woke up the next morning, and she really wished that she hadn’t.
Her dreams had been beautiful, the only way she had been able to escape this
living nightmare. She had dreamt of
But when she woke up again, she wasn’t in
The shabby little room didn’t seem so bad in the daylight. It was almost
decent.
Decent was something that she was not, however. She still had Michael’s jacket
wrapped around her, and she only had her undergarments on underneath. She pulled
the jacket tighter around her body, enjoying the warmth and security that it
provided, even if it was his jacket.
Maria rubbed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair as sleep began to
drift away from her and reality returned. She took the ponytail holder out of
her hair. Somewhere along the trip, her ponytail had fallen out.
There was a knock on the door, a loud, heavy knock that could only belong to Max
or Kyle. Most likely Max. Maria shuddered.
Slowly, Michael awoke. He rubbed his eyes sleepily, too, and took one look at
her. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something when the person on
the other side of the door knocked again. He closed it abruptly and then stood
up on unsteady legs and made his way towards the door.
Maria sat back and quietly listened to little bits of their conversation, trying
to figure out what they were going to do to her now.
She hoped they wouldn’t kill her.
After looking through the peephole first,
just to make sure that the person on the other side of the door wasn’t a cop
or something—you could never be too cautious in situations like they were
in—Michael unlocked the door and swung it open to reveal a tired-looking Kyle
and an angry-looking Max on the other side. He had been dreading facing these
two since the incident the night before, and he didn’t know what to say.
“We’re leaving in ten minutes.” Max said, breaking the silence. He had a
black eye from Michael’s punch, and his bottom lip looked a little overly
large. “You and your bitch better be out in the car soon, or we’re leaving
without you.”
Michael sighed. “Her name’s Maria.” He hoped that she wasn’t listening
to them from inside. The last thing she would want is to be called his bitch.
“Yeah, I know.” Max said. “I heard you screamin’ it last night.”
Michael felt like reaching out and hitting his best friend again, but he chose
not to. The last thing they needed was to draw more attention to themselves.
“We didn’t do anything like that.” he tried to explain.
“Whatever.” Max seemed to have lost interest, and in seconds, he and Kyle
were both striding down the hall in silence. Michael shut the door once they had
left and leaned up against it. His eyes finally settled on Maria. She was
sitting on the second bed with the jacket wrapped so tightly around herself that
it looked like she might cut off her circulation. Her hair was down, now,
instead of in the shabby ponytail it had been in the night before.
“We’ve gotta get ready.” he told her. “Ten minutes.”
“Where are we going?” she dared to ask.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Max is usually the one who decides where to go
and why. I come up with the plans for the robberies.”
“And kidnapings.” she added quietly.
A pang of guilt hit him in the chest at her words, and he tried to ignore it.
“Better hurry.” he advised, reaching down and finding his shirt on the floor
after noticing that he was still shirtless from the night before. “They’ll
leave without us.”
“Do you really think they would do that?” she asked. “I thought you said
that they were like your family.”
“They are.” he said. “But after what happened last night, I wouldn’t
doubt it.”
She visibly stiffened at his mention of the night before and what had happened,
so he changed the subject quickly.
“Wanna shower?” he asked.
She looked at him with a mortified expression.
“No, no!” He realized that that had come out completely wrong. “Not with
me, I mean. Alone. Just you.”
She grunted. “Not with you this close to me.”
He ran his hands through his hair and shook his head at her words. “You always
have to see the dark side of things, don’t you.”
“Gee, I was just kidnaped. You think I’d be all spunky and happy right
now.”
The girl was quick with the comebacks, that was for sure, and she kept him on
his toes, waiting to see what it was that she would come up with to say next.
“It’s just that you make me sound like a horrible person.”
“That’s ‘cause you are a horrible person.”
“I may not be a knight in shining armor, but I’m not completely bad,
either!” he shouted. “Look at Max and Kyle.”
“Turning on your family?” she asked, curious.
“They’re not my family.”
“I thought you said they were like your brothers.”
He had said that. “I don’t know what they are to
“How can you have friends like that?” she wondered aloud.
“They’re all I have!” he shouted.
She seemed to back down, then, and she spoke softer and slower. “Your parents
. . .”
“Dead.” he cut her off.
“Oh.” Something in her seemed to click into place, and she dropped back even
more. “I’m sorry.” she apologized. It was the only time he could remember
her being civil around him.
“It’s not like it really matters.” he continued. “My dad’s the reason
why I’m here now, anyway.”
She was interested again. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Never mind.” He didn’t want to get into that story with a girl he barely
knew and had tried to rape the night before. “We’ve gotta get going.
They’re waiting.”
“I don’t wanna go out there with them.” she said.
“So you’d rather stay in here with me?” he asked.
She seemed to think about it for a minute, and then replied, “I wanna go
home.”
“I know you do.” he said. “So do I. I just don’t know where home is.”
He sighed and stood up, continuing to get ready even more. It never took him
long to get ready. Whatever he looked like in the morning was usually what he
looked like when it came time for bed anyway.
“Why do you do that?” she suddenly asked.
“Do what?” he asked. He saw her coming up behind him in the mirror with his
jacket still tightly wrapped around her as he was combing his hair.
“Talk like that.”
“Like what?” He hadn’t the slightest clue what she was talking about.
“Well, you say something that just leaves me hanging, and I keep wondering
what it is that you mean. I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say
because you use such fancy word-work and big words.”
He almost laughed, but didn’t. “Why do you care what I have to say?” he
asked.
“Because you’re trying to get something across to me when you talk.” she
continued. “There’s some kind of point. Some message. I just can’t
decipher it.”
“Who’s using big words now?” he asked.
“Decipher is not a big word.” she said. “Now, palindrome, that’s a big
word.”
“Do you have any clue what a palindrome is?” he asked.
“Not really.” she admitted.
He allowed himself to smile. He felt the muscles near his mouth stretching, for
he hadn’t smiled in days, and he had begun to forget what it felt like.
“Better get ready.” he told her again.
“Well, I’m at a slight disadvantage.” she reminded him. “I don’t have
anything to wear. Someone demolished my uniform last night.”
The memory of pinning Maria down underneath himself on the bed flashed through
Michael’s mind. She was such a tiny little thing that it was hard for her to
fight back. He could have gotten anything that he had wanted.
But now, he was beginning to realize that he didn’t want what he had wanted
the night before anymore. Maria was a hard person to get to know. She didn’t
let people in to discover who she was, and even now, he hadn’t discovered who
she was, and he suspected that it would be a long time, if ever, before he
really did get to know her. But she was so feisty and opinionated and
head-strong that one couldn’t help but like that about her.
“Then we’ll have to go shopping today.” he told her. “Get you a new
outfit, get me some new clothes.”
“Really?” she seemed interested again, like the idea of shopping appealed to
her. “And do you use money to pay for the things you buy.”
“Of course not.” he replied. “We’re masters at the art of stealing.”
“So, if you guys get caught, then I’ll get caught with you.”
“Yep.” He knew where this was going. “But don’t think about trying to
get caught on purpose. Max and Kyle can escape the cops better than anyone I
know, and I’ll be outta there before you can count to two. And I’ll be
taking you with
“And why will you be taking me with you?” she asked.
He didn’t know why. There was something about her that he didn’t want to be
without. “Because you know too much about us.” he lied. “I couldn’t risk
letting that kind of information get out.”
“I wouldn’t say anything.” she promised.
“Yes, you would.” Michael reached out and opened the door to the room,
allowing Maria to go out first. “You’ve got the biggest mouth ever, DeLuca.”
“Who said you could call me DeLuca?” she asked.
“
“But I didn’t.”
“Exactly.”
She sighed. “See, there you go again. What are you trying to say?”
“I don’t know. What is there to say anyway?”
“What?”
“Words only go so far to express what you really mean.” He spoke in riddles
on purpose now, just so she could try to figure it out.
And even though he was walking behind her, Michael Guerin could see the trace of
a small smile playing on Maria DeLuca’s lips.
Her heart began to pound rapidly in her
chest as she neared the car and saw Max and Kyle again. They looked mad,
especially Max. Kyle seemed too tired to really be functioning properly. Max was
glaring at both her and Michael, though, and soon he grinned a wicked grin that
sent a chill through Maria’s bones.
“Well, well, well, look who it is.” Max greeted unpleasantly. “Aren’t
you gonna hold onto her, Guerin? She might try to run off.”
“She won’t.” He sounded so sure, and even Maria knew that she wouldn’t.
She felt safer with them than trying to run away. She knew they would chase her
or shoot at her or something like that. It seemed, now, that her best option was
just to stay put and see what happened.
Max circled around her, and she stood completely still. His hands ran up and
down her arms, and she shuddered with a sharp intake of breath. He seemed to
notice, because he began to snicker.
“It’s such a pleasure to look at her,” he commented, “but she can’t
stay. If we’re not gonna use her for sex, then she’s not good for
anything.”
“What do you mean? What are you gonna do?” Maria asked frantically.
“You’re no good to use anymore.” Max replied. “I’ve got a gun in my
pocket and I’m not afraid to use it.”
They’re going to kill me! Maria realized. She felt herself losing control on
the inside, and her feet were itching with the desire to run, but she stayed
put.
“You don’t wanna do that.” Michael soon spoke up. “We don’t kill
people. That’s not who we are.”
“Let’s review.” Max suggested. “I’ve killed people. Kyle’s killed
people. It seems as if that’s not who you are.” He reached down into his
pocket and began to feel his gun suggestively. Maria could see that outline of
it through his pants, and she closed her eyes. Soon, she would be dead. Her
mother would find out and come rushing to wherever it was that they were. Alex
and Liz would find out and come to see her as well, crying hysterically all the
while. Billy would find out and his heart would break.
“That’ll only cause more trouble.” Michael told him. “Someone will find
out that we did it, and soon the cops will be tracking us down in no time. Do
you really wanna take that risk?”
Max glared at him and avoided answering his question. “Defending her, huh? She
musta really been good to you last night.”
Maria saw Michael’s fists clenching, and she silently prayed that he would
help her. She couldn’t avoid it by herself. She wasn’t strong enough, big
enough.
“She’s only more money to spend and another mouth to feed.” Max reminded
him. “She’s only a liability.”
“Then what’s that make you?” Michael asked him.
They were silent for a long time. They each stared at each other, refusing to
back down. Kyle seemed to finally be waking up, but he chose to stay out of the
conversation. Maria wished he would jump in at her defense, but he had no reason
to.
“You know, Michael,” Max said at last, breaking the silence. “I’ve got
you all figured out. You like to pretend that you’re a good person, that
you’re a hero, but you’re not. You like to think that just because you’ve
never killed anyone, you’re a good guy. You like to believe that someday,
you’ll get married and have kids and live in a cozy little house with a
white-picket fence out front, but you won’t. You’re not a hero, Michael, and
you’ll never live a hero’s life. In fact, you’re anything but a hero.
It’s your fault that this girl’s gonna be dead in a few minutes. After all,
it was your idea to kidnap her in the first place.”
Don’t back down, Michael, please! Maria begged silently. She found it odd that
she was cheering for the man that had put the moves on her the night before, but
he seemed to be her only hope now.
“That has nothing to do with this.” he said.
“Oh, but it does.” Max said. “In fact, everything somehow manages to come
back to you. The reason we’ve got this girl now is you. The reason we’re
gonna kill her is you.”
“Shut the hell up, Max!” Michael shouted.
“Why should I?”
Michael reached out and pushed him to the ground with strength that he had
exhibited the night before in the hotel. Max hit the ground with a thud, and his
gun went flying out of his pockets. Maria turned away from the gleaming, silver
metal immediately, not being able to bring herself to look at it.
“Maybe something good could happen because of her.” Michael tried again.
“Well you won’t let us lay a hand on her, so what could she possibly do for
us?” Kyle asked joining the conversation for the first time. “Maybe Max is
right.”
Michael seemed in shock. He looked Kyle deep in the eyes and spoke to him in a
calmer voice than he had used on Max. “How can you say that?” he asked.
“Don’t you remember how torn up you were after you shot that girl?”
Kyle winced. “That was a long time ago.” he whispered.
Michael grunted in outrage. “How can you guys even think about this?” he
asked as Max was standing up. “I know I’m not a hero, but I’m not a
killer, either.”
“You will be,” Max said. “In a few minutes when I get done with her.”
“Please, don’t.” Maria begged. The words echoed in her head from when they
had all tried to rape her. “I’ll do anything you want me to. Just don’t
hurt
“You hear that?” Michael tried again. “Maybe she could help us out with
robberies and stealing and all that. She could come in real handy.”
Robberies? Stealing?
“She probably doesn’t even know how to hold a gun.” Kyle said.
“I’ll teach her.” Michael volunteered. “I’ll make her into someone
like us.”
She didn’t want to be someone like them, but if it meant her life . . .
“I’ll do it.” she piped up. “I’ll hold a gun and I’ll steal whatever
you want me to and I’ll take money from innocent people if you want me to.
Just don’t hurt me, please.”
Slowly, Max picked his gun up from the ground and pointed it directly at her.
This is the end, she thought wildly. This is where I die.
But then, he did something unexpected. He stuffed it back in his pocket and
turned to Michael. “Fine.” he agreed. “You’ve got two days to turn her
into a criminal. If she isn’t one by the time we reach
Maria didn’t doubt that.
“Fine.” Michael agreed. “Let’s get going.”
Max climbed into the driver’s seat of the van and Kyle climbed into the
passenger’s seat. Maria got in the back with Michael. She wanted to say thank
you, but the part of her that was still Maria DeLuca from
It was easy to tell that they were in
She missed her home. She missed her family and friends. She missed everything
that
But as they neared the
What a brother, Maria thought bitterly, remembering that Michael had thought of
Max and Kyle as brothers until the night before. Now, he didn’t know what to
think of them, and that was quite understandable.
She wouldn’t shed a tear if Michael was killed. He deserved it. He wasn’t a
good person. Sure, he had saved her once, okay, maybe twice, now, and he talked
with a bit of a Canadian accent, not to mention in a very complex and deep way
that she was still getting used to, but he still wasn’t a good person. He
wasn’t a hero.
But if it wasn’t for him, she would have been dead. He was risking his own
life now for her, and he didn’t even know her.
She refused to let herself think about it any more. Instead, she busied herself
by looking out her window as Michael did a lot. Kyle was again sleeping in the
front seat as Max drove. Once in awhile, Max’s eyes would drift back to meet
hers, and he would smile in that wicked way that he did that sent a chill up and
down her spine.
The mall was crowded. People could barely drive because the parking lot was
littered with people. It was harder to back up and get out because of the
worrisome thoughts that a person might be behind you. Max seemed used to it,
though, as he practically flew to the closet empty space. He had obviously been
in much bigger places than
Heather was a beautiful name, but the city was not. It was crowded and dirty and
it smelled funny.
Max stopped the car, and Kyle slowly awakened. “Wow, this place is huge!” he
exclaimed. “We’re baggin’ a lot of stuff today!”
“Take only what you need.” Max reminded him sternly.
“Oh, so, you’re a good civilian, now, are you, Max?”
“I just don’t want us to get caught.”
Michael sighed audibly. “Let’s just do this.” he said.
Max narrowed his eyes and glared at him. “If you’re so eager,” he said,
opening his door and getting out of the van, “then go ahead and teach your
whore the tricks of the trade. We’ll be inside.” He slammed the door shut
and motioned for Kyle to follow him inside. Without asking questions, Kyle did,
and Maria was left alone in the car with Michael once again.
When he only remained silent, she decided to start off for him. “So, are you
gonna teach me or not?”
Michael swallowed hard. “I don’t want to lead you into a life like mine.”
He almost sounded sincere, but Maria knew that was impossible. “Well, we
don’t really have a choice. Max sounded pretty serious about that whole
killing thing, so I’d say we better get started.”
“You don’t understand.” he protested. “Everything will change for you
after this.”
“Well, I don’t wanna die.” Her tone was impatient. “So teach me.”
He sighed. “It’s not that hard, really.” he began. “There’s lots of
different ways of doing it, but lots of them involve debugging the security
systems, and that takes time. So Kyle and Max and I came up with this way to get
what we need and get outta there fast without paying a dime.” He paused, as if
waiting for her to say something.
“Go on.” she finally urged.
“You get what you need,” he instructed, “and put it in one of these.” He
reached down onto the floor and picked up a sack. “When you walk around the
store, it looks like you’ve already paid for your stuff.”
“So, I put my stuff in there, and then what?” She was curious and intrigued,
now. It wasn’t that she wanted to do this, but if it was going to keep her
alive . . . she wanted to do it right.
“Then, when you’re all done, you start walking out of the store casually
like you’ve already paid, but you’ve gotta be with someone else.”
She was lost, now. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, stick with me or Max or Kyle at all times. There has to be two people
leaving at once for this to work.”
“Okay,” She understood. “Go on.”
“Say you and I go together.” he said for example. “I have to walk out of
the doors first, and once I’m safely on the other side, you throw your bag to
me from inside. Throw it fast, so that the alarms won’t be able to react.
Then, walk on out like nothing’s happened.”
She was full of questions. “Well, what if someone sees me?”
“If anyone sees you, it won’t be anyone important, and they won’t suspect
anything. Human beings only care about themselves, not about what’s going on
around them.”
And there was that deep speaking thing again. “Well, what if I had something
breakable in there?” she asked.
“Then you better hope that I catch it.”
She recited the entire plan to Michael again, just to make sure that she was
seeing everything accurately, and, when she felt confident about it, she and
Michael both got out of the car. IT felt weird walking around in only a jacket
with only her undergarments underneath, but the jacket was big, so it looked
like it was hiding some short shorts or something. She stuffed the bag in the
pocket of the jacket so that no one would see it as she walked in, and took a
deep breath as she opened the doors. This was it. It was now or never.
Inside, the mall was just as crowded, even more so, in fact. The lines at the
check-outs were all a mile long, and every person inside looked impatient and
wanting to get out of there as quick as possible. There were extra little
displays set up for Christmas, too, as the holiday season neared.
Christmas. With all of the activity in her life with Billy and her mother losing
her job, Maria had almost forgotten about Christmas. Christmas had always been
her favorite holiday. She loved setting the tree up and baking cookies and just
the whole spirit of the holiday.
Would she spend Christmas with her family this year? It was a question that, at
the moment, was impossible to answer. It was still weeks away. There was still a
chance . . .
“Get your head out of the clouds.” Michael ordered, breaking her thoughts.
“You can never be too careful.”
She nodded quickly and came back to the real world. They made their way through
huge throngs of people and tiny clusters, as well, down rows and rows of things
Maria had never seen in her life—and some she never wished to see again.
Michael picked up random items on the way. A new watch. A jacket. A Metallica
CD. He did it so fast that it was barely noticeable, and he stuffed them in the
bag so quickly that Maria hardly even noticed it. He had clearly been doing this
for a long time.
Her heart was pounding the whole time. It vibrated in her ears and slammed
against her chest so much that it was almost painful. Her mind was a whirl of
thoughts, and she tried to push them away, but they always threatened to return.
“Concentrate.” Michael muttered.
She took a deep breath and entered a store entitled Sunny Days. It was full of
clothes that looked like they could have been worn in the sixties. She liked the
style, and she had always wanted to wear those kind of clothes, but they had
always been so expensive. Now, though, it was all hers for the taking if she
wanted it.
The store was crowded, so she had no problem sneaking a few jeans and belts and
shirts into the bag. It was getting pretty fully now. She looked at Michael
questionably.
“Let’s get out of here.” he suggested. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her
away from one of the racks to the entrance to the store. He exited ahead of her,
raising his eyebrows. What did he want? When he eyed the bag in her hands, she
knew. It was the first test. She through it hard and fast at him, and he caught
it. The alarm never went off, so she walked right through, unnoticed.
She had done it. It was the first actual store that they had been in, and she
had done it.
“Never stay in a store too long,” he told her.
“Gee, I don’t even get a congratulations?” she shot back. “I did it, and
all you can say is, ‘Never stay in there too long,’.” She imitated his
voice as best she could.
He ignored her and slowed his pace as she struggled to keep up with him.
“There you go.” he said, pointing to a nearby store that was called Sexy
Slut. In
“That’s not funny.” she told him, eyeing the clothes—if they could be
called clothes—inside.
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
“Then what was it supposed to be?” She kept her voice calm and level. She
didn’t want to cause a scene.
“It’s just, lots of girls like to go in there for stuff sometimes.”
“And why would I do that? It’s not like I have anyone to impress.”
He seemed to be at a loss for words, for once.
“How much do we have?” he finally asked.
“The sack’s full.” she replied.
“Tie it at the top so it doesn’t come undone.” he told her. “We’re
outta here.”
So they pushed back through the crowds at certain displays and though the lines
of people waiting at the front check-out stands. They went through doors with
security alarms easily. Michael went through. Maria through the bag to him. It
really wasn’t that hard, like he had said. In fact, it was incredibly easy. No
one stopped them, and, in no time at all, they were back out in the car. Max and
Kyle were waiting for them.
“How’d it go?” Max asked.
“It went just fine.” Michael told him. “No problems at all.”
Max raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really? What a surprise. Didn’t think
you’d be able to do it.” He said the statement to Maria and Maria only.
“I did.” she told him.
He chuckled. “Fantastic. Now, Guerin, you just gotta teach her how to hold a
gun.”
They were silent as they drove. Max blared the radio on some hard rock station,
forcing everyone to stay awake. Maria felt so tired. She wanted to go to sleep.
She had only gotten a few hours the night before. It was obvious that Kyle and
Michael wanted to go to sleep, too, but that was impossible with the music. Max
kept mumbling something about deer up in the front, and Kyle sat there and
rummaged through their bags, looking over all that they had stolen. Michael
looked out the window, in deep thought, looking as if he wished it were a
different time of day. Maria suspected he didn’t like the daytime. He always
squinted when he looked at the sun, and sometimes he shook his head as he looked
out the window. But, at night, he seemed different, like he was at peace. He was
never at peace during the day. He was always on edge and nervous, anticipating
his next move, but, during the night, he seemed almost happy.
Night.
Last night.
She forced the thoughts to remain. Though they were painful, they reminded her
that Michael Guerin wasn’t worth wasting her time thinking about.
To Michael’s surprise, Max drove to the
nearest strip-club. It wasn’t surprising that Max would want to go to a place
like that. He was almost as bad as Kyle when it came to strippers, but Michael
had thought that they were going to keep driving to get a little farther away
from
“We’ll be in here.” Max announced, getting out of the car and shutting the
door.
“Take your time.” Kyle added as he opened the door and got out as well.
“Where are they going?” Maria asked.
“They’re gonna go screw some strippers while I teach you how to use a
gun.” he told her.
“Where are you gonna teach me?” she asked.
He shrugged. He didn’t know. How was he supposed to answer her when he
didn’t know?
Michael got out of the backseat and went around to the front of the car and got
into the driver’s seat. He adjusted the seat. It was too far forward, and he
adjusted the seatbelt, too, so that it was looser. Maria made no effort to get
up from the backseat.
They drove for a few minutes until Michael spotted what appeared to be an
abandoned warehouse towards the edge of town. They were practically out in the
middle of nowhere, so this would surely be a good place to teach Maria.
“You’re gonna teach me here?” Maria asked.
“Why not?”
She was silent, so he took advantage of her lack of words and got out of the
car. Soon, she reluctantly got out as well.
Michael went around to the back of the van and took a key out of his pocket. He
inserted it into the lock on the back of the van, and it soon clicked. He pulled
it open to reveal the storage compartment.
Maria gasped. “I had no idea you guys had so much.” she said, looking over
the items in the back. She ran her fingers over all of the jewelry that they had
stolen, and tapped the lids of cases where their stolen money was. There were
several duffle bags, too, full of personal items, like clothes and stuff.
Michael rarely used his duffle bag. He carried whatever he needed in his pockets
most of the time.
“It starts piling up after awhile.” he told her. “We have to trash some of
it.”
“Have you stolen all of this?” she asked.
“Yep.” he replied. He doubted there was one item back there that wasn’t
stolen from a store or forced from someone.
“You keep guns in here?” Maria seemed surprised. “I thought you’d be
smarter than that.”
“Where are we supposed to keep ‘em?” Michael asked in return. “We drive
slow and responsibly most of the time. Cops have never given us any trouble.”
“You have drugs in here.” Maria pointed out, eyeing a bag of marijuana
curiously. “Are they yours?”
“No.” he told her honestly. “Sometimes Kyle uses ‘em. Not very often,
though.”
Maria sighed. “I hope they kill him.”
Michael could have laughed if she hadn’t sounded so serious. The girl wasn’t
afraid to speak her mind, not even in front of someone like him. Even matters
like killing and drugs didn’t stop her.
“We should get started.” Michael suggested. He reached inside the van and
found two guns. One was his, the other was a spare. He handed one to Maria. She
flipped it around in her hands at first, and then let her hand play on the
trigger, pointing it at him slightly.
“It’s not loaded.” he told her, rummaging through the van for some
bullets. “Don’t bother trying to shoot
“I wasn’t going to.” she said. “I was just thinking about it.”
He grunted. “You couldn’t kill
“Oh, I could.”
“You could kill Max and Kyle. You couldn’t kill
“What makes you think that?”
“I saved you. Twice, now, in fact. You couldn’t kill me, now, no matter how
badly you want to.”
Reluctantly, she let her fingers fall away from the trigger to examine the rest
of the gun. “That’s not fair.” she complained.
“What?” he asked, finding the bullets stored way in the back.
Her eyes drifted down to the ground. “Sometimes it seems like you know me
better than I know myself.”
His mind spun with the possibilities of what she was trying to say. “Who’s
talking in riddles, now?” he spat. “What’s that supposed to mean.”
“Never mind.” she snapped. “Let’s just get this over with.”
He slammed the trunk shut again and glared at her. “Using a gun isn’t as
simple as stealing.” he informed her. “It’ll take more time. More
practice.”
She sighed. “Great.”
“You should probably change into something else before we start.” he advised
her, surveying her clothing, his jacket.
Maria looked herself over. “Where am I gonna change?” she inquired.
“In the car.”
“There’s no way I’m gonna change in there while you’re standing out
here!” she shrieked.
“What? You want me to come in there with you?” Michael couldn’t help but
mess with her mind.
“No! No!” she shouted. She threw her hands up in the air exasperatedly and
then finally gave in. “Fine. I’ll change in there. Just . . . don’t
look.”
Michael turned his back to the car as she got in. He could hear her rummaging
around inside, cursing when she hit her head on one of the seats. He stifled a
laugh.
At last, though, she had finished. She stepped out of the car in a new outfit,
one that they had stolen at the mall. The jeans were new and tight, clinging to
her body, held up around her hips by a shining silver belt. She had a white
V-Neck on for a shirt that rose above her belly button.
She was cute. Much cuter than that blonde stripper Michael only vaguely
remembered now.
Michael began to walk towards the warehouse. He could hear Maria trudging along
behind him. She mumbled something under her breath that he didn’t catch, for
memories had begun to invade all of his senses as, with each step, he became
closer and closer to changing the girl’s life forever.
He remembered holding his first gun. The feel of it in his hands . . . the cool
metal . . . running his hands over it . . . pressing the trigger . . .
“Here you go, Mikey,” his father had said. “I promised you a gun, didn’t
I?”
Michael had been so excited. Most boys only dreamed of having a gun, and, here
he was, barely even five, and he was holding a gun.
“Just hold it up. Point it at them. Threaten them. They’ll give you anything
if they’re afraid.” His father had given him a big list of instructions that
he already knew before they had entered the bank, but he had just wanted to make
sure that Michael’s first robbery went as planned.
He remembered pointing the gun at the people inside. He remembered the look of
terror on their faces. He remembered the guilt rising inside of him, but he also
remembered looking at his dad, and trying so hard to make him proud.
“Michael?” Maria asked. She was standing in front of him, now, and he
noticed that he had stopped walking. Her eyes were full of askance, but he
pushed past her and kept going. After a bit of hesitance, she followed.
When he entered the warehouse, a foul odor filled Michael’s nose. The place
was definitely abandoned. No one would inhabit such a place.
Maria groaned as the smell hit her, too.
“You’re fine.” he told her. “It’s not that bad.” But even he had to
admit that it was bad. God, how many things had died in there? And what the hell
were they to begin with?
They went up the stairs to find that it didn’t smell quite as bad up higher.
Michael pushed open a tiny door, and it opened up into a tiny room that would be
perfect for practice.
“In here.” he instructed, opening the door wider for her. He didn’t bother
to hold it for her. He walked on inside and surveyed his surroundings.
It reminded him of where his father had taught him how to handle a gun.
It appeared that the room had once been lived in. There was a rickety old bed in
one corner and a tiny table in the other. There were a few items strewn about. A
lamp. A clock. A few books. A picture of a horse standing by the ocean, the
waves curling at its feet, hung by a nail on the wall near the bed.
He tried the lamp, surprised to see that it did work, and told Maria to close
the door and lock it, just in case someone did, by some chance, live there.
There were no windows, so it was impossible for anyone to see in. Not that
anyone would want to.
“Well, this is cozy.” Maria said, sitting down on the bed and bouncing on it
a little, causing the springs to squeak. “The rats I see running around in the
corner don’t bother me at all.” There was a definite hint of sarcasm in her
voice that caused Michael to glance in the direction she was peering. She was
right. There were at least five rats scampering about. Michael raised his gun
and shot them down one at a time without hardly any effort.
When he was done, he turned to Maria to find that she was stiff and tense on the
bed, now, at the sound of the gun. She was trying hard to hide the fear on her
face, but she wasn’t succeeding.
“They’re just rats.” he reminded her. “They were bothering you.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want you to kill them!” she shrieked, getting up from
the bed. “Is that what you people do? You just point your little gun at anyone
or anything that makes you upset and pull the trigger?”
“They’re rats!” he repeated.
“That doesn’t matter!” she shouted back. She got so close to him that he
could feel her breathing mingling with his own. He could feel the heat radiating
from her body traveling through him. “You just killed them and you don’t
even feel bad about it!” Her eyes began to shimmer and sparkle, making their
bright green color appear almost turquoise with tears.
“I’m sorry.” he apologized. It was the only time in his life he could ever
remember apologizing to anyone. “I had no idea you felt that way.”
“I just don’t like guns,” she said before quietly adding, “and killing
and everything that you guys do!” She choked back a tear and then turned so
that her back was to him. “I’m not gonna cry in front of you.” she
whimpered. “I won’t give you that satisfaction.”
“I don’t wanna see you cry.” he told her.
“Then why the hell did you kidnap me in the first place?” she screeched. She
never turned to meet his eyes, and Michael suspected it was because she was
crying now.
He didn’t have an answer to that question, though, so he remained silent.
“Why don’t you just kill me right now?” she continued, getting more and
more choked up by the second. “Point your gun at me and kill me, too.”
“I can’t do that.” he told her. He couldn’t bring himself to kill
someone. Some real, living person, just like he couldn’t bring himself to use
that slut for a few minutes or to rape Maria. He couldn’t let himself be that
hideous person.
“Anything’s better than living like this.”
“It’s not completely bad.” he reassured her. “You get used to it.”
“Well, I don’t wanna get used to it.” she shot back. Suddenly, she spun
around to face him, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “If you won’t kill
me,” she said, “then I will.” She reached out and snatched his gun from
his hands before he could do anything about it.
Her hands shaking violently, Maria pointed the gun at her head and placed her
finger over the trigger.
“No, no, no, don’t!” Michael reached out and grabbed her arms. “You
don’t wanna do that.” he told her. Slowly, he lowered her arms, and removed
the gun from her hand. Her tears began to fall more rapidly, and Michael
didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t good at this, this sympathy, consoling
thing. He had never had any experience with people like that.
So he reached out to her. He placed his hands on her arms, preparing to bring
her to him to embrace her, holding her so close that she might know that he was
there, and that she might learn to trust him somehow, but she backed away as
soon as his skin made contact with hers.
“Don’t touch
So he didn’t. He left her alone and watched helplessly as she sat down on the
bed and cried until her eyes were so dry that she could cry no more.
“We should probably get started.” he suggested for what seemed like the
thousandth time.
She sniffed back some tears and wiped her eyes and cheeks. “Yeah,” she
agreed in a tearful voice that didn’t sound like her at all. “After all, you
don’t wanna die.”
“Either do you.” He surprised himself with the words. He had just seen her
point a gun at her head. She had been ready to pull the trigger, and, now, he
was doubting that. “You don’t really wanna die.” he continued. “You’ve
got a life and a family and friends that you wanna see again someday. You
don’t wanna die.”
She sighed. “See, there you go again. You start saying all these things about
me that even I shouldn’t really know.”
“We’re on the road a lot.” he told her. “I get a lot of time to
think.”
“Obviously.”
He twirled both of the guns around in his hand, waiting for her to get hers.
Finally, she got up off of the bed and strode over towards him. She seized the
gun in her hands and stared at him, waiting for what to do next.
“You’ve gotta load it.” he told her.
She glanced down at the box of bullets on the ground and then back at her gun,
and finally at Michael, a questioning look on her face.
So he told her how to load it, and then watched carefully as she tried it. She
had no problem with it at all, and, at last, they were able to really get
started.
He told her how to hold it, how to point it, and how to aim it. She took a
little longer to get a hold of all of this.
“I can’t do this.” she told him. “I’ve never held a gun in my life.”
“But you don’t wanna die.” he reminded her.
She looked down at the floor. “I guess I don’t.” she gave in.
“Then you have to do this.” he told her. “You don’t have a choice.”
“I don’t seem to have a choice in anything anymore.” she snapped.
“Get used to it.” he told her. “That’s the kind of life you live now.”
The conversation quickly switched to the gun again before things became too
deep. Michael shot at the picture on the wall and hit the horse directly in the
eye. It was an easy shot for him at such a close range, but for Maria, it would
be a real challenge.
“Now just try to hit that exact same spot.” he told her.
She raised her gun and pointed it at the picture, but her aim was all wrong.
“Wait a minute.” he said. “Aim a little below. Sometimes a person jerks
their gun upwards when they shoot.”
She did as he instructed, and, when she shot, she did better. She got the
horse’s neck instead, but it was an improvement.
So they spent forever on t