adventure / sci-fi / drama / romance
Flatiron Angel: Part Thirty Two
T he sound of her restraints snapping brought Rose back to the bloody basement brawl. Her hands freed from the zip ties, she brought the piece of glass around and stabbed at his throat, a stream of hot blood spraying her in the face. The man tossed the crowbar to the side and wrapped his fingers around her neck. He squeezed so hers her eyes bulged out. She stabbed again, and again, twisting the glass inside of him, searching for an artery. Anything to speed up the blood loss. She was already beginning to black out again and he was bleeding on her so much she was choking on it. Rose grappled with his hands, prying one finger from her neck at a time.
“Fuck you,” she stared him down through bloody eyes.
One finger, then two.
“Fuck you bitch…fuck….you.”
His grip went limp and she threw him off of her. She turned to the side and vomited. Her lungs screamed for air but each breath made her choke on her own blood. Turning onto her hands and knees, she tried to spit it all out, but the door to the room was bursting at the hinges. She needed to keep fighting.
She propped herself up up onto her knees then slowly rose to her feet. The whole room was tinted red and Rose blinked away the blood, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She grabbed two shards of glass from the floor and staggered over to the door. Standing in front of it, knees bent, shoulders sagging, she waited.
BOOM.
The door rattled in the frame.
BOOM.
Rose took a step back.
BOOM.
The door flew off the hinges revealing a hallway. A sturdy man wearing suspenders over a white tee was standing there, gun shaking in his hand, looking at Rose like he’d just seen a ghost. Rose bared her teeth and charged, the man opening his clip at the same time.
The first bullet missed. She lunged at him low then smashed the heel of her hand up into his elbow, breaking it at the joint. It bent at a ninety-degree angle and the gun dropped to the floor, firing upon impact, the bullet flying through her ankle.
Rose fell to her knees and drove both pieces of glass into his thighs, dragging them down through his muscles. He crumpled to the ground, yelping like a pup, his hands fumbling to pull his legs back together. Rose slashed his throat to silence him, the yelping replaced with the low moans of a death rattle. She sat back against the wall until her own breathing returned to normal and she could think straight.
The legs of the first man were visible through the doorway, still as anything she’d ever seen. The second man was still struggling through his final moments; his fingers clutched against his throat, the low whisper of death whispering sweet nothings in his ear.
Rose looked down at herself and wondered how in the world she wasn’t dead too. Blood dripped from her fingertips; there wasn’t an inch of her that had escaped the blood bath cleanly. Her eyes turned back to the room she’d been trapped in and landed on the second door. She grunted, pushed back up onto her feet and hobbled over to the door. It wasn’t locked, thank god.
Inside there was an old laundry machine and a utility sink with a hose sticking out of it. Rose stripped down and turned the water on, climbing into the sink and washing herself one part at a time. Her teeth chattered in the ice cold water but she didn’t stop until she was clean. She sprayed off her clothes next then tugged them back on, a feat in itself as her wet skin fought against the wet fabric.
She rifled through Ham Hands pockets and found a wallet with $45 in it but no ID or anything else to give her any clue as to who he was.
The second guy had another $20 in his pocket and a pack of zip ties plus a receipt for the Chinese food he’d brought back for the two of them. The brown paper bag was laying on the floor, noodles spilled out onto the ground, mixing with his blood.
Rose looked inside and found a virgin egg roll. She tore off a chunk and popped it in her mouth.
Not bad.
She pulled out one of the extra zip ties and looped it around her ankle an inch above the bullet wound and pulled tight. Then, without so much as a parting glance, Rose stepped over the dying man, followed the hallway to a set of stairs, and climbed her way back to freedom.
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AUTHOR
Joe Shields
