I snorted, feeling the back of my skull. I had some shards of glass and some blood, but I seemed to have avoided the absolute worst possibilities.
“A fucking guardian angel,” I said. “Or, judging by the design on the back of his jacket, a guardian reaper.”
Tara stared at me. I ignored her.
“We should call 9-1-1,” I said. “Won’t do a damn bit of good, but the owner will fire me if he finds out I tried to be a vigilante.”
* * *
Five minutes later, I sat outside the store on the small concrete platform just above the street. Tara had refused to leave until she made sure that I was treated or at least alert enough to defend myself if I needed to. Elizabeth had locked herself in their car, the safest place in the immediate vicinity.
I was on the phone with the Santa Maria Police, which meant that I was on the phone with a woman named Karen, who handled dispatching for Sheriff Davis and one other cop, a local named Officer Cone. The town was small enough that Sheriff Davis and Officer Cone handled all the crimes, but that seemed like a stupid shortfall; anyone who knew how to run crimes would just launch multiple attacks at once.
Unfortunately, “anyone who knew” was better said as “any gang, like the Bandits, who knew.” I was far from the only person to plead with Sheriff Davis for more officers, but I didn’t think they wanted to split the department budget with any new hires.
It was a town that did not protect and serve; it suppressed and fed those who were lucky enough to be in cahoots with each other.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” Karen said, her California vocal fry so easily recognizable it was practically burned into my skull.
“Hi, Karen, it’s Brock,” I said. “We just had the gas station robbed. Can you send out the sheriff or Officer Cone?”
“Is the robbery in progress?”
Well, here goes the immediate police response.
“No, they’ve already left.”
“OK, we will send someone out as soon as we can to do an investigation.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, hanging up before I had even finished my words.
I could not depend on the local police force to protect myself, the store, or anyone I cared about. I didn’t expect state or federal agents to come in here anytime soon.
I had to protect myself.
But I had to make sure I had backup behind me so when the Bandits invariably sent a second wave or the sheriff on me, I’d have some help to make sure I wasn’t fucked with.
That was what the boys could do. This incident would finally—hopefully—get their asses together.
“Any luck?”
I looked up at Tara. She had been unharmed. I suspected, though I said nothing out loud, that the Bandits had left her alone because their target was me. The attack on Elizabeth had been nothing more than taking advantage of my self-imposed duty to help others in need.
Otherwise, Elizabeth and Tara would be in the back of a nondescript white van.
That, and I think the Bandits knew that it was one thing for the public to turn a blind eye to robberies, drunkenness, and tomfoolery; it was a very different thing to take two young girls who had just come to pump some gas.
Two young girls of one of the richest families around, at that.
And I know all too well that the town will come down on harming a woman. All too well…
“Of course not,” I said. “Fucking Sheriff just wants to suck his own cock and sit on the sidelines.”
“He can’t be that—”
“Tara,” I said.
She stopped. I rose from the concrete, dusted myself off, and ran my hand back through my hair. Every time I did that, another piece of glass seemed to come out. At least the bleeding had stopped.
