Sonya realized there was a crowd gathering across the street. The vendors had stopped hawking their wares. The guy in the sweater vest waved his arms dramatically, no doubt telling everyone who’d listen about what he saw inside the café. Passersby stopped in their tracks to see what the commotion was about.
“Ha!” Grafton’s laugh echoed around the empty café. “What were you hoping? To break the glass and yell for help? Three! Two!”
“Run!” Angel roared, springing upright while wrestling one leg of the table onto his shoulder so it rose with him and created a cumbersome, rectangular shield. Sonya was right on his heels as he charged across the café, headed for the spiderwebbed window.
Another round slammed into the table. The boom of the weapon and the crack of wood seemed to happen simultaneously. And then crash! The corner of the table hit the cracked glass and shattered it. Shards rained down around Sonya’s head and shoulders. Angel yelled, “Jump!”
She didn’t need to be told twice. After hopping with him over the foot-high windowsill, the two of them stood on the glass-strewn sidewalk, half of Chisinau gathered on the other side of the street, eyeing them in open-mouthed surprise. If she wasn’t mistaken, a few cell phones were aimed in their direction.
“Run!” Angel bellowed again before Charles could move into position to fire another round at their backs. Since her fingers were still securely wrapped around Angel’s belt loop, she didn’t have much choice. She was jerked into a sprint behind him as he took off down the sidewalk.
The man was fast. No doubt about it. By the time they rounded the end of the block and ducked into an alleyway, the muscles in her legs burned and her lungs felt like the colony of fire ants had moved from her eyeballs into her bronchioles.
“What now?” she gasped, shoving her hands on her knees and bending at the waist, fighting for air. Fragments of glass fell from her hair to land on the dirty pavement. If she’d known she would be running for her life, she might have rethought her footwear. Kitten heels were not meant for speedy getaways. She could already feel the beginnings of a blister on her left heel.
“We need a car.” He pointed to a dilapidated four-door that was minted sometime in the 1970s. It was more rust than metal, and one window was missing. A black garbage bag was taped over the hole.
“That thing looks like a fart,” she told him, still blowing like a winded racehorse.
“A fart?”
She glanced up to see a smile spread across his face. Holy Scheisse! She nearly fell to her knees. The sound that slipped from her open mouth was a cross between a humorless laugh and a half sob.
“What?” He looked concerned.
“Oh, nothing. Just that smile. I mean, I don’t want to piss on your bliss, but you should only whip it out when our lives are on the line. It’s a deadly weapon.”
His eyebrow arched before he jogged over to the… Sonya wasn’t going to call it a car. The rust bucket was too pathetic to deserve that title. Trying the driver’s side door, he found it unlocked. Sonya wasn’t surprised. With the missing window, what would be the point?
“Get in.” He motioned for her to climb into the passenger seat.
Since the hunk of junk was parked close to the alley wall, she had to clamber in through the driver’s side and gracelessly make her way over the gearshift. She knew she gave him an eyeful of ass, but if he noticed, he didn’t show it as he plopped down behind the wheel and ripped the plastic away from the steering column.
“Think it’ll start?” She wrinkled her nose at the smell of spilled oil, mildew, and something that reminded her of moldy cheese.
Glancing around the interior of the vehicle, she discovered it was as bad as the exterior. The back seat was slashed to ribbons. Foam and springs poked up through vinyl that might have been blue once upon a time, but had since faded to a sad, dirty-looking gray. The floorboard beneath her feet had rusted through. She could see the trash-strewn pavement of the alleyway below.
Wonderful. If it didn’t start, she could push her legs through the hole and Flintstone them to wherever they needed to go.
“I have big balls, but unfortunately neither of them is crystal,” Angel said.
Sonya stopped her survey of the jalopy to gape at him. “Did you just make a joke?”
There was that smile again. It landed in her chest and detonated like a bomb.
“What did I tell you?” She pointed at his face. “Only in life-and-death situations.”
Crash!
The back windshield exploded. She ducked the flying glass, then glanced over her shoulder to see Grafton and Charles barreling down the alleyway toward them.
“Like now!” she yelled.
Angel didn’t say a word, simply gritted his teeth and sparked together the two wires he’d managed to strip with the edge of his thumbnail. The jalopy’s engine huffed and sputtered, but miraculously turned over on the second try. It wasn’t a healthy sound by any means, but Sonya wasn’t complaining.
Thunk!
Another round hit the body of the rust bucket at the same time Angel worked the clutch and shoved the vehicle into gear. Stomping on the gas, he left twin strips of rubber on the alleyway as he peeled out. A visual fuck you to Grafton and Charles.
