Night's Favour (15 page)

“Last time I heard a challenge like that, I woke up chained to a lamppost.”
 
Val thought for a moment.
 
“You’re on.”

Danny giggled, then poured them both more wine.
 
“Yeah.
 
We’re all a chemical mix.”

“What about love?
 
What about poetry?”

“It’s from the chemicals.
 
Trust me, a few more bottles of this wine and you’ll sing, dance, and write the best sonnet of your life.
 
You’ll also hate yourself in the morning.”

“Personal study.”

“What?”

“You’ve got a degree in chemicals.
 
Marine biology.
 
Whatever.”
 
Val waved his wine glass.
 
“You work in a bar.
 
Only reason you’d do that is if you want to learn something you can’t learn somewhere else.”

“I could just be another sciences major who can’t get a job.”

“A bum?”

“I’m not like you.”

“I can tell.
 
No really — sciences majors get jobs just fine.
 
It’s lawyers who can’t get jobs, especially if they’ve got morals.”

“Ouch.”

“Truth hurts.
 
Yeah.
 
You’re studying something.”

Danny nodded at him, her smile fading a little.
 
“Funding’s hard to get.”

“What is it?”

“Viruses.
 
Bacteria.”
 
Danny swallowed another mouthful of steak.
 
“Things that go bump in the night in the ocean.”

“Fish get sick?”
 
Val tried the fries.

“Everyone gets sick.
 
Fish don’t have government healthcare.”

“I’m not sure government healthcare is all it’s cracked up to be.
 
You’re trying to work out how they get sick?”

“They get sick a lot like we do.
 
I’m trying to work out how to make them better, especially when we keep shitting in their ocean and killing them all.”

Val looked down at his plate.
 
“I’m glad I didn’t order the fish special.”

Danny pointed at him with her knife.
 
“You’d never get to second base ordering fish around me.”

“I’m not sure we’re at first base yet!”
 
Val looked into his wine glass.
 
“Or do I just not remember?
 
I’m sure I’d remember something like that.”

Danny pushed her plate away.
 
“I’m stuffed.”

“No room for dessert?”

She looked at him, head tipped sideways.
 
“Are you crazy?
 
There’s always room for dessert.”

☽ ◇ ☾

The night was chilly around them, and Danny hugged his arm.
 
“I’ve had a really good time tonight.”

“Me too.”
 
Val grinned into the darkness.
 
“A really good time.”

She looked up at him.
 
“Feel like walking me home?”

“I’d like that.”
 
Ahead of them, a small group of people — men — were grouped around a young woman.
 
Val watched them without really paying attention.
 
“You got work tomorrow?”

“You see those guys?”

“What?
 
Yeah.”

“I think that girl doesn’t want to be with them.”

She is not pack
.

Val looked at the group again.
 
“I’m not sure.”

“How can you not be sure?
 
Fine.
 
Look, I’ll show you.”
 
Danny detached herself from his arm, striding towards the group.

“Fuck.”
 
Val followed her, an uncertain two or three steps behind.

“Why don’t you leave her alone?”
 
Danny looked up at them, fists clenched on hips.
 
The line was so clichéd as to be laughable, but no one laughed.

The biggest one of them, a tremendously ugly man sporting a green mohawk, leered down at her.
 
“Look what we have here!”

One of his friends sniggered, the chains joining the piercings in his ears to his lips jingling.
 
“First time I’ve seen a guy hide behind his girl.”
 
Chains sniffed.

Val reached to put his hand on Danny's shoulder.
 
“Maybe we should —”

She shook him off.
 
“What, it takes four of you to handle a girl?”

Mohawk looked at her, then at Val.
 
“Man, you should get your bitch under control.
 
Someone might get hurt.”

“Uh, yeah —”

Danny held out her hand to the young woman.
 
Now they were closer, Val could see the tracks of tears down her face.
 
“Come on.
 
We’ll take you home.”

A man behind the girl, decked out in ripped denim, grabbed the young woman’s shoulder.
 
She struggled against his grip.
 
Denim sniggered.
 
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”

The fourth man, the hair on his arms curling out from a faded Metallica T-shirt, looked at Mohawk.
 
“This is taking too long.
 
This part of town?
 
We’ll get seen.
 
C’mon.”

Danny tried to shoulder through the group to reach the young girl.
 
It was such an unexpected movement that it almost worked.
 
If Val could have picked a moment where it all went wrong, it was right there, the moment in time where her hand touched Mohawk’s chest, where she turned the motion into a shove.
 
It wasn’t much, she was barely brushing past him, but Mohawk was already pumped.

Val was just two or three steps behind her — such a short distance.
 
He started to move forward, but he was never going to make it in time.
 
He knew that.
 
On his first step forward, he could see Mohawk’s expression change from confusion to anger.
 
On his second step, he saw Mohawk’s raised arm swinging.
 
His third step was too late.

Pack
.

Danny's body staggered back as Mohawk’s backhand hit the side of her face.
 
Val couldn’t be sure but it looked like the blow caught her on the jaw, her head whipping around.
 
She didn’t make a noise as her body slammed into wall of a building, the back of her head hitting the old bricks.

Mohawk’s body pinwheeled away, rising up through the air and slamming into the same brick wall, a stream of blood and teeth following his short flight through the air.
 
He hit the wall with an audible crack, one of his arms caught up between his body and the wall, and bounced back off onto the pavement.
 
Val looked down at his fist, the blood on his knuckles bright in the street lights.
 
He hadn’t remembered swinging his arm.

Danny had started to slump down the wall.
 
Val’s lips curled into a snarl.
 
Two more steps took him to Chains, who sidestepped Val’s wild swing with a boxer’s grace.
 
He returned the volley with two quick body rips to Val’s ribs.
 
Val grabbed the lapels of his jacket, the muscles of his forearms bunching like big, fat cables and yelled in his face.
 
Then he brought his forehead down with a crunch onto the bridge of Chains’ nose.
 
The man was still jerking uncontrollably as Val let his body fall to the ground.

Metallica looked between Val and Mohawk.
 
One glance was all it took to take two more steps.
 
“Hey —”
 
Whatever he’d been about to say was lost as one of Val’s fists slammed into his stomach, doubling him over.
 
Val’s other fist hammered into his back, and his body hit the pavement so hard his head bounced against the ground.

Denim had the young woman — barely a teenager, really — in front of him as a shield.
 
He had her hair gripped in one hand, a tiny knife in the other against her throat.
 
“Back off man!
 
Just back off.”

Val caught himself.
 
Something inside him wanted to step forward, to crush this puny man who’d hurt one of his —

Pack
.

Val shook his head.
 
He couldn’t think straight.

“That’s right man!
 
Now I’m just gonna walk out of here.
 
Don’t follow me!”
 
Denim’s eyes were wide and wild, his eyes darting to the bodies of his friends.

Val looked down at them, then back up to the girl.
 
She wasn’t much older than Tulip.
 
Her eyes were screwed up tight, the runs of mascara stark against her cheeks.
 
She was babbling something that sounded like, “Please please please please please…”

Saliva streamed down Val’s chin.
 
He didn’t notice.
 
He took a step forward.
 
Denim’s knife hand jerked closer to the girl’s neck, and she let out a small cry.
 
“Back the fuck off!”

What if it were Tulip?
 
How would he explain it to her father?

She is not pack
.
 

Val absently wiped his chin with his arm.
 
It came away slick with drool.
 
He brought it up in front of his face, staring at it as if it was someone else’s arm attached to his shoulder.
 
It hit him like a slap, and he shook his head again.
 
He stared down at the bodies around him.
 
Did I do that?
 
He looked back at the girl.
 
Her eyes were screwed up tight.
 
She was so young.
 
What was I about to do?

He lowered his arm, tried to speak.

“What?”
 
Denim’s knife was shaking, bright and darting like a moth around a flame.

“I said, ‘What then?’
 
When you walk out of here.”

“I’m gone, motherfucker.
 
I’m out.”

Val nodded.
 
“Right, right.”
 
He sighed.
 
“Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired.
 
We all just want to get home.”

“What the fuck you talking about?”
 
Denim stepped backwards, dragging the girl with him.

Val took a step forward, his eyes on the knife.
 
“Well, when you get out there,”
 
and he gestured to the empty streets behind Denim, “It’s going to look funny you dragging some teenage girl around by the hair.
 
If I saw that, well, I’d probably call the cops or something.”

Denim looked at his hand in the girl’s hair.
 
He let her hair go, then grabbed the back of her dress.
 
“See?
 
Doesn’t matter.
 
I still got her.”

“You think that’s better?”

“What?”

“It’s not that you’ve got her hair.”
 
Val nodded at her.
 
“It’s that you’re a thirty-something guy with gang tats holding a teenage girl and a knife.
 
I don’t know how far you’ve got to walk.
 
You can’t really call a cab.
 
If you’ve got a —”

“I’ve got my own wheels, asshole.”

“If you’ve got a car around here somewhere, how you going to drive the car with a screaming girl in it?
 
It’s not like the movies, she can just get out at a set of lights or something.”

“Bitch!”
 
Denim shook the girl.
 
“You do that, I’d cut you —”

“Hey!”
 
Val’s voice lowered again.
 
“You don’t have to cut anyone.
 
You can just walk away.
 
By yourself, well, you’re mobile.
 
Nothing holding you down.
 
No one notices you.
 
Even if you’re running, you’re just some guy late for his bus.”

Denim looked at the knife.
 
“No one notices me?”

“That’s right.
 
A block away, there’s nothing to tie you to this.
 
But take the girl —”

“If I take the girl, everything goes to shit.”

Val waited it out.
 
He wanted Denim to make up his own mind.

“Ok man!”
 
Denim licked his lips.
 
“Ok.
 
Just be cool.”

“I’m cool.”
 
Val looked at his hands, turning them over in font of him.
 
He wasn’t even shaking.
 
“When you’re ready.”

“I’m going to walk out of here.
 
You’re not going to follow me!”

“That’s right.
 
I’m not going to follow you.
 
As long as you let her go.”

“Right.”
 
Denim looked at the knife in his hand.
 
“But I’m taking the knife!”

“Sure man.
 
It’s your knife.”

Denim pushed the girl at Val, then turned and ran.
 
Val caught her, then held her at arm’s length.
 
“Are you ok?”
 
She was sobbing, great gasping breaths coming in between the tears.
 
“Shh now.
 
It’s going to be alright.
 
Look, let’s go over here and check on my friend —”

Two squad cars burned down the street towards them, lights on but sirens silent.
 
He watched them come.
 
“Thank Christ.
 
The good guys.”