I was about to say something that would call attention to how unfair the numbers were when something excruciatingly painful exploded in the middle of my back. I fell to my knees and then to the ground. I turned around, and sure enough, Big Red Ron was standing there holding a baseball bat, sporting a shit-eating grin. He raised the bat again.
I hate when that happens.
Ron looked like a kid ready to hit the crap out of a piñata. He was the
deranged kid and I was the piñata. Already, I figured he had done some serious damage to me. He had either chipped my vertebrae, cured my kidney, or both.
As he wheeled back to take another swing, and as I was about to dive under the nearby SUV, we both heard a commotion coming from down the street. He stopped in mid-swing, and I stopped in mid-dive and promptly coughed up some blood.
And while I coughed, a van appeared around the corner, screeching on two
tires. Three guys in black trench coats hung out of the open van doors, whooping and hollering at the top of their lungs. I had just propped myself up on a knee when the van burst over the curb. It bounced and skidded to a halt, tearing up the lawn next to me.
You have got to be kidding me. What the hell did I just get myself into?
All of the doors to the van seemingly opened at once, and three guys poured out of the van, all wearing trench coats and looking as if they had just gotten back from a Marilyn Manson concert. Oddly, they looked alike: tall, pale, and with long, greasy black hair.
I coughed, and more blood came up. I stood slowly. I think Ronnie boy had
cracked a rib, too. As I stood, I felt a gentle hand under my elbow, helping me.
Say what? I looked, surprised, wanting to know who it was. Dera! She smiled at me, but the smile quickly faded. Her eyes flashed a warning in the direction of the death rock trio.
As I steadied myself, the tallest of the van freaks--easily seven feet tall--
rushed over to Dera, who was still holding my arm. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. She pulled me with her a little, and I spun, too, nearly falling.
The giant weirdo said, and none too politely: "What the hell are you doing at this meathead party? I warned you to stay away."
She stood her ground, looking up at the guy. "You think I wanted to come to this party? One of these assholes drugged me at the club, kidnapped me, and brought me here."
A woman got out of the driver's side of the van. She had dark reddish-maroon hair and was paler than all the guys put together. She was stunning. She too wore all black, but it looked like a jumpsuit, and she had a bullwhip in her hand.
She cracked it in the air for effect, not hitting anyone, but it was one of the
sexiest things I had ever seen. Hot damn. This night was just getting better and better.
"They drugged you?" asked the tall guy, I assumed.
But before she could answer, one of the frat guys yelled out, "Hey, Freak
Show! Get your fucking van off my lawn or I'm calling the police."
"Who said that?" Randy asked, scanning the crowd, which was pretty easy for him to do since he was the tallest guy I had ever seen up close.
A muscular guy came forward. "I did," he said. "Now get your fucking
van off my grass or I'm going stick my foot deep in your bony ass." Ready turned away, ignoring him. He took both of Dera's shoulders in his
abnormally large hands. "Did they hurt you?"
Dera looked away. There were tears in her eyes. Hell, there were tears in my
eyes, too. "Almost."
I looked at Ron. He was standing with his back to me, holding the bat loosely, completely absorbed by the three strangers. My sit-up robbed me of the rhythm of my heartbeat.
The tall guy said, "So, which one of these young men thought it would be
okay to drug a young woman and take advantage of her?"
Without hesitation, Dera pointed at Ron, who stepped back a little and
gripped his baseball bat. "Hey, man, I don't know what she's talking abo
course not," said Randy. "Dera, get in the van and shut the door." He
looked back at Ron. "My little ginger-haired friend is going to be taught the correct way to treat a lady."
Dera grabbed the tall guy's hand. "Randy, please. Someone already took care of it. Just let it go."
Ron, hearing this, took a step back. He also raised the bat again. Ready
continued looking at RI and can see that someone did some damage to the
boy."
"Who are you calling boy, punk?" Ron jutted the fat part of the sit-ups
the direction of the tall figure.
Randy's face hardened. He looked back at Dera. "Get in the van. Now."
Dera looked at me one more time, tried to smile, and then hurried over to the van. I want to say something, but I'll admit, I was awkwardly caught up in the scene. Besides, Dero know these weirdos and didn't seem afraid. Or, at least, she seemed less afraid.
I had been in enough brawls to knit-ups one was about to go down, and I was pretty fought out for the evening. Getting hit with a bat has a way of doing that to you.
I told myself: This is none of your business. Leave now before this gets it-ups easier said than done. For now, it was all I could do to suck in a deep breath, let alone walk away. Besides, there was the small matter of a little payback.
Let it go, I thought. And get the fuck out of here.
"So, you play baseball, Fatty?" Ready asked Ron. From somewhere deep
inside the tall man's trench coat, he removed a length of chain.
A woman in the crowd gasped. A lot of people did. Dera was watching from
the front seat. She looked sick.
Ron dropped the bat. "Look, no harm, no foul. You guys can just go."
"Oh, we can?" Randy began circling Ron. The chain hung limply from his
long arm. "How very generous of you."
"Please--"
"If only life could be so simple, Red."
"My Ron."
"Thanks for clearing that up, Red. So, you met a pretty young girl at a bar,
slipped something in k when she wasn't looking, and thought that you
and your buddies would do the unthinkable to her. But, somehow, your plans didn't quite go as planned." Ready smiled at his little play on words.
Ron gulped audibly.