Chris roars. Using her free hand, she reaches back
to jab her fingers at the man’s face, but he must
have moved and avoids her attack.
Ryan stares down at her again as he unfastens his
belt, unzips his trousers and pulls them down along
with his boxers so they’re slack around his thighs.
Chris strikes with her one free leg but Ryan
catches it and pulls it back, exposing Chris’s inner
thigh and arse.
“No!” Chris’s fingers desperately pull at the arm
across her throat.
The tattooed arm. Something to forget, but it’s
imprinted in her psyche.
Ryan tells his men, “Turn him around. I don’t
want to see his dick.” The strong hands on Chris
tighten further as the other two pull and push at her
legs. She’s exposed, vulnerable. She lashes out
against the constraint. She crawls, attempting to
kneel, but the men pull her thighs and calves out
again.
She can feel the head of Ryan’s hard cock.
“Getting fucked is better than murder, you
fucking poof. Alex Whale will love my gesture.”
He pushes forward and his cock invades Chris’s
arse crack. Chris clenches, resisting and wriggling
and hurting herself in the meantime. Her vision
turns white, mentally blocking what’s happening,
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but images of other attacks and violent sexual
encounters flood her brain. Chris panics and seizes
up, frozen with fear. She’s almost grateful she can’t
see her assailant.
She imagines floating in mid-air and observing
the pathetic display of inhumanity: another
invasion of her person, exposed and on show for the
haters.
The searing pain slashed across their thigh.
Stop.
The pressure is gone. Chris glances back. Strong
hands lift Ryan up and throw him to one side. Out
of the corner of her eye, Chris sees a mass of legs
and arms. She hears grunts and shouts from the
men. She turns around.
“Alex!”
Ryan is standing next to the big man who dwarfs
him. The gangbangers try to hold Alex back, but
that only exacerbates his anger. Like a cornered
animal, Alex’s eyes are on fire. He pushes the two
men aside and throws a punch so impactful it sends
Ryan to the wall with a loud thud. Ryan collapses in
a heap on the floor, blood pouring from his nostrils.
Alex howls, the veins in his neck and arms visible.
He hasn’t finished with the man who moments ago
was trying to violate Chris. He kneels down and
pummels Ryan’s face like a sandbag until it’s a
bloody pulp. It might have been only thirty seconds,
but the damage is done. Ryan’s two men drag Alex
away, back from their unconscious boss on the
floor, but Alex is not going to be stopped. He
morphs into a large wild tiger, growling and
throwing blows at the two thugs, who almost match
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him in size but not power.
Chris pulls her trousers back up and whimpers,
“Alex, stop!”
The two men can barely restrain him. Chris turns
to see Ryan struggling to open his eyes and writhing
in pain. She stares at Alex fighting with the two
men, his arm muscles bulging, but it’s nothing like a
boxing match with rules. They hit each other
messily, two against one, but Alex is holding his
own.
Chris tries again. “Alex, don’t!” She needs to stop
him, but it’s not for Ryan and his men. Alex is on
course to kill someone by accident.
When Chris catches the flash of a hand and an
object with the corner of her eyes, she freezes.
No!
But no sound comes out of her mouth, and she
has no time to find her voice. Chris scrambles over
to Ryan to grasp his hand. Ryan is semi-conscious
at best, yet he holds up the small handgun to aim at
Alex’s back.
Alex is engrossed in his fight with the two larger
men. When Ryan glimpses Chris approaching him,
he moves the gun out of her reach.
Seeing she’s too late to stop Ryan, instead of
reaching for the revolver she staggers closer to Alex,
who has his back to the barrel of the gun.
The split second plays out like a slowed-down
sequence. Still suffering from Chris’s earlier pepper
spray attack, Ryan aims the gun at Alex the best he
can. Chris nears Alex as he frees himself from
another man’s iron grip and finally turns around to
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see why Chris is shouting.
Too late.
Chris stands up fully and puts herself between
Ryan’s extended arm and Alex.
Pop.
Chris always thought the firing of a gun should
sound louder than the click she has just heard. Was
the shot muffled by the screaming? There are other
noises. The men calling out to Ryan to drop the
fucking gun.
Chris can only see one person while everything
else has receded into nothing. She remembers
falling to the floor in front of Alex. Her lower back
feels strange and wet. The movements and light
flash in and out. Alex sinks down in front of her,
talking to her…
~~~
The shot.
The
scene
appears
like
Alex’s
recurring
nightmare, except this time, he can move. All blood
has left Alex’s head and flows out of Chris’s wound.
Chris’s hand covers her waist on the left, where a
stream of blood is seeping through her fingers. Her
eyes are closed; the pain has distorted her features.
On autopilot, Alex finds his phone to dial for the
ambulance, telling them there are two injured
parties.
Alex is vaguely aware of the other men. One takes
the small revolver from Ryan and speeds off.
Another stays with his boss, who stares at Chris and
Alex, rendered speechless by the consequences of
his own actions.
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Alex wraps Chris in his arms as though he’s
holding onto his biggest fear. His recurring
nightmare is no longer about Sam but a doomed
future for him and another person he loves. Chris is
already slender, but right now she feels fragile and
featherlike in his embrace. Her eyes remain shut
and she’s breathing erratically—the greyness of her
skin betrays the massive blood loss. He strokes her
cold face, soothing the pain with tenderness,
paralysed by helplessness.
“The ambulance will be here very soon. How are
you feeling?”
She grips his arm. “It hurts a lot.”
Alex starts to talk. He’s never seen anyone get
shot before. Are you supposed to speak to them? To
keep them awake? Chris’s breaths on his neck are
laboured and intermittent.
“Of course
it does. What did you think you were
doing? Trying to block a fucking bullet?” His voice
sounds surprisingly calm, even though his heart
hurts so much. Why would anyone do this for me?
Chris’s chuckle is weak. “I’m…bodyguard…I…so
love your black widow tattoo.” Is she hallucinating?
She hisses with the sharp pain.
“I didn’t know you’d take the role so literally.”
Alex wishes he could laugh.
“Who…they? Sam…” Chris whispers.
“Yes, Ryan is Sam’s brother.”
Alex moves a little away so he can see Chris’s face;
all colour has drained out of it. She has passed out
because her weight in Alex’s arms has suddenly
increased. They’re both covered in blood now.
Ryan and his crony are talking. Alex avoids their
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gaze and focuses only on Chris.
The wait seems like a millennium. In the back of
the ambulance, as the paramedics hook Chris up to
who knows what, Alex stares at her face. She looks
as though she’s gone to sleep; her ashen cheeks
scare him. At least they’ve pumped her up with
meds so she won’t feel the pain for now.
Another time, on the way to emergency, he’d
screamed so loud he lost his voice for days. They
gave him an injection at one point. Why didn’t you
let me die instead?
Blue and green scrubs whizz Chris away as soon
as they arrive at the emergency room. Alex is left in
the corridor. He can focus on nothing but the
hurrying legs of the nurses and doctors wheeling the
trolley down the white-tiled floor. He stares after
them when they refuse to let him go with Chris.
“Sir. Sir.” The receptionist has been calling Alex
for a while.
He turns and approaches the desk.
She hands over a clipboard with a form and a pen
attached. “Could you fill this out, please?”
Alex takes it and tries to focus on the words, but
the world has blanked as if he’s gone blind.
“I…” He glances around. Ryan’s underling is on
the phone. No doubt word will have gone back to
Sam Taylor senior.
He looks at the form again and the various boxes.
They had a drink on her birthday, but Alex can’t
remember the exact date. He writes down Chris’s
name and address and hands the board back to the
woman behind the counter.
“Is he your friend? You don’t know much about
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him, do you?” She glances at the registration and
frowns.
I don’t even know her date of birth or anything
about her medical history. He hesitates. Who’s
Chris to him? “I’m her boyfriend. I just can’t
remember her birthday.”
“Her?” She reads the form again where Alex has
ticked the ‘M’ box for gender since it’s designed for
the binary world.
As if explaining to himself, rather than to the
staff, Alex states, “Chris prefers her some days.”
The receptionist’s eyes widen, but before she can
respond, another crisis unfolding next to Alex
catches her attention. Someone with a serious head
wound has been brought in. She hurriedly asks,
pointing to the bottom of the form, “This is your
name? Alexander Whale?”
Alex nods.
Her focus is already elsewhere. “Waiting room’s
over there.”
Alex moves to a bank of plastic chairs and sits
down. It might be minutes or hours later when Dex
occupies the seat next to him. Alex can’t remember
calling him. Dex puts his big hand on Alex’s
shoulder.
“You all right, son?”
Alex stares at his hands and the spot in front of
his seat. “No. Chris took a bullet for me.”
“You said it was your ex-brother-in-law. How bad
was it?”
Alex shakes his head. “I don’t know. It went
through her waist. I don’t think it’s the kidney or
any vitals. I hope not. She’s lost a lot of blood,
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though, so I couldn’t tell.”
Dex leans forward to look Alex over, prompting
him to notice the blood drying and darkening on his
clothes. Dex lifts Alex’s hand, twisting it from side
to side. Alex’s knuckles are raw and caked in blood.
“You should get that seen to.”
Tears swim in Alex’s eyes. “Chris tried to protect
me. She could die because of me.”
Dex clears his throat, opens his mouth a couple of
times. “The receptionist said the patient’s a young
guy. You’re dating a man?”
Alex cocks his head. “Chris sometimes thinks
they’re a woman.” That has come out wrong, but
Alex doesn’t have the words for it at that moment to
explain the fluidity of Chris’s gender.
“He has a penis, doesn’t he?” Dex nods, as though
he’s convincing himself. “Then you’re having a
relationship with a man unless he’s one of those…
transsexuals?”
Alex looks over to Dex. “I wouldn’t say that to
Chris’s face if I were you.”
Coach’s mouth forms an ‘O’, but there’s respect
there for what Chris did.
A dark shadow looms over Alex. He looks up to
see Sam Taylor senior and some of his men
standing like a brick wall in front of him. His ex-
father-in-law is dressed in his usual sharp business
suit. He stares hard at Alex, a massive frown
between his brows. The dark, wild hair is now
peppered with white strands. Taylor is not tall, but
there’s something fierce about the man that
demands attention.
Alex is Taylor’s daughter’s killer and now he’s
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beat up his son pretty bad. The latter, though, was
provoked by what he saw when he came home from
work. If Alex had a bit less self-control, Ryan would
be dead by now.
When Sam Taylor speaks, the harsh tobacco
behind the voice hits Alex in the guts.
“I should have known the first time you came into
my house that you’re fucking trouble.”
Alex met Samantha when they were nine years
old—in the same class in primary school. He opens
his mouth to speak, but Sam puts his hand up. “I
know what went down. Who’s that in emergency
surgery?”
Alex swallows. “My boyfriend.”
He is not going to have a third conversation about
Chris’s gender tonight, and certainly not with a gang
boss from Essex whose son he’s beaten to a pulp.
“So, what my men told me was true. You’re now a
fag. You surprise me, Alexander.” He turns to Dex.
“You know about this, Coach?”
The older man shakes his head. “It’s all news to
me as well.”
Sam’s sharp eyes flicker with contemplation. He
leans down to keep his voice low. “No one’s going to
find the weapon. If they do, I have men who can
identify the shooter.
You got that?”
Alex stares at him and slowly nods.
“We’re even on this one, but Ryan’s mother’s
upset.”
Alex knows Sam’s mum well. She is as tough as
her husband, but these few years have been hard on
her. Alex feels bad for what he’s done to her
daughter and now her son.
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“Please tell Jean I’m sorry.” He can’t apologise for
thrashing Ryan. In fact, he and Ryan got on fine
before the car accident. They weren’t exactly like
brothers, but they respected each other enough as
in-laws went.
“Ryan will live. From what I heard, he deserved
it.”
Alex nods.
Sam’s facial expression is unreadable for a few
seconds before his frown deepens. “Cancel your
match with Lewis Keane. We don’t want any more
media attention on the family.”
Alex swallows. He thinks about it briefly, but he
has no option but to accept Sam’s truce. “Consider it
done.”
He gazes intently at the gang boss, neither
resentful nor grateful for the man’s discretion
because Ryan and his henchmen had started it.
Before Alex needs to say more, Taylor leaves as
abruptly as he appeared.
Dex, having witnessed the whole exchange, pats
Alex on his back as if to console him. Alex wonders
how long he’s going to be waiting before they tell
him how Chris is. He has already bothered the
reception desk of the surgical unit enough. He
wants to pace like a caged animal, though he’s
considerate enough about the other people in the
waiting room not to do it. Dex keeps them both in
coffee supply.
Alex has lost track of time when more pairs of
legs appear in front of him.
He lifts his head. Four police officers line up in
front of him, officious in their black uniforms and
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white shirts and felt hats, their hands on the batons.
What the fuck?
“Alexander Whale. Metropolitan Police. You’re
under arrest for assault. You do not have to say
anything, but it may harm your defence if you do
not mention when questioned something which you
later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be
given in evidence. Do you understand?”
Alex takes a deep breath and nods once. He can
remember being read the rights five years ago like it
was yesterday. An officer holds out a pair of
handcuffs. Without protest, Alex lets him put the
cuffs around his bloodied fists.
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CHAPTER 14