The tape continued, and I watched myself try to pull away from Raz, watched Raz hit me in the face with the butt of the knife, snapping my head back.
The three of us sucked in air when I got hit. There was a moment of suspended animation where Raz stepped back and I gathered myself together. What followed was pure instinct on my part. I brought my heel down on his instep as hard as I could, catching him by surprise. He bent slightly to look at his foot, and I kicked him in the face.
“Whoa!” Gooley said. “Ow.”
Raz tackled me at knee level, we went down, and it turned into a catfight. He was trying to punch me, and I was scratching and biting. I grabbed his hair and kneed him in the nuts.
“Cripes,” Berger said. “That had to hurt.”
I saw myself reach for the knife, wrap my hand around it, and slash at Raz, catching him in the leg, opening a twelve-inch gash in his thigh.
“Holy shit,” Berger and Gooley said in unison.
Raz reached for his injured leg, and I scrambled to my feet. He was in a semi-fetal position, trying to protect his nuts and the knife wound, and I kicked him as hard as I could in the kidneys a bunch of times.
Gooley and Berger leaned forward, eyes wide.
“Fuck,” Gooley said.
Raz rolled away, managed to get to his feet, catapulted himself into the van, and slammed the door shut. I was waving the knife and ye
lling when he drove away.
“I need to go home and change out of these clothes,” I said. “Is there anything else?”
“I’m good,” Berger said.
“Yeah, me, too,” Gooley said. “I got nothing. I might need some air. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my lunch when you kicked him that last time.”
“I felt threatened,” I said by way of explanation.
• • •
There were no scary cars in my parking lot. No black Town Car, no van, no Scion. I limped into my building and let myself into my apartment. I stood in the kitchen, stripped down naked, stuffed all my clothes into a big plastic garbage bag, and set the bag by the door. The clothes were beyond washing. They were going down the trash chute.
I limped into my bathroom and stood under a hot shower until all the blood was washed away and I stopped sobbing. I had no idea why I was crying. I mean, it wasn’t like I lost the fight, right? I shampooed my hair and lathered up one last time. I got out of the shower, avoided looking at myself in the mirror, and wrapped myself in a towel.
I stepped into my bedroom and came face-to-face with Ranger.
He did a slow, full-body scan. “Babe.”
“Do not tell me I’m a train wreck.”
“Have you seen yourself?”
“No.”
He handed me a fresh ice pack. “You need to keep this on your face. Has a doctor looked at your nose?”
“No. Do you think I should get it X-rayed or something?”
“Can you breathe?” Ranger asked. “Are you in pain?”
“Yes, I can breathe. And it hurts about as much as the rest of me.”
“You have some minor swelling. Other than that, it looks okay. If things change, you should get it checked out.”
“How did you know I was attacked?”