The other man says turning back to see where his fellow soon to be felon is. He has one hand on the horizontal bar to exit the diner and the other holding the money, having stuffed his ‘gun’ back in his pocket now that the robbery is complete.
Almost.
I dive at him with everything I’ve got, slamming his body into the glass, shattering it into a million pieces as the door comes off its hinges and we fall onto the concrete in front, his body breaking my fall.
“How dare you point a gun at an innocent, and a woman!” I snarl, oblivious to the glass lodged in my hands as I pound his face to a pulp.
After three hits his entire body goes limp and I stop, brace myself with one hand on one knee and stand.
I’m covered in blood and I don’t know which is mine and which is his, but I do know I need to get the hell outta here. Pronto.
“Dixon?” the other man on the floor says, his face badly swollen as he tries to identify me through one eye, which I quickly put my boot in the second I hear police sirens in the distance.
“Give me your apron!” I say to Diana’s co-worker, not wanting to talk to Diana right now as it might reveal that we have a familiarity outside of the restaurant.
“What?” she asks, clearly not with it, probably in a low-grade shock.
I grab it from her body and quickly tie the hands of the man on the floor, before turning to the chef.
“You got security footage?”
“None. Boss been meaning to put it in, but never did.”
I nod. “Just tell the police the truth then.”
I avoid eye contact with Diana, knowing she’s safe, and beat feet into the parking lot, making sure there’s not a getaway car, or motorcy
cle I missed.
Nothing.
I dart down an alley, stripping my shirt and tossing it into a dumpster as the sirens grow louder…as does the sound of my breathing.
But I don’t stop, just keep running. To where, I don’t know.
But I do know I’ll be back…for her.
9
Diana
I climb onto my futon for bed, my head still spinning from the events of the morning.
First, I’m in complete bliss from the day before, just working away, whistling, life is great.
Then there’s a robbery, which is expertly thwarted by Daniel with skills so precise and fast it’s like he knew what to do. Like he was trained for this.
Then the police came, took statements, and shut us down for the day, but not before word got out the guns were fake.
What the heck?
And just when things couldn’t get any stranger, there’s a knock…on my window.
I jump up, and rush to my purse for the pepper spray before I hear, “Don’t pepper spray me, Little Peaches.”
“Don’t Little Peaches me,” I say, taking the pepper spray in hand anyway. It’s clear Daniel is well equipped in the art of fighting, having proven it not once but twice, and I’m not about to be his lucky third victim.
“Let me in.”