Because through some complicated mat work, she suddenly yanked away and jumped back onto her feet.
“Nice try, bitch,” Curtis hissed, grabbed the backs of her legs and pulling hard, making her lose her balance and fall backward, crashing down on the ground with a hiss at the impact.
It was in a blink he grabbed her and flipped her onto her stomach. Which, I remember her telling me back in the day, was what Aunt Lo called the “rape position.” Because you never wanted to give up your back. It limited your chances to get away. It made it easier to overpower you.
Which was exactly what was on Curtis’s mind as he pressed all his weight into the backs of her thighs and reached out to grab the waistband of her pants.
“Let’s give your man a little show, shall we?” Curtis asked. “He’s going to love hearing you scream.”
I was behind him then, and he was too distracted with his imagined victory that he hadn’t heard or felt me move in.
Not until, at least, I had a handful of his hair and a knife to his throat.
A quick yank to the side exposed his carotid. And one good slice inward had blood spraying everywhere. Jugular was good too, but carotid severing was almost always fatal.
The blood loss was fast and without immediate intervention, you were a goner.
Curtis was as good as a goner as he grabbed his neck.
“Rot in hell, Curtis,” I hissed.
Beneath him, Louana turned then slid out, kicking him hard, sending him sprawling to the ground.
Where he never moved from again.
“Huh,” Louana said as she got back to her feet. “Fifteen seconds. He really held on there,” she said, giving me a smirk. “We have to get out of here,” she added, making her way back toward her strange brown bag.
It wasn’t until then that I realized it was the damn submachine gun I’d had stashed in the hotel inside it.
Before I could even think about how she had gotten hold of it, though, the door was bursting open.
“Wait wait wait, Lulu,” I called, voice firm because I knew that thing had a hair trigger and she had an itchy finger.
And the person who had barged in?
It wasn’t one of Curtis’s crew.
No.
It was fucking Voss.
“Nice gun,” he said, nodding at Louana who had it half raised.
“Voss?” she asked, sounding breathless. “How…”
“Car is down the street,” he said, shrugging. “Didn’t take a genius. Nice,” he said, smirking down at Curtis’s dead, bloodstained body. “So, what are your prints on?” he asked, tucking away his own gun with a silencer and reaching for something in his pocket.
A travel bag of baby wipes.
“The other guys,” Louana started, taking a few steps forward.
“Don’t worry about the other guys,” Voss said, making his way toward the chains that had been around my wrists and giving them a wipe. “What else?”
“Ah, almost everything here has been used on me,” I admitted, waving toward the table. “Not the battery.”
“Bring the bag over,” Voss demanded, snatching it out of Louana’s hand as she got close, and shoving the items in. “Anything else?”
“He has my wallet,” I admitted, nodding down toward Curtis. “And my keys somewhere, I guess.”