Claiming the Legend
Ladies of Legend

Excerpt

Jill Post stopped abruptly, pivoted backwards around a sharp corner into the apartment building’s shadows, slamming against hard brick wall. Heart palpitating fear choked her, had her glued to the structure's rough exterior, scraping tender skin from shoulders to elbows. The route she always took home after work had served its purpose. A purpose she had hoped unnecessary, overly-cautious. But instinct had saved her time and again. As now.

Had they heard her?

Seen her?

Each struggling breath hurt, each knocking heartbeat reverberated from chest to temple. Images, one after another, whirled like a kaleidoscope of horror to clash and collide with other older images. Images thought to be long-buried. Now past and present blended in a motion-picture of terror.

She closed her eyes, nauseated by those images, those memories. Will alone couldn’t push her, couldn’t force her feet to move, to retreat further from the massacre going on just around the corner. Any movement, any stray sound might alert the two men who were creaming names and curses at the homeless man they were beating to death.

Did they say my name? Did they think he knew her? Had she told him her name when she’d dropped him a twenty here and there over the past months?

No! She was imagining it. She had to separate the old from the new. They couldn’t have found her. Not after all this time. Not after she had been so careful.

She tried, but failed miserably to close off sounds she remembered too well: the whack of a hard object meeting flesh, screams for mercy turned to moans, the gurgle of choking, and finally, horribly, the thud of an unconscious body hitting asphalt. She clamped teeth onto her bottom lip to lock in an answering scream.

Run.

She glanced left, then right, searching frantically for a way to escape, but the icy fingers of fear held her frozen in the darkened alleyway. Canyon-carving rivers of blood reverberated through her ears: rolling, crashing, gaining volume with each heartbeat, obliterating all other sound until she could no longer locate the source of danger.

Blouse and flesh ripped as she slid down the wall. Her head spun as she clasped her bent legs for support, settling her bottom on the cold wet ground. She rocked back and forth with jerky movements, fighting the fear. Waiting.

Waiting.

Time meant nothing.

Seconds? Minutes? An hour? How long had she sat there emotionally lost, clutching her legs, waiting to be found?

She’d witnessed torture. Murder. Was that to be her fate, too? Ice cold sweat poured from her body, drenching clothes, chilling her skin. She barely registered the taste of iron hitting her tongue but released the tooth-imprinting grip of her now bloodied lip.

She stayed frozen against the brick wall until the voices and scenes from the past faded completely. Until heartbeats and breathing calmed. Until fear receded enough for logic to kick-in.

Light replaced darkness as dawn broke. A baby cried from several stories above. A woman’s soothing song responded seconds later. Then silence.

Sirens from afar.

The steady beep of a garbage truck in the distance, then moving slowly closer, then moving away until near-silence, then there was nothing but the sounds of an occasional vehicle passing close by.

Move! Pinpricks shot through both legs and feet as she elbowed her way up the wall, forcing her to remain immobile for a minute more. One tentative step, then two, away from the assault site felt like a major accomplishment. The need to run hovered like a monster at her back but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, make a sound. Who knew where those men had gone? Who knew if the man they had killed was their only intended victim or if they would kill anyone in their path? Especially someone who might identify them.

Unless she had been their intended victim all along?

That thought stopped her cold. Then another hit with enough force to make her take a step back. What if the man wasn’t dead, only severely injured? What if this was her fault and he was paying the price?

How could she leave him?

How could she not?

Indecision held her immobile for only seconds before she slumped in defeat. There was only one thing to do. The decent thing.

She had to go back; had to look around the corner of the building to see if the thugs were gone. There was no choice left but check to see if their victim still lived. She hoped with every ounce of her waning strength that the danger had passed. She wasn’t so sure how she felt about the state of the victim.

If he had died she could just leave. Anonymously call 911 then disappear from this nightmare altogether. Just carry on with the life she had so carefully constructed. Or run if that was the only option. If he still lived she would have to become involved. Emergency services would be needed. The police would want to question her, but worse, it could make the press and the men who had done this could hear about it and pursue her.

But no, she couldn’t think that way. There was no choice but to go back, to help if there was still a need. To participate. Anything less would make her as bad as those who’d attacked him.

Damn, how she hated to participate.

Participation would de-construct the life she had spent the last four years building. She would have to start over.

Again.

A new identity.

A new profession.

A new town.

God help me!