Can't Breathe: A Novella

Can't Breathe: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Robin took off down the alley, turning a corner and then another and another, and soon found she wasn’t heading towards the boat any longer.  She’d gotten herself lost in the maze of back streets, but she could still hear the Market a few blocks to her right.  She used that for a guide and followed the sounds and smells.  Just as she saw the end to her alley-way journey, three men stepped in front of her.  One spit on her shoe.

“Ah, cabress,” the bigger man cooed.  “You are far from home, yes?”

“Excuse me,” Robin said stepping to go around them.  They crowded her.

“You gave Sahara money, yes?”  The man lifted the shell necklace off of her skin, and Robin cowled back from him.  Yellow teeth gleamed out of a haggard face, and his beady black eyes made her flesh crawl.

“Let me by, please,” Robin said.

The three men glanced at each other, and then grinned at her, and Robin turned to flee back down the alley, but two more men stood there, and she’d been backed into a corner.  Hastily, she dug her money out of her pocket and threw it away from her.  “There!  Take it!  Now leave me alone!”

The bigger man, still kept her from escaping, edging her into a corner, while the others scrambled around to pick up the fluttering bills and scattering coins.  This time, he picked up Lucy’s locket and said, “Such a pretty...too bad...” and he ripped both necklaces from her throat.  Robin gasped at the sting of pain and at the loss of Lucy from her presence, and she reared back and slapped him hard against the cheek.

“Give it back!” she shouted at him, fighting him to get Lucy back.  He snarled and smacked a palm alongside her head...stars exploded behind her eyelids and her head felt heavy and empty and dark and dazed...and someone shouted, “That’s my wife!” and the alley erupted in a tangle of body parts and male grunts and a blurry of movement.

Robin slid to her butt on the ground as she tried to focus her eyes on what was happening, but the man hit her so hard, she couldn’t breathe...but that was Brent, taking on five fully grown men like someone possessed with super strength and a murderous, evil grin.  He actually looked like he enjoyed himself while he smashed two men together and sent another flying with a kick to the stomach.

Too soon, and yet so long, it was over.  Three of the muggers dashed away from Brent while another tried to pick himself up from the ground, and the remaining two didn’t budge from where they slumped over each other in a pile of boxes and trash.  Brent hunkered down in front of Robin.

“Hey...” he said, gently.  Robin noticed he was going to have a massive black eye by tomorrow morning.  “Are you okay?”

Robin could only stare at him.  Who takes on five men and comes up smiling?

“Robin?” he said smoothing her hair back from her face.  He winced as he saw the red mark on her cheek where the man struck her.  “Talk to me, honey.  Are you hurt?”

Robin shook her head with jerky motions, and Brent grinned with reprieve.  He took her hands and pulled her to her feet.  Her eyes traveled up his chest to his face, stopping at the concern and dwindling anger in his brown eyes, and she crushed herself to him in a fierce, tight hug and cried.

“Oh, Robin,” Brent sighed, cradling her close to him.  “Please don’t cry.  I can take just about anything but your tears.”

Robin sniffed and wiped her nose on his shirt without thinking about it.  “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to wipe the wetness away.  His big hands cupped her face and he bent a little to look right at her.