gotham stories

dance with the devil~ vickie

Luck, much like life itself, is fickle and easily lost. One moment you're riding the high of a damn good day and the next you're getting shot at.

Not even because of something you did either. Rather, because you'd stumbled upon someone being naughty and they didn't much want to risk you running off for the cops. Regardless of the fact that you really hadn't seen anything.

At least not until the first shot cracked the cement near your head. You ducked back around the bend, thankful as all hell that whoever was doing the shooting wasn't exactly a crack shot. Though that feeling of appreciation lasted only about as long as it took to realize that you were boxed in courtesy of a big ass semi-truck that had backed on up into the only escape route.

The door you'd entered the alley out of—a back exit from your workplace—had closed completely and locked you out. Josie had warned you from day one about letting the door close all the way, but you'd been too distracted by a pained outcry to bother with the little makeshift doorstop.

Now you were paying for your altruism in typical 'life fucking hates me' fashion. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, if the rock was the size of a semi and the hard place carried a gun.

You heard the thunk of heavy boots on the concrete and the sound made your insides twist so tightly you could have puked right then and there if you'd had anything in your stomach to bring back up.

Obviously the not-so-sharpshooter was ready to up the ante and put a bullet in your skull. Meaning you had to move your ass and quick if you wanted to keep breathing.

The only door was locked, the only open exit out of the alley had a gun toting maniac blocking the path, and that meant the only remaining option was to crawl under the truck.

There wasn't enough room on either side to just squeeze through. The driver must have had some serious confidence with their rig or either really didn't give a rats ass about hitting a wall with it. Either way, it kinda threw a monkey wrench into what would have otherwise been an easy escape. Because on the other side of that truck you would find a relatively busy sidewalk with plenty of hustle and bustle to get lost in.

The shooter hadn't had much of a chance to look you over and it wouldn't be hard to blend in with the speed-walking pedestrians. You didn't have much room to worry about getting other people killed, though it did cross your mind as you shimmied up under the big rig. It certainly was a possibility that whoever it was out to gun you down might not mind a little collateral damage. However the desire to survive was stronger than any misgivings and you sure as hell didn't want to die in some dingy old alleyway over a 'wrong place, wrong time' mishap and a moment of humanity that you greatly regretted.

It was hard to move fast enough and each step your potential killer took sounded a hundred times too loud. They were coming closer by the second and it felt like you were getting nowhere at all. You could see the light at the end, the fast moving feet of the people on the sidewalk, and the traffic beyond. Yet it felt like they were a world away as you struggled to join them in the relative safety of the open world. Where it would be harder for someone to just up and shoot you. Where someone would at least see it if they did anyway.

Your knees and arms scraped brutally against the rough, dirty concrete as you army crawled through something damp that you really didn't want to think too hard about. If you lived long enough, you were going to scaled your skin right off in the hottest damn bath you could draw.

The rumble of the crowd could almost drown out the sound of those godforsaken boots as you fantasied about all the ways you would pamper yourself if you made it home. Hell, you'd even call your boss and tell him to shove that shitty, thankless job right up his tight ass.