Twist Of Fate

Sixty

(A.N. This is the second of two updates this weekend - Fifty Nine was posted yesterday)

---***---

The air is stifling on this torrid summer evening, filling my lungs with a thick, dusty heat. The grass beneath my soles is brown and crunchy, parched from the lack of rainfall over the last month. The sky overhead is a dusky shade of twilight, with enough light to see all the way across to the estate beyond the children's play area. In the distance, several of the windows from the high rise blocks are illuminated; glowing yellow rectangles dotted here and there amidst the unforgiving grey cladding. I am trying to hurry, my feet almost tripping over each other, eager to get home as quickly as possible, nervous of what lies behind me but too afraid to turn and look directly at it. No matter how fast I try to scuttle my movements are slow and fluid, as though the world is suspended in water and I am living in slow motion.

A clammy hand on my skin startles me and I gasp in fright. I let out a yelp of fear, turning round as I attempt to free myself from the unwelcome contact. Chris's bony fingers are enclosed around my wrist; he is leaning towards me, invading my personal space, so close I can smell the beer and weed on his breath along with the subtle undertone of unwashed skin and clothes. 

"When are you gonna loosen up?" he snarls in my face. "I know Harry does it for you instead, these days. He does it for Colette too, don't you Harry?"

"No!" I shout, whirling round fuzzily to see Harry standing a couple of feet behind Chris, glaring at both of us. "He isn't seeing Colette. Stop spreading lies about him. Leave us alone." 

"You've been talking about me behind me back," Harry growls at Chris, advancing on him as I try desperately to free my hand by shaking my arm wildly, but Chris refuses to let go. "You've been talking about me to every man and his fucking dog."

"I haven't said anything about you," Chris denies, but as I look up at his weasel-like face and the atmosphere shifts from dream-like to reality, I can see his eyes darting shiftily from side to side and I know instantly he is lying. "Unless you mean to Chloe," he adds slyly. "She's gagging for it, mate. Reckon she'd have us both back at hers. What do you say, Chlo? Let me satisfy at least one of your urges tonight."

"No!" I cry, my pitch rising with my panic, struggling with more conviction against his body as he refuses to release me. "Let me go!"

"You love it," he breathes in my ear. "Rubbing yourself against me like this. You're already wet, aren't you?"

With my free hand I claw desperately at the fingers restraining me, able now to move my limbs properly, and scratching the skin on the back of his hand deeply causing him to yelp in pain, loosening his grip as he does so and allowing me to break free. Before I can even shift my weight onto one foot to start to run, I feel the air move behind me and a split second later I hear the smack of a fist making contact with a face as Harry punches Chris with a force so powerful that Chris staggers and sways on the spot. 

As I run for my life across the grass to my block of flats, my feet no longer wading through treacle, I hear them grunting and scuffling on the ground, and another couple of cracks of fist-to-face contact. Only when I reach the entrance to the building I call home do I risk a glance behind me, just in time to witness Harry deliver a blow that knocks Chris to the ground. I expect him to stop now that Chris is down, but I watch as Harry throws his fist at Chris's face again, bending down to reach him this time, followed by two kicks in the side. Chris doesn't move.

As Harry straightens up, panting, and turns to look in my direction I sidestep quickly inside the door and out of sight, terrified of being seen watching. Breathing heavily and barely noticing the usual stench of urine in the concrete, fluorescent-lit hallway, I daren't move. I strain to listen for any sound of Harry coming this way, afraid of him but grateful to him at the same time for defending me against Chris and allowing me to escape unscathed. I have been afraid of Chris for months, bordering on years, but tonight for a brief second I was truly terrified that he was going to take his crude comments one step further and possibly force me to do something against my will. After all, there were two of them and only one of me, and until the point Harry intervened I wasn't to know how he would have reacted; he could have been just as sick and twisted as Chris.