Hard Rider

He was tense.

Probably wasn’t used to this.

Criminals lacking imagination never know what to do when people don’t act according to plan. It’s early in the morning, the roads are deserted, and he has a knife.

The plan says, the victim stops.

The victim is terrified.

But me?

Hah.

I am, sure as shit, no goddamned victim.

The downside is that this tends to make a tweaked-out thief like him unpredictable. When the script in his head goes awry, even he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do, half the time.

Two choices:

Back down.

Strike.

But I had this guy pinned, and I knew exactly what he was gonna do. As he jumped forward with the knife, I easily sidestepped him. Channeling my momentum into a wide swing, I brought my suitcase up in a sharp arc.

He whirled back around to face me, but the case connected with his head, throwing him off balance and against a nearby building. As he reeled from the blow, I dropped the case to the side, stepping forward to try and tightly grasp his wrist.

Surprisingly, the fucker was agile.

He dodged my grip and slipped to the side, lashing out with the blade in an unpredictable volley of jabs.

We were back to square one.

Only this time…we were both ticked off.

“Couldn’t make it easy, could ya?” He grumbled. “Just had to go and make this a fucking mess, didn’t ya? You piece of shit!”

“Go the fuck home,” I commanded him.

He merely grit his teeth, taking a ridiculous defensive stance. His blade still stood at the ready, catching just the slightest bit of light.

Nobody else was out here.

It was just him and me.

“The wallet, and your phone,” he repeated.

Out of my peripheral, I took in my surroundings…and a dangerous but workable idea formed in my head.

“Go to Hell,” I grinned.

With a snarl, the bastard lunged again.

I was ready. I dodged out of the way, carefully planting my sneakers against the ground. He whipped around and whirled towards me again, but I jumped backward and gave his strike no purchase. His desperate lunge put him off balance. Out of control…

He was right where I wanted him, lined up to be on the receiving end of one solid punch. A certain satisfaction rolled through me as I connected.

I watched him clutch at his gut as he stumbled back from the blow, but he managed to maintain his grip on the switchblade. Carefully but swiftly, I delivered a kick to his head before throwing my weight into a shoulder tackle, pinning him by the chest up against the wall as I scrambled to get control of his arm.

Persistent fucker that he was, the switchblade was still in play, but he couldn’t maneuver it with my grip. I twisted his arm round into a submission worthy of my wrestling days back in school.

“Drop it,” I growled.

He chose to spit into my face…

So I broke his arm.

He screamed, finally relinquishing the blade to the wet concrete as he fell to his knees, I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.

“Wrong time for this shit,” I told him. “I just came home with a girl who makes me crazy and now I have to leave her for a few days. Unlucky for you, I was already pissed off. I ever catch you on the streets again, I’ll break a whole lot more than that arm…”

I let go of him, and he curled up against the slick ground. The junkie probably wasn’t even listening to me through the sobbing and the pain.

I pitied him, almost.

Not enough to feel bad for him.

But enough to whip out my phone and call the police. I waited a couple of minutes as a cruiser pulled up, the officers dragging him off the pavement and throwing him into the back seat. I recounted what had happened as quickly as I could. With this minor detail to my night over, I bid the officer goodbye and nonchalantly lifted my suitcase back up from the ground. I had a flight to catch.

As I continued walking up to the airport, I wondered why I even bothered. A month ago, I would have left him there on the street to rot away, broken arm and all. Wouldn’t be the first time… My past was full of dark alleys and fights I had no business winning.

He had dared to challenge me.

Dared to try and overwhelm me.

And he had paid the price.

As I walked through the revolving door into the international airport, I realized that I had been changing. It had been so subtle, but I felt… different. I felt like I was becoming something more, maybe, as weird as that sounded.

I felt like a better man.

All because of that girl.

All because of Angel.

Angel

I woke up the following morning, temporarily disoriented. At first, I didn’t recognize the ceiling above me – I knew it was going to take a few days at least for me to get used to that.

But then there was Trent’s absence. It took a moment, it finally came back to me.

The film cameo.

He had to do some promotion with the rest of the band, and that meant taking a few days away to film their scenes and do some video commentary for the blu-ray extras.

So, I lay around in bed for a while, enjoying the feeling of his sheets and the freedom of just being here.

It didn’t matter that my past was gone.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a job.

It didn’t matter that I had no money.

For this moment – this beautiful, shining moment – I was alone in the expensive house of a rising rockstar, the same very rockstar who fucked me whenever I wanted it.

And it felt good.

I clamored out of bed and threw on one of his shirts and a pair of my panties. Satisfied, I wandered downstairs to rummage up some breakfast.

My eyes fell on a clock.

Half past noon.

I must have slept GREAT.

I was halfway through a delicious, crisp ham sandwich when I heard the knock at the door.

My heart seized up.

Don’t answer it.

I hesitated briefly.

Just when I thought it was gone…

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

There was a muffled voice from the other side, and I thought I distinctly heard my name. But the voice was familiar somehow, and curiosity got the best of me…

I came over to the door, peering through the peephole. There, pacing angrily on the other side, was his band manager.

“It’s an emergency!” He shouted.

Without thinki

ng, I unlocked the door and popped it open. It didn’t even occur to me that I wasn’t wearing any shorts…not until Steven’s face fell onto mine, and his eyes briefly trailed downwards.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

“Ah, so you are here…I figured you probably were,” he smiled.

I suddenly didn’t like this.

“Trent’s not home,” I told him, starting to close the door.

His palm flew out and caught it, and his devious smile only widened. It sent a careening strike of fear down my spine.

“You and I need to talk,” he told me. “About the other day. About the mess you’ve made.”

“No, I don’t think that we do.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I knew I wouldn’t like it. Instead, I tried to close the door again, but he was surprisingly strong for such a thin frame.

With his other hand holding the door ajar, Steven pointed his bony finger into my chest, glowering down at me.

“You’re already fucking things up for Trent. How long did you seriously think that you could fuck around here?”

I was flabbergasted.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a goddamn liability, just like I said you were gonna be! Nobody ever fucking listens to me, do they? I had you pinned from the start, but nooo, Steven’s just the asshole manager…”

My curiosity finally erupted.

I knew it was a mistake…but I had to.

“What on Earth are you talking about?”

He looked legitimately surprised.

“You… wait, you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Steven’s face curled into surprised menace.

“Ohhhh…you’re in for a world of fun.”

He whipped out his smartphone and began fiddling with it for a minute. By the time he’d pulled up a webpage for me, I was thoroughly confused.

But that confusion quickly turned to horror.

It was a highly trafficked celebrity news and gossip site called “Web News Now”, or WNN for short. Right there at the top was the latest article: