Taken (Dark Desires 1)

“Yeah, okay, tough guy.” I snapped and began my slow walk.

People were coming and going on their lunch break. Some of them looked at me with my box of trinkets and I could tell they knew what had just happened. Fired.

And as luck would have it as I walked toward the bus stop to catch the twenty-two bus back to my apartment I ran into the gals from the office. They all stopped for a second and looked at me. They all were there including Trudy who signed off on all paychecks.

“Natasha, what happened?” Tricia would ask.

“I can’t believe they’d let you go. You always did your work.” Amy would add.

“I know we hardly spoke but you were really nice.” Would be that weird Laura girl’s contribution.

“It’s just a sign of better things.” “You’re too good for that place.” And so on, and so on.

But that wasn’t what happened. They looked at me and I looked at them and they quickly hurried past me without saying a word. Not a single word.

Now, I know this might sound crazy but at that moment, when those half a dozen women just walked past me like they didn’t know me, that was when I couldn’t keep the tears back.

I swear the entire city held its breath. Birds didn’t sing, cars didn’t honk their horns, trains didn’t rumble on the tracks, people stopped talking and all I could hear was my own heart beat as everything silently passed by me.

Telling myself over and over again what a good employee I really was made my head ache. As sound slowly started to creep into my ears again and drown out my own heartbeat I relived the whole ugly incident in my head. I had a college education and solid work experience and great references from great friends who posed as employers more than once for me. I’d never trust a boss, no matter how good you were at your job, to ever give you a fair reference.

And because my awesome friends would do this for me that meant I’d have to tell them that I got fired…again.

Not wanting to walk down the street blubbering into my banker box I saw a neon sign and made a bee-line for it. And it was a good thing I had done that because overhead some dark clouds had just rolled in to match my mood. A storm was coming. Pathetic fallacy. Perfect. I may just have to wait it out getting lit in Liona’s tavern.

Stepping inside this bar was like stepping into perpetual nighttime. The windows were heavily tinted and on a gray day like this it looked like it was after ten o’clock at night. The maroon colored walls were barely lit with sconces giving off a sultry glow. The carpet was a well-worn red and black pattern and the bar was a dark wooden block with mirrors and a few dozen bottles lined along it.

All I wanted was an ice-cold beer. I was hot from carrying this box and humiliation tended to get a person’s body temperature up. Plus, I was in heels. A cold one sounded perfect.

The place wasn’t crowded at this time of day. There was a couple seated off to my right sitting dangerously close but with sour looks on their faces. My bet was they were living out the words to Third Rate Romance.

There were some men who looked like they had been putting in some time at the nearby construction site. They all wore dirty blue jeans, heavy boots with thick soles and dark tans that in this light made

their skin look like the surface of a rawhide bone.

A very handsome drink of water was sitting by himself in the booth directly in front of me. He wore a nice suit and his blond hair was cut military style as if he was on shore leave. He was very good looking but paying absolutely no attention to me.

Besides, romance was the last thing on my mind. What kind of dude would want anything to do with an out of work secretary? Still, Mr. Business was easy on the eyes.

I walked up to the bar, set down my box of tricks on one seat and hopped up onto the one next to it. The bartender came down from the end of the bar where he was doing a crossword puzzle.

“What can I get you?” he asked. His voice was very low yet his features were cute and boyish. He was soft all over and his eyes were slightly close together. But when he smiled he had dimples plus a full head of dark wavy hair. Dimples and thick hair were worth their weight in gold in my opinion.

“Just a Bud Light.” I mumbled taking a deep breath. The place smelled like stale cigarettes and as much as I hated to admit it I loved that smell. It reminded me of when my college friends took me out on my twenty-first birthday to the same place we had been going since we got our fake ID’s three years earlier. It was just a dumpy place like this but it was fun.

“Bud Light. Coming right up.”

I looked up at the television that was playing with the sound down. There was nothing happening there. I watched the bartender get my beer from a can and pour it into an hourglass shaped glass.

When he set it in front of me I realized I only had about fifteen dollars to get me through the night. I took out my wallet and decided to call for reinforcements.

My friend Diamond Everett would be by shortly. I had been through so much life with Diamond that I couldn’t imagine anything big happening without her being close by. But before I dialed her number on my cell phone I felt the strongest sensation to check out Mr. Business again but didn’t dare do it. A guy like him knew how hot he was. If I had to gouge out my eyes I wouldn’t look in his direction.

When I did he was looking at me. I smiled and felt my cheeks flush.

“That’ll be three dollars.”

I snapped out of it and thought three dollars was acceptable. Reaching into my purse in the banker box I tried not to pay any attention to the form that was just sitting there staring at me. Just then there was a flash of lightning and within seconds a clap of thunder. I was out of the rain but there was something else in the air. I could feel it. Electricity. And it was coming straight from the booth to my right.