Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

I swiped my commuter card and dropped Tulip into the aisle, as if that decided the matter. As I headed toward the back of the bus with Tulip in tow, I could tell the bus driver still didn’t believe me. But it was fucking freezing out, and nobody liked paperwork.

I lied. I got away with it. It made me a little triumphant, a little cocky. Second mistake for the morning.

Really, it was only a matter of time.

I had to stand. Right hand up, holding the overhead bar for balance. I had the end of Tulip’s leash encircled around my left wrist, with my left hand pressed flat against the closed flap of my messenger bag. Protecting the contents, particularly my weapon.

Now, here’s a rule of mass transit: The colder it is outside, the hotter it will be inside.

Heat blasted through the vents, and pretty quickly, the wool coats and fleece-lined hats that made so much sense outside, became suffocating inside. Tulip started to pant. I started to sweat. More people jammed in, hot bodies pressing together, adding to the sauna.

Twenty minutes into my fifty-five-minute ride, I started to feel nauseous. The swaying suspension system, rolling beneath my feet. The beads of sweat, rolling down my hairline to pool on my overheated neck. The stench of too many bodies crowded too close together, only some of whom had bothered to shower recently.

Another five minutes, and I raised my hand from my messenger bag long enough to loosen my scarf, remove my hat. I breathed marginally easier, then the bus was off and bouncing again, passengers bobbing, windows fogging.

I managed to stuff my hat in my coat pocket, then I had to move my left hand again. Unbutton the top button of my jacket, second, third, fourth.

I wore an oversized navy blue fleece pullover beneath my coat. The kind of soft, bulky sweatshirt perfect for cozying up with a good book on Sunday afternoon. It was strangling me now, the collar damp with sweat, the compressed sleeves squeezing my arms.

Thirty minutes down, twenty-five more to go.

Bus stopped. Passengers got off. More passengers got on. Tulip whined and panted. I loosened my grip on the sweat-slicked metal bar, wiped my forearm over my brow.

Bus lurched forward and so did my stomach.

Was I still holding on to the messenger bag? Maybe. Maybe not. I was hot, uncomfortable, fighting motion sickness. So first distracted, then cocky, and now partially incapacitated.

Cities operate by jungle rules, you know: The weak and infirm are immediately targeted to be culled from the herd.

Stop after stop. Block after block. With me panting almost as hard as Tulip. Not paying attention to my fellow passengers. Not noticing my surroundings. Just counting down the blocks. Wishing desperately to get off that damn bus.

Finally, as my face went from overheated red, to unsightly pale, to alarming green, the stop. Doors opened in the front. I started the forward charge, leading with Tulip, who weaved effortlessly through a sea of heavy boots and flapping overcoats.

“Excuse me, excuse me, coming through.” Pushing, shoving, and shimmying. Following the siren’s song of fresh air, beckoning through the open door. At last, we made it. The bus driver and I exchanged final scowls, then Tulip and I clambered down the steep bus stairs onto hard-frozen terra firma. We jogged a couple of steps away from the metal sauna.

I was vaguely aware of the bus doors closing, the bus pulling away. I had both hands away from my messenger bag. Opening up my coat, gulping for icy, snow-laced air, trying to draw as much of it as I could into my overheated lungs, through my sweat-soaked fleece.

My leather bag dangled at my hip, my open coat flapped around my thighs.

I was all about the refreshingly frigid air, the feel of it against my face. I was finally off the bus. End of the road. From here, Tulip and I could jog the roughly mile and a half to our destination. Away from the densely packed urban sprawl, into the back roads and rolling countryside that still dotted random parts of Greater Boston.

It felt good to be out of the city. I felt safe. Relieved. Optimistic even.

Right until the instant I was attacked from behind.

HE CAUGHT MY COAT LAPELS FIRST. Jerked the front flaps of my black wool coat back and down. In one second or less, he’d incapacitated my left arm, basically bound it to my side with my own coat. The strap of my messenger bag, however, slung diagonal across my body, trapped the right lapel at the side of my neck, tangling his hand.

I used that second to stand perfectly still, my mouth caught soundlessly open, while my brain screamed (stupidly), But it’s not the twenty-first!

While I made like a statue, my attacker grabbed the strap of my messenger bag, whipped it over my head, and tossed it aside. The weight of the bag tangled with Tulip’s leash. My fingers opened reflexively, releasing her leash, and that quickly, I’d lost my gun and my dog. To be sure about it, my attacker, still standing behind me, kicked my bag away.

Then, his hands closed around my throat.

Belatedly, my survival instinct kicked in. I stopped cataloguing what was happening and started responding. First, I fought against my own coat.

While my attacker squeezed, slowly but surely obstructing my airways, I jerked my coat-bounded elbow backwards into his side. When he shimmied left, I used the air-starved moment to jerk off my coat, finally freeing my hands and arms.

His grip tightened. My mouth gasped, I struggled for air. Could feel pressure growing in my chest, the weight of my own rising panic.

But it’s not the twenty-first!

Fight, I needed to fight. But I was expecting to punch forward. To squat, block, jab. Now I was left with self-defense 101, trying to stomp on my attacker’s instep, kick back into a kneecap. Hurt him, incapacitate him. Do something so that he’d have to let go.

Barking. Tulip, running around our feet, leash trailing.

Hands still squeezing, white spots appearing in front of my eyes.

Forgetting to stomp, to fight. Succumbing to panic and clawing futilely at the fingers at my throat, as if that would make a difference.

So this is how Randi had felt. This is how Jackie had felt.

Such a crushing weight against my chest. The desire, the urge to breathe was so primal, so hardwired that the lack of oxygen led to the most peculiar kind of pain. As if I could feel the cells in my body dying one by one, screaming out their last desperate seconds.

Baby, crying down the hall.

I know, I know. I should’ve told. I should’ve.

I was crying. He was killing me, and instead of fighting back, I was weighed down with old regrets. The baby I’d failed. The mother I’d let hurt me. The friends I’d loved with all my heart and buried one by one.

Tulip barking, then suddenly, a yelp of pain. He’d kicked her. My attacker had hurt my dog.

That pissed me off.

I sagged. In a dimly remembered move from so many rounds of training, I stopped surging up with my legs and turned myself into dead weight instead. The sudden shift of my knees giving out threw my attacker off balance. He lurched forward, and I immediately countered by planting my feet and using my attacker’s own weight to flip him over my head.

Then, I was on him. I kicked at his ribs, punched his unprotected head. This wasn’t boxing. This was street fighting. I inhaled ragged, desperate gasps of air into my searing lungs as I kicked and jabbed and chased my killer across the snowy ground.

My attacker rolled, forearms over his face as he quickly put distance between us in order to regain his footing.

No way. Not gonna happen. If he got up, no doubt he was gonna be bigger and stronger than me, with maybe a knife or gun or other tricks up his sleeve. So I had to keep him down, where I could loom over him , where I was the biggest badass in town.