Jenna Night - High Desert Hideaway

“What are you looking at?” the gunman shouted at Lily as he pulled his arm tighter across the front of her shoulders, forcing her body closer to his. He jammed the tip of his gun harder into her neck, forcing her head to tilt to the side. “You get any smart ideas, you force me to shoot anybody, and their blood will be on your hands.” His lips were close to her ear and his hot, damp breath clung sickeningly to the surface of her skin.

Lily’s racing heart pounded even harder. The interior of the store started to spin a little and she was afraid she might faint. Oh, dear Lord. Help!

She looked through the tall glass windows to the gas pumps outside. Beyond the pumps, a black ribbon of highway wound past the small old store. On the other side of the road, northern Arizona high desert stretched toward jagged mountains. The Starlight Mart sat at a crossroads nearly twenty miles from the nearest town.

A semi rumbled by on the highway but there was no other traffic behind it.

“We’re just gonna get everybody together nice and cozy and locked up in some office or storeroom, and then we’ll be on our way,” the gunman’s accomplice called out.

Lily’s thoughts turned to news stories of people found murdered in the back rooms of businesses that had been robbed. A chill passed through her body, raising goose bumps on the surface of her skin.

The accomplice pulled a gun out of his hoodie pocket and aimed it at the teenagers, motioning for them to move toward the front of the store. One of the kids tripped over her own feet and fell to her knees, hard. The accomplice laughed.

Lily glanced out the windows again. Her car was pulled up to the front door at a crazy angle, the driver’s door still hanging open.

Hoping someone would pull into the parking lot and end this nightmare wasn’t much of a plan, but fear and disbelief made it hard to think of anything better.

Lily’s entire universe had been upended in less than an hour.

Thirty minutes ago she’d been at work and everything was perfectly normal. Then, twenty-five minutes ago she’d stumbled across a conversation she wasn’t meant to hear. Working a little later than usual at her new job as a part-time clerical assistant, she’d walked through an empty office that was adjoined to the break room. Nearly everyone else had already gone home and the building was quiet. She’d heard indistinct voices, but hadn’t thought much about it. Then, she was able to make out snippets of conversation and her mind had begun to understand a strange collection of words. Cops. Cargo. Lay low for a while. Ditch the guns.

Scared, she’d tried to backtrack through the office, away from the break room and the voices. But she’d bumped into a squeaky rolling office chair, and a man she’d never seen before had yanked open a door and spotted her. He’d demanded to know what she’d heard.

He’d shoved aside the door and started toward her, cursing while trying to grab her. Startled and scared, she’d run from him. Her phone and purse were still at her desk, but her keys were in her pocket. Afraid there would be no one in the office to help her, she’d raced to her car.

Outside she’d looked around frantically for help as she ran, but she was on her own. She’d flung herself into her car, locked the doors and fired up the engine. Without looking back she’d sped out of the parking lot and shot down the short private road leading to the highway, anxious to get to her home in Copper Mesa.

Shaking and numb with fear, she’d barely caught her breath when she realized her car’s low-fuel light was blinking. She’d never make it to Copper Mesa. It was too far. She’d have to head in the opposite direction, toward the crossroads, and hope she had enough fuel to make it to the gas station there.

A couple of minutes later she was pulling off the highway at the Starlight Mart, throwing gravel in a rooster tail behind her. She skidded to a stop right at the front door, jumped out of the car and ran inside, yelling at the startled clerks to call for help. They’d stared at her like her hair was on fire.

She’d forced herself to calm down a little, lower the volume of her voice and try to sound reasonable. But then she’d heard the door behind her being shoved open and the sound of quick footsteps. She’d turned just as the man she’d seen in the office grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. That’s when he’d shoved the gun into her neck.

Her brain knew it had only been a few minutes, but it felt as if that gun had been digging into her skin for hours.

Lily looked again at the people in the store, her gaze settling on the woman with the young children. Their lives were in danger as long as Lily was here.

“I’ll go with you,” Lily said to the gunman, her voice a shaky whisper. “No trouble.” When they got outside, she could break away and run to the highway. Someone driving by might see her and stop. That might be enough to make the gunman and Hoodie let her go while they tried to get away.

The front door of the store opened.

A man walked in. A big guy with shaggy dark blond hair sporting a few sun-bleached streaks. Scruffy beard. Heavy boots. Worn jeans with torn knees, a red T-shirt and a beat-up black leather jacket. He looked like a biker. He wore mirrored sunglasses even though it was now dark outside. He probably wanted to hide his eyes because he was drunk. Or high. After a slight pause, he headed straight for the coolers, toward the section in the back where they kept the soda and beer.

Not the kind of person Lily had had in mind when she’d hoped someone would show up. She turned her head slightly to watch him.

“Don’t even think about saying or doing anything.” The gunman slid his pistol down so it was hidden, but now it was pointed at the base of Lily’s spine. “Make a move and you’ll never walk again.”

Lily swallowed thickly.

His accomplice moved closer to the teenagers and lowered his gun out of sight.

The biker reached the coolers and peered through the glass as if he was trying to decide what he wanted to buy.

Hurry up! Lily thought. Get something and get out of here! He would obviously be more trouble than help. His sudden appearance had ramped up the tension in the store tenfold. The gunman was now holding Lily’s arm in a death grip, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh. His breathing was speeding up, as if he might be getting ready to make a move. The store clerks were getting fidgety, and Lily was worried they might try to do something that would get them killed.

Biker man finally opened a cooler door and grabbed a six-pack of cola-filled cans. Heading toward the cash register, he strode up the aisle toward the man in the hoodie and the group of teenagers. He was tall and broad-shouldered and the cluster of teens moved out of his way.

As he walked past the man in the hoodie, he swung the six-pack and clocked him in the side of the head. In a flash of movement he grabbed the gun from Hoodie’s hand just before Hoodie tumbled into a candy rack and knocked it over. Chocolate bars, mints and packs of gum skittered across the floor as the biker reached beneath his jacket. He pulled out his own pistol and pointed it at the gunman who held Lily. “Drop your weapon!”

The gunman loosened his hold on Lily as he raised his gun to fire at the biker.

It was the chance Lily had been hoping for. She jabbed her right elbow straight back, connecting with the gunman’s ribs. At the same time she raised her left foot and stomped on his instep. Any second she expected to feel the gun blast into the base of her spine or the back of her head, but the gunman shoved her aside as he fired at the biker.

Two cooler doors exploded and glass fell like jagged rain.

The biker disappeared.