You Don't Know Me

I see the other man. Face. Something about him jars. There is nothing special about this man. He’s just a man. Any man. This man that I am about to kill. In my mind he was a monster. He was the Devil even, maybe. But the man who looks back at me is scared. He has seen the gun. But more than that he has seen my face. He knows what that means.

There is a split second right then that I feel as if I have come out of my body and I am standing watching everyone including myself. I have a kind of smile on as if I’m interested, as if I’m wondering what I will do. Will I shoot him? Will I walk away? Will it be black or will it be white? Or is this one of them grey areas or is it all kind of colours? Right now it feels like everything has been turned over and upside down. I feel as if the sky is under my feet. I am in a new dimension it seems to me. Some upside-down place where the outside is inside and where the sky is green.

Just then it hits me all at once. The craziness of this life I am in that doesn’t even feel like my own any more. Everything that has happened in the last few months starts playing over in my mind. It is there on a spinning reel, the images flashing faster and faster. So fast now that I am dizzy and sick. I want all of these names now to be gone. All of these names for things I never knew before. All the Guiltys, the Facemen, the JCs, the crews, the guns, the life. I want it all washed out of my head. I want to go back to that time. When I didn’t even know how good life was. I don’t even know how I got here any more. I don’t remember choosing any of it. It just happened. It feels as if every last thing made every next thing happen and now I can’t control any of it.

It was for Ki, I remind myself. Everything is for her. Jamil has told this man Face who she is and that he must kill her. I am doing this for Ki.

It’s only when she screams that I come back into my body and feel the gun heavy and pointing down in my hand.

Two shots later both men are dead. They fall heavy to the ground, faces ruined by a single bullet each. Face lands face up. His eyes just staring out. I find myself looking into them. Frozen. I think I see the moment when the life leaves them and I can’t turn away.

Ki’s voice screams out my name and I look to see her turning towards the door and kicking the wedge, the doorstop, away. She pulls open the door but as she does another face stares straight back at her. She is quick though. Her adrenaline has kicked in and all of her movements are smooth and fast. Her brain is working at speeds now I cannot even track. She sees the man at the door and knows she has to keep him out until we are clear. The key is there in her eyes. Those silver flashing eyes that make cars stop in the road. She opens them wide at the man and they suck him in like black holes. His face changes. The world has vanished for him until there is only him and this girl with those eyes. She slips an arm around his neck and pushes him back out and follows him into noise of the club. Her other hand behind her back. I push through past them both and as I head to the door that leads to the steps going down I grab Ki by the wrist and pull her with me.

We tumble down the steps where Curt is waiting with the back-room door open so that there is light to see by. He leads us both into the room and leans against the door. I am bent over double trying to catch my breath and to fight off the pain that is now in my stomach. Ki though is a straight six. The power in her is smooth and effortless.

She quickly hitches her dress above her waist and pulls on the tracksuit bottoms that Curt hands her, kicking off her heels as she does. She looks at me. I look back at her. I don’t know who looks stranger. My heart is still racing which is muddling my mind.

‘Top.’

I look at her puzzled. I don’t know what she is saying.

‘Top,’ she says again this time louder, indicating my hand.

I look down and then slowly begin to fall back into the moment. I hand her the sweatshirt after unwrapping it from the gun which is still hot in my hand.

In a few seconds the three of us are spilling into the street and are free. We get our hoods up, heads down and walk along the same route that I had taken earlier with Curt. Still nobody has said anything. We can hear a bit of commotion from the club’s front entrance. I think that I can hear snatches of people shouting about police. We carry on walking though. Away from the entrance. Each step takes us further from danger and closer to safety. Every step is a step to a new life. If we are lucky it could even be a step to our old life. The noise from the crowd fades out. A siren is in the distance but is coming closer.