Fear Thy Neighbor (2)
“You’re hurting me!” Alison cried out.
“Shut up,” he growled. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” He eased the bulk of his weight off the door, freeing her arm. Ripples of hot pain pierced her forearm. She knew it was broken. Clenching her teeth, she pushed away from him, but he was too fast for her.
Grabbing both feet, he dragged her across the dirty linoleum floor. Her head hit the corner of the dresser, the sharp edge slicing into the delicate skin on her temple. Warm blood oozed down her face, the coppery scent gagging her.
“Stop!” she screamed through gritted teeth.
Wicked laughter spewed from his mouth. “I’ll stop when I’m finished, you little bitch.”
Straddling her, his knees pressing on her thighs, he used one hand to hold her wrists above her head. Tears rivered down her face, mixing in with the blood from her head wound. With his free hand, he ripped off his belt, the metal buckle hitting her chin. More blood, pain, and rage provided enough adrenaline for her to yank her arms free. She heard the swift sound as he ripped open his zipper, knowing what was next. Through her blood-drenched vision, by the dim light from the moon, Alison was able to see the table between the two beds. The extension cord on the lamp, snaking across the linoleum, was within her reach.
She yanked the cord, and the lamp smashed onto the floor, also hitting the iron bedframe. Quickly she reached for a large piece of glass, feeling its sharp edge. Before he realized what she’d done, her adrenaline pumping, she jammed the broken glass into the soft spot in the center of his neck.
His body limp, stunned, he touched his neck. “I’ll kill you!”
She pulled the shard of glass out of his neck and stabbed him again, and again and again.
Pushing his heavy body aside, she wiped the blood from her eyes, took her wad of money from the pillowcase, and crawled out the window.
The words never again, never again kept rhythm with her steps as she ran down the sidewalk. Amid angry tears and unrelenting pain, Alison promised herself she would never let another man touch her again.
Chapter One
Tampa Bay, July 2022.
“The tourists are gone—I’m ready for a change,” Alison Marshall told her manager at Besito’s, one of the finer Mexican restaurants in the city.
Pedro shook his head. “No, you can’t leave now. I’m already shorthanded as it is. We’ll liven up soon, the locals will turn up.”
“Sorry, Pedro, but it’s time for me to move on. I’ve worked the last two seasons here. I told you when you hired me I was a drifter,” Alison explained. She needed a new scenario. She’d been in Tampa Bay long enough. The tourist season was over, and the big tips didn’t come from the locals eating free baskets of chips and salsa on Taco Tuesday. One might earn twenty bucks in tips, if they were lucky.
At twenty-nine, Alison was footloose and fancy-free. She liked being self-sufficient, able to pick up and go whenever the urge hit her. She had no family, no close friends, and had never owned anything except an old Jeep she’d paid cash for three years ago in Tallahassee. No attachments suited her perfectly.
“You’re leaving me in a bind, Alison. I can’t give you a good reference,” Pedro told her as she folded her clean BE-SITO’S work shirt along with her bright green apron.
“Fine. You’ll find someone else to take my place. Put an ad on your Facebook page. Trust me, you’ll have your share of applicants. I don’t need a reference from you.”
Pedro, all four hundred pounds of him, shook his head, his black hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead. “Then go,” he told her as he wiped his forehead with a dirty rag.
“Nice knowing you too, Pedro.” Alison left her shirt and apron on the counter by the register. She had no hard feelings toward her manager; she knew it was time for a change.
She waved goodbye to the empty dining room. “Later,” she said as she walked to her car. Her rent was paid up, so no strings there, either. Renting an efficiency apartment weekly suited her nomadic lifestyle. Living on the seedier side of Tampa Bay had its risks, but for two hundred a week, she hadn’t worried about them. She carried a. 22-caliber pistol in her purse with five extra clips, all legal and necessary for a woman in today’s world.
Once inside her one-room apartment, she neatly packed her clothes into her battered luggage, took her two pairs of extra shoes from the small closet, and grabbed her toiletries bag, stuffing it inside with the rest of her worldly belongings.
Alison took the three Diet Cokes out of the mini refrigerator and placed them in her small cooler. She took one last look around the modest space that had been her home for two years.
“Yep, it’s time to hit the road.”
She filled the cooler with ice before stopping by the office to return her key.
“You goin’ already?” Bert asked, brown spittle staining his white beard. He reeked of stale cigars and whiskey.
“Time to move on,” she said. “Take care of yourself.” Bert nodded. “Always do.” Alison had a snarky reply at the ready but kept it to herself. Bert was who he was—an old drunk with a half-ass job that gave him free rent. Not unlike herself, minus the drunkenness and cigar smoke.
She pulled into a convenience store and filled her tank, then purchased a few snacks for the road. She kept a sleeping bag, a flashlight, and a set of jumper cables in the Jeep just in case. Always be prepared for the worst, a lesson she’d learned after spending her first seventeen years in foster homes. After graduating high school early with honors, she took a bus from Ohio to Georgia with nothing but the clothes on her back and the money she’d managed to save from the part-time jobs she’d held during high school. She spent four years in Georgia, had a number of jobs, saving every cent she could, living in hostels, cheap hotels, and sometimes the back of the twenty-year-old van she’d bought. It was hard work, saving as much as she could, until she returned to Middletown, Ohio, on her twenty-first birthday to search for the family of the man who’d sent her running. Since she was a legal adult, the state of Ohio no longer controlled her. She spent over a month searching for any information about the foster family whose son had tried to take her life. Alison spent hours at the local library, searching obituaries online. Information from the local police provided nothing, though the lies she’d told about her reasons for wanting such information might’ve been why she’d been unable to get answers. Knowing he was no longer a danger, and that possibly her fears about his family were irrational, she put the nightmare back in a place where her dark memories resided, and left Ohio once more.