Alexis was so pissed off with Miranda when she found out she was likely using us to pad her porno site. She was half out of the car to go back to her studio to tell her off. I had a grip on her wrist and softly said, "Don't. She's got a whole classroom of pissed-off paying customers that are demanding their money back right now. Besides, God knows what photos she has of us. She has that whole video of tonight." She reluctantly pulled her door closed and I pushed the key into the ignition. Subaru headlights come on as soon as you turn the key and ours illuminated a large portion of the mostly empty parking lot as the engine started.
Way at the other end of the parking lot we could see what looked like several people scuffling. Light reflective markers on their sneakers were the first thing I noticed. I looked at Alexis and said, "What's happening down there?" She looked harder and shrugged her shoulders. I put the car in gear and drove slowly in that direction.
As we got closer and I switched to high-beams we could see three guys struggling with a woman. They had the woman bent backward over the hood of a car with her feet on the pavement. One guy on each side of the car had her arms pinned out to her sides. She was topless and she was screaming bloody-murder. We could hear her now even through the closed windows. The third guy had pushed himself inside the kicking legs of the woman and had his hands at his crotch, obviously unbuckling or unzipping his pants. Her skirt was at her waist and her panties were lying torn on the pavement by the front wheel.
They were apparently concentrating so hard on raping this woman that they didn't notice our approach. When the headlights fully bathed them in illumination, they turned to look. I was hoping they would turn and run but they didn't. I drove right up on them and the two guys holding the woman's arms squinted at the high-beams. The guy standing between the woman's legs forcing them apart stuffed his cock back in his pants and turned to face us. None of the guys wore anything to hide their faces.
I'm not much of a fighter and had only been in one fight in my life. It was clear that these guys were the opposite. I quickly gauged their physical attributes and assessed my chances. The woman let out a scream that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck and the 'fight-or-flight' switch flipped over to 'fight'. I had always wondered which way my switch would flip in a situation like this. You never know until you're there. I knew I would regret it the rest of my life if I drove away now. I opened my door and put my left foot out on the pavement. Alexis grabbed my arm as I was about to lift myself out of the car. She was scared as she looked at me. I admit that I was scared too. She didn't say a word and took her hand off my arm. She quickly looked in the backseat for anything that could be used as a weapon. I stood up by the open door and leaned back in and said, "You lock these doors and don't get out. No matter what happens. Be ready to get out of here if you have to." Strangely, as an afterthought, as I was slamming the door, I yelled, "Call 9-1-1." I heard the doors lock.
I was hoping that my physical stature would be enough to give them pause. I figured that I was a good eight inches taller than them and probably fifty pound heavier. The woman screamed again and I flexed my fists tight and stepped toward them. The guy doing the raping stepped around to face me. He scanned me from head to toe and checked to see if I had a weapon in either hand. He was dressed in huge baggy pants that hung down over boxer shorts. He had expensive high-top sneakers on and a nylon jacket with zippers and pockets everywhere. He wore a baseball cap turned to the side and canted down at the brim. The others were dressed similarly. I looked to see if there were any gang patches visible but I didn't see any.
The rapist was pretty sure of himself as he strutted up and stood staring at me less than my arm's length away. I was more than his shorter arm's length away from him. I was expecting him to get in close to take away my height advantage but he didn't. He scanned me up and down again and then laughed. "Hey kid. How about you get back in your car with your pretty girlfriend and leave the lady here with us. We'll take good care of her. Otherwise, when we finish with her," he flicked his thumb back over his shoulder toward the woman held down by his buddies, "we'll have a go with her," he pointed into the Subaru."
Without taking my eyes off him, I yelled back to Alexis, "Get behind the wheel right now." I could hear Alexis scrambling across the center console. I prayed that he wasn't going to pop out a switch-blade or something. He didn't. One of his buddies laughed behind him and he turned to look back at him. I lunged forward with a big full-power round-house and hit the rapist on the side of his face just as he was turning back to me. Okay. It was a sucker-punch. Blood and spit and snot flew from his nose and mouth and he went down hard and I stepped over him and hit him again and again. My hand was on fire. I prayed again that he wouldn't get up. If he moved I was going to hit him again.
One of the buddies released the woman's wrist that he was holding and headed toward me as I was stepping away from his buddy. He was cautious. He wasn't as cocky as the rapist and he circled in a wide arc. He moved in quickly and I wasn't ready for him. He hit me hard in the face and I staggered backward against the hood of the Subaru. Alexis screamed but I was too busy to see why. The guy was on me and I saw the glint off a blade thrusting toward my chest. I grabbed his arm and we toppled onto the hood of the Subaru. He had both hands on the hilt of the knife trying to use his full weight to stab me with it. I was strong enough to hold his efforts back with the one hand gripping his arm. I punched him hard in the side of the face and he rolled off me to the pavement. He jumped right back up, still holding the knife. He had a smile on his face and then suddenly the smile was gone and a blank look replaced it. He went down on his knees like a sack of potatoes falling off a truck and flopped forward toward me doing a face plant on the pavement. The knife skittered under the Subaru. I had quickly rolled off the hood ready for battle when the guy went down revealing Alexis standing behind the guy with the face guard of my spare football helmet in both hands. She had laid this guy out with it and he wasn't getting up.
We both turned toward the third guy and took a few steps toward him before he released the woman's wrist, held both hands up in the air and backed down the far side of the car and disappeared at a flat out sprint. Just like in the movies, the action was over and the sirens could be heard in the distance getting closer. Alexis ran to the woman who had slumped off the hood of the car to the pavement. She was sobbing uncontrollably and Alexis cradled her to her body and held her tight. The woman buried her face in Alexis' neck and shoulder and cried like I have never heard anyone cry before.
Three cruisers screamed into the parking lot and surrounded us. They had their guns out and they told me to get down on the pavement with my hands behind my head and my legs crossed. I did as directed. I'd seen enough cop movies and TV shows to know this was standard operating procedure. Two cops each grabbed up the rapist as he was coming around and his unconscious buddy and dragged them off to separate cruisers. Two more cops rushed over to Alexis and the woman. Their flashlights revealed that the woman, who I estimated to be in her mid-twenties, had been beaten pretty badly. One eye was swollen shut. Her face was bruised and her lip was bleeding down over her chin to her naked chest. Another cop came in with a blanket to cover her topless body. She was still pretty hysterical as the cops tried to separate Alexis from her. The woman clung to Alexis like she was life itself. They let her be until Alexis could get her calmed down.
Once everyone's information was collected and we had been interviewed, the cops released Alexis and me. An ambulance finally showed up to take the woman to the hospital. The EMTs gave me an ice bag for my hand and gave me a quick once over. I had a bruise on the left side of my face but I hardly felt it. Alexis was still crying almost as hard as the woman. I knew she was releasing adrenaline the only way she knew how. I held her in my arms for a few minutes before getting back in the car. I kissed my spare football helmet and tossed it into the backseat. We left before either the ambulance or the cruisers.
Alexis started shaking on the way home. I took her hand in mine. I said, "I know I told you to stay in the car, no matter what, but I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't decked that guy with the helmet. Thank you Babe. You may have saved my life."
Alexis smiled as she wiped tears from her eyes. She said, "I was terrified to get out of the car. The helmet was the only thing I could find to use. I sort of remember screaming when I saw the knife come out of his pocket. I don't even remember making the decision to get out. The only thing I remember is looking down at that guy on the pavement and getting ready to hit him again. I was in a rage."
At home I helped Alexis up the stairs and straight through the kitchen to the bedroom. I set her down on the edge of the bed and said, "How about a glass of wine or a beer or something to drink?" She mumbled something about "wine" so I got her a glass. She downed it quickly and I put the glass on the nightstand.
I undressed her and helped her under the covers. I slid in behind her and spooned up close and held her until she fell asleep. I rewound the whole thing in my mind comparing it to what I had told the police. My hand was swollen and hurt like crazy. I planned on going to the University Medical Center tomorrow morning for x-rays. My football coach would not be pleased. I worried about the woman. My guess is that we got there before she could be raped but she was beat to a pulp before then. Alexis and I would go to the hospital to see if we could find out how she was doing.
After what seemed like hours, I drifted off to sleep and unfortunately relived the whole incident over and over again in a nightmare. I woke several times but went right back to the nightmare. I got out of bed once hoping that I wouldn't go back to the dream but it didn't work.
In the morning, breakfast was subdued. Alexis was feeling down. We ate our cereal in silence. I was worried about her. She is always so upbeat and positive. I made small talk about what her day looked like. She just mumbled something like, "the same". Her long blonde curls hung over her face as she stared down into her bowl. She was just poking her spoon around in it randomly pushing cheerios under the surface of the milk. I let her be and ate my cereal.
