Chapter 21: Alex steps up...

Her business with Rob completed, Lorelei headed out of the restaurant feeling confident and reassured. Alex's second tryst seemed to have been completed a moment or two ago, too. It seemed to have ended a bit abruptly, but then, she did leave him in a lingerie store. No telling what sort of interruptions might take place there.

She contemplated doing as she had implied on her way out -- hitting a couple of other stores to get things out of the way before she came back. But Lorelei felt an urge to reunite with her master and thank him, quite pornographically, for the joy that he had just shared with her. She strode to the escalators and then headed for the lingerie store.

Inside, she didn't find him. Just several worried-looking sales associates. Among them was Audrey, who seemed very stressed.

"Where is my companion?" Lorelei asked her. "Has he left?"

"He did."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"He just left all of a sudden with Taylor and three other guys. It didn't look right, but we didn't know if— "

Lorelei was already out the door.

************

It dawned on Alex that if he and Taylor got into a car with these guys, one or both of them were probably going to die. This was kidnapping. None of these guys had concealed their faces. One of them had even referred to the other two by name, so now Alex knew that they were J'Von, Mike and the White Guy.

They walked as a group, quietly, through the parking garage. Shoppers on their way out zoomed through the garage one by one, none of them looking like they had a care in the world. Some, in fact, were going a bit too fast.

"Gonna fuckin' hit somebody, asshole," Mike grumbled as he jumped out of the way of a Mustang. "Don't try nothin' stupid," J'Von warned the two hostages. "It's not you we want, anyway."

"What do you want?" Taylor asked.

"Shut up," J'Von shot back. "Boy, where's your car at?"

"It's over there," Tony said before Alex could speak. He apparently had a good eye for cars. Alex tried to think, fighting a rising panic. If they got into that car, that car right there, they were dead. He couldn't accept that. Not for himself. Certainly not for Taylor.

Alex had been in a mild scuffle or two, gotten some tips on fighting from friends who really knew what they were doing, but not much. He was generally smart enough to stay out of trouble -- at least until this week. He thought and thought about what he was supposed to do in these situations.

All he could think of was something Drew had said to him before. That day they both got suspended in High School for the only real fight he'd been in before this week. It had erupted in P.E. after a couple of boys had made Oreo jokes about Drew. Alex had been almost as offended as Drew, and wasn't going to let his friend face them alone, but he wasn't much good in the brawl that erupted. Outside the principal's office, Drew had simply said, "You wanna fight right, you gotta be meaner than the other guy. Don't matter if it's ugly. Losing is uglier. You don't know what's gonna happen if you lose."

Alex heard another car coming up the winding parking garage. "Taylor," he said softly, "I need my hand back." She let go.

All Alex had going for him was the hope that he could be meaner than they were. He had no interest in seeing what they might do to Taylor.

One second, everything was going fine for J'Von and his crew. In the next, Mike had suddenly been shoved right into an oncoming SUV going way too fast for a parking garage.

He bounced off the hood, tumbled to the car's right and down to the pavement as it passed by with its brakes squealing. Alex, inexperienced at these things, hesitated in the second after he shoved to see if it worked. J'Von didn't, and planted a right cross squarely into the side of Alex's jaw. He staggered, bouncing off the car next to him, and realized that he might've done something smarter than this. Taylor yelped and jumped out of the way.

"Oh, shit!" Tony blurted. He didn't know whether to check on Mike or back up J'Von. He decided on the latter, only to have Taylor trip him from behind.

The driver of the SUV, sensing trouble, took off rather than check on his victim. It was Seattle, after all.

Alex recovered and launched himself at J'Von but came up empty. He recovered quickly from that too. He even blocked the next couple of punches J'Von threw. He didn't block the elbow, though, or the knee in the stomach. Alex clutched at him, grabbed at his face, and pushed his thumb in the bigger man's eye.

Tony got to his feet and punched Taylor in the gut, leaving her doubled over. He then quickly jumped over to pull Alex away from behind. Alex's foot came right up into J'Von's groin.

Tony's fist came right up into Alex's kidney. He gasped, turned, and blocked another low blow. He tried countering with an uppercut but Tony dodged it entirely. This was really bad.

"Slow," Tony taunted Alex mockingly.

Alex threw a half-kick, half-stomp at the side of Tony's knee. Something about the impact sounded very unpleasant; Tony went down wailing. "Gimp," Alex retorted.

He spun to face J'Von, who was still bent over in pain, but had his gun out. J'Von, in severe pain,, fired four times from only a couple yards away. Three of the bullets went wild; poor aim and stress led him to squeeze too much while he shot. The first bullet caught Alex midway up his chest, just under his shirt pocket.

Taylor screamed. She rushed to Alex, but Tony caught her pant leg. She tripped and fell to the pavement.

The world spun; Alex staggered sideways, twisted, fell back onto the side of Lorelei's car. He slid down, sitting up against the door.

J'Von moved between the Lexus and the car next to it in order to stand over Alex. "Told you not to do anything stupid," he said, leaning in enough to spit the words in Alex's face. Half delirious, Alex's eyes wandered up at the shadow over him. His hands sought to grab onto something, anything. J'Von wasn't worried about it though. He was angry and wanted this fool's last moments to be full of nothing but weakness and fear.

Instead, a thought drifted through Alex's fuzzy mind. Something about needing to be meaner than the other guy. He seized that thought, hung onto it for dear life... and grabbed the looming shadow by the collar, yanking towards him with everything he could. Off-balance and surprised, J'Von found his head crashing through the passenger side window of the Lexus.

Another shot rang out from J'Von's gun, this one striking nothing but pavement. Taylor yelped while getting to her feet. Mike groaned loudly due to J'Von's weight on him. Tony forced himself to his feet, pulling his own gun -- J'Von had always, always told Tony not to pull a piece unless J'Von told him to do so, but this seemed to qualify. He grunted out something about having J'Von's back.

Then Tony found himself face-to-face with the most heart-stoppingly beautiful blonde girl he had ever, and would ever see in his life. She was dressed all in white. "Huh?" he blinked.

The angel's open hand came down on his face at a sharp angle. Her slap hit him like a brick. His bones cracked loudly almost like a soda can being crushed underfoot. His whole body crumpled to the floor in the blink of an eye. Taylor saw it, but couldn't believe it.

Rachel turned to Alex and J'Von just as the bigger man extracted himself from the car window and lifted himself off of Alex. Blood was flowing from his scalp. He turned his gun on Alex again, or would have, but Rachel was far more dexterous; she snatched it from his hand before he could pull the trigger.

"Lie down," Rachel ordered him.

"The fuck?" J'Von blinked.

Rachel swung the pistol up against his forehead, sending him bouncing into the wall behind him and then slumping to the floor.

On her feet now, Taylor rounded the parked car blocking her view to see Rachel crouch down over Alex. "Is he okay?" she asked, very close to tears.

Rachel touched the wound with her fingers. "He will be," she said. Alex looked up in her eyes blearily, feeling things move inside his chest. He was pretty sure that whatever was going on in there was really bad; he felt gurgly and could barely catch his breath as he struggled to keep from passing out. But then that all faded, and instead he was just very, sharply sore right where her fingers were. The world stopped blurring and spinning.

"It's a miracle that the bullet just glanced off your rib like that," Rachel smiled at him softly. "You could have had a collapsed lung. Or worse."

"Alex?" Taylor asked.

"I'm alright," Alex mumbled. "I think."

"You have been a bit beaten up, but that gunshot could've been much worse," Rachel nodded. She looked to Taylor. "That other one over there -- he probably has a gun, too. Probably in his waistband. Could you check on him before he recovers? Don't bother being nice about it," she warned.

Taylor swallowed and nodded. She hurried over to Mike, shoved him onto his back and patted him down until she found the gun. He groaned loudly but didn't put up a fight.

Rachel pulled Alex to his feet. "That was very brave," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner."

"What kept you?" he huffed.

"No wings," Rachel shrugged with a slightly guilty smile. "I had to run all the way from your mother's house. I didn't realize you weren't there until two minutes ago."

"You ran all the way across town in two minutes?"

"It's not that big a town."

"Huh. Maybe I should've just waited for you."

"No. You did the right thing. There are sometimes limits to my ability to intervene. I don't know how else this might have turned out. Who is this?" she asked as Taylor returned.

"Oh. Taylor's, um, a friend from High School. Wow, this hurts."

"I would imagine," Rachel nodded. "Hello, Taylor. You won't remember much about me soon. Sorry for that."

"Um. Hi?"

The angel nodded, surveyed the scene around her with her hands on her hips, and took a deep, calming breath... and then stopped. She took another long breath, slowly turning to Alex. "That... smell," she mumbled.

"Huh?" Alex asked. Taylor was perplexed as well.

"You smell," Rachel said, her voice wavering somewhat. "I smell? Oh, no, not this again..."

"You smell like..." Rachel inhaled deeply yet again, eyes fluttering much like Lorelei's had when he went down on her. "You smell like charity and compassion and... justice, and benevolence, and... mercy, and..." she inhaled again. "Self-sacrifice and... and... sex!"

She threw herself at him, arms wrapped around the battered young man with her mouth ravenously kissing his. Taylor looked on in awe; she would undoubtedly remember this quite clearly.

Alex himself was hardly even on the same plane of existence as everyone else in that moment. An angel -- his angel -- was kissing him. Every pain and worry fell away while her lips met his. They held that kiss for a long moment.

It was more than a little awkward for Taylor. They were absolutely beautiful together. They practically glowed. But then, anyone would be beautiful in that woman's arms. The blonde made her feel plain and frumpy by comparison. Alex seemed to have been taken by surprise, but then he was swept away by it. Everything in the parking garage went quiet.

Except, of course, for the groans from Mike and Tony. Taylor blinked. She looked over to Tony and kicked his gun under a car, then kicked him in the head. "Asshole," she grunted.

A car drove up from the lower level. This one stopped. "Hey, are these guys okay?" the older woman inside asked.

"No!" Taylor said urgently, "Call the cops! Please!"

The woman blinked, finding the scene of sprawled-out men and two people making out a bit odd, but she nodded, pulled back a few yards and put her car in park, then grabbed her phone. She did not, pointedly, get out of the car.

Alex wasn't sure what ended the kiss, but the first thing that registered for him besides the overwhelming beauty of the angel in his arms was the sharp click of sandals rapidly approaching.

Lorelei. She was here. Rachel's eyes went wide, and she slipped out of her embrace with Alex. His chest, his backside, and the rest of him felt terrible again. The only thing that didn't return was the crunchy pain in his jaw.

The succubus came over to them, reaching out to touch her master's arm, but she looked warily at the angel. She had doubtlessly seen them kissing. "Where the hell were you?" Rachel shot at her.

Lorelei scowled. "I had given him some space. Had I known that you were sleeping on the job, I might not have been so careless."

"Sleeping--! You bitch!"

"Ladies! Please! Can we just... can you just be a little patient with each other? Huh? Maybe at least try to be nice?" Alex held his hand over his bloody chest, then winced and realized perhaps that wasn't the best idea. "It would mean a lot to me if you two could bury the hatchet, at least just a little."

Rachel's face conveyed a twist of emotions. The thought was appalling, but at the same time the fact that he had to ask filled her with guilt. "Ma—Alex, I'm sorry," Rachel blinked. "I don't mean to make this hard on you."

Lorelei was much more calm and collected. "I saw the two of you kiss. I can feel his desire for you. You are lovely together. I'm certain we could all come to an arrangement," she suggested.

Rachel looked at her in abject shock, but Lorelei merely shrugged. "Believe it or not, what I want most of all is Alex's safety and happiness. You seem able to provide some measure of both. Sharing him would not bother me."

Alex turned to Lorelei, dumbfounded, while Rachel's mind seemed to go through an emergency reboot. Lorelei's steamy offer hung in the air without any pretense of being anything other than it was.

"Just..." Rachel blinked. "Just... just keep him out of trouble and fuck him like he deserves!" she shot back at Lorelei, and then spun and walked away. As before, she was out of sight in mere seconds.

"That is the strangest angel I have ever met," Lorelei murmured.

"Do they all talk like that?" Alex wondered aloud.

"Not a one," Lorelei shook her head. Sirens began to echo through the parking garage. "I should be able to keep this from getting out of hand," Lorelei thought aloud. She looked to Alex. "I am terribly sorry."

"Not your fault," he shook his head.

Lorelei looked at him apologetically anyway, and leaned in to kiss him softly. Then she turned away to let him compose himself.

Taylor had watched all of this. She had been almost entranced by the heavenly blonde, and found herself similarly awestruck by Lorelei -- who turned to her and smiled coolly. "You must be Taylor," she said.

Her jaw dropped. "You know who I am?"

"I know that he cherishes you, and that you are often on his mind and always in his heart. I'm sure that will always be so. You must be very special." She sounded utterly unbothered by it, perhaps even admiring. Then she turned away to meet the oncoming authorities.

Taylor slid up next to Alex and ventured a whispered question: "Which one of them is your girlfriend?"

His mouth twitched as his mind searched for an explanation, but eventually he came up with nothing. "I'm not entirely sure," he said finally.

She nodded, crossing her arms across her chest. Taylor looked over at Lorelei, and the battered thugs, and Alex. "You got way cooler after high school."

Alex frowned slightly. "Hey, I was always this cool, alright?"