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Lexi’s senses returned one at a time. The hard pavement made a poor cushion for her spine and trapped wrist. The buckles of her leather jacket bit into her waist. Lexi used her free hand to push at the weight pinning her in place.
It shifted but didn’t ease. Something feathery brushed her eyes and tickled her nose. The weight fell to her left side, but a powerful arm clamped across her chest. Its grip clasped her left shoulder. Like an iron bar, it pinned her to the ground.
“Get off me!” Her voice sounded ragged and afraid. Lexi wrestled her left arm free from behind her. Her wrist ached but hadn’t broken in the fall. She used the heel of her hand to shove at the arm. A man’s arm.
She dropped her chin to see a black leather sleeve and a bony wrist. The hand gripped her shoulder and shoved her back against the pavement. She swung her head to her left and met the calm gaze of the motorbike rider. He lay with her on the concrete, his body half covering hers. The tiny space between her vehicle and the one she’d parked behind trapped them. His green irises sparkled in the overhead yellow glow and his fringe bounced against long lashes. He propped himself up on his right elbow beside her. With a casual motion, he lifted his index finger and pressed it over his lips.
A car door slammed across the street and his jaw hardened. Footsteps approached from the other side of Lexi’s truck. She held her breath as the disjointed events formed into a devastating picture. Two shots. One missed. The shooter suspected the other had hit its mark. They intended to make sure.
A shout bellowed into the street. Lexi recognised the voice of the man who lived opposite her. “Did you hear a gunshot?” he cried to the person Lexi couldn’t see. “Is someone shooting in the bloody street?”
An answering grunt. A male sound formed low in the throat. Loose grit crunched, and the footsteps retreated across the road. A metallic door slammed, an engine fired, and a vehicle roared away.
The motorbike rider rolled clear of Lexi in the tight space. He eased himself over her and sat on the curb behind her head. The angry neighbour grumbled to himself across the street. She heaved in a welcome breath as her lungs inflated. “You saved my life,” she murmured.
His silhouette filled her eye line as he stood and blocked out the street lamp. He said nothing. Just peered down at her as her eyes watered in the aftermath of shock. He resembled an angel, back-lit by an unearthly glow.
Something touched Lexi’s cheek. She jumped and reached up her right hand to brush it away. The speckled light left a black haze across her vision.
A scream sent the alighting birds back into the sky. The woman from next door clung to her husband’s wrist as he barrelled through his front gate. She waved a phone in her free hand. “Don’t go out there, Clint!” she wailed. “I’ve called the police. The operator said you must stay inside.”
“Look at this, Janine!” He jabbed an angry finger at the wood shards on the floor and then his flayed gate post.
“Gunshots!” The man across the road lifted his voice as he crossed the street. “Did you hear them too?”
“This is a new fence!” Clint bent his hairy knees to peer at his decapitated gate post. Voluminous boxer shorts fluttered in the light breeze. His bare barrel chest rose and fell as though he verged on an explosion.
But his wife saw Lexi sitting on the road and screamed. “Oh no!” She released her husband’s meaty wrist and screeched into the phone. “She’s hurt! She’s jammed between two vehicles!”
“I’m fine.” Lexi shielded her eyes to view Janine. Spots of light still blighted her vision and created a kaleidoscope across the woman’s flowery nightdress.
Janine halted a metre from Lexi and froze. Her bare toes lifted and fell like piano keys on the cooling pavement. She lifted the phone to her mouth as though seized by an automaton. “Send an ambulance,” she said in a wooden tone. “Someone’s shot her in the face.”
In the distance, the gentle purr of an expensive motorbike turned the corner. Her stalker-hero left Lexi alone to explain.
