Blindsided (22 page)

“You girls want to join the two of us for a drink?”

Bree tightened her grip around Natalie’s arm.

“No. No, thank you,” Natalie said firmly, projecting her voice the way Mr. Lee had taught them.
Leave us alone,
she wanted to say, but stopped herself. She didn’t want them to know how scared they were.

She started walking again, but then all at once, there were steps. Heavy, rushing steps behind them! Hot breath and an arm around her neck!

“Stop!” Natalie yelled before being jerked viciously backward. The cane flew out of her hand. She grabbed at the arm—it was encased in some sort of fleece—and tried to keep from being choked.

Bree screamed, and Natalie felt her kick as they were pulled apart.

Scared, Natalie tried to think, but in her panic all she could do was yell and scream.

“Let go!” she hollered.

“Behave yourself and no one gets hurt!” the man told her.

“No! Let go!” she screamed again. Natalie knew she had to fight back. She lifted one leg from the ground and tried to stomp on the man’s foot, but he moved too quickly and Natalie lost her balance. “Let go of me!”

Why wasn’t a car stopping?

The hold tightened around her neck. She needed to hook her chin inside the top of his forearm so he couldn’t cut off her air. She dug her chin in hard. It was supposed to be uncomfortable for him because of the pressure on his radial nerve.

It worked! His arm eased its hold on Natalie’s neck and she didn’t waste time. She threw her head back, trying to smash him in the face, but the move backfired. Angry, the man grunted and put his arm around her neck even tighter so she couldn’t push her chin inside. He reeked of beer and smoke and perspiration. Natalie struggled to breathe. Then, with all the strength she could muster, she used both hands to yank down on the man’s arm and sank her teeth deep into the exposed skin near his wrist.

“You bitch!” he hollered, wincing in pain. He slapped the side of Natalie’s head with one hand and, as he did, his grip loosened and Natalie wriggled away. In her split second of freedom, she whirled around and sent her right fist flying in an arc toward what she dearly hoped was the man’s upper lip. Forget the Universal Reference Point. Mr. Lee had told them there was a nerve where the upper lip meets the bottom of the nose, and if she could hit it with enough force she could knock a full-grown man unconscious.

Just like in practice in the gym, Natalie kept her wrist straight so she wouldn’t break it and aimed the ridge of knuckles for the nerve point, pivoting her hips as she swung and driving the swing all the way through. She didn’t think about it—she just did it. And she made contact all right. Pain shot back through her hand and into her arm.

“Aaaahhh!” the man hollered.

A good, strong hit, even if it did feel more like the side of his nose than an upper lip. But it didn’t knock him out, or even knock him down.

“Damn you!” The man’s hand struck Natalie hard in the face and sent her wheeling backward to the ground. She scrambled to get away, but he grabbed her ankle, then her hand, and yanked her to her feet, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket. Something warm trickled out of her nose.

“Stop!” she yelled again as he gripped both her hands at the wrists. “Leave me alone!”

“Damn!” he cried, twisting her wrists painfully. “My nose!” Surprisingly, he let go of one of her hands, and as soon as he did, Natalie swung her right foot back and kicked the man as hard as she could. She was going for the groin but got his knee instead. Not a bad hit, though. He crumpled in pain, letting go of her other wrist.

“Help!” she screamed again.

A car’s horn blared.

“Bree!” Natalie cried.

“What’s going on?” a voice called out.

“Help!” Natalie yelled. “Help us! We’re being attacked!”

The horn blared again.

“I’ve got the police on the phone!” a voice shouted from the darkness.

“Eddy, out of here!” yelled the man who had attacked Natalie.

Another voice several yards away replied, “Split?”

The men took off.

But where was Bree? Why wasn’t she yelling or saying anything?

Natalie dropped down on all fours and used her hands to search for her cane. “Bree?” she called, running her hands over the rough cement sidewalk and the grass to one side.

She found her cane and stood.

“Bree!” she called again.

A faint voice in the darkness. “Over here!”

“Where?”

“Here!”

The stranger with a younger man’s voice came from the other direction. “Are you all right? Those guys are gone. What happened?”

“I can’t find my friend,” Natalie cried.

“Oh, my gosh, you’re blind! Are you both blind?” the young man asked incredulously.

The young man gave Natalie a handkerchief, which she pressed to her nose. He led her to Bree, who was sitting nearby. Natalie collapsed on the ground beside her. Natalie’s cheek stung, and her nose and mouth were sticky with blood. She could taste it. Her right hand throbbed. She put an arm around Bree, and the two girls hugged and cried.

Within a few minutes, police sirens pierced the night. Natalie actually thought she could see a slight glimmer of their swirling lights.

Bree was shaking and sucking in breath. “I really hit my head . . . that guy swung me so hard.”

“Thank you for stopping,” Natalie said aloud, not knowing exactly where the young man stood. “You saved us.”

“I got a good one in, Nat,” Bree said. “I hit that guy hard in the Adam’s apple and almost got away. But then he came after me again and threw me on the ground. I’ve got my purse. It’s still here. I don’t know where my cane is.”

“We’ll find it,” Natalie said. “Don’t worry about your cane. How are you? Are you hurt?”

“I don’t feel so good,” Bree said. “My head hurts. I really cracked it on something hard when I fell.”

“Gosh, Bree. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey! Don’t
you
be sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to come get me. It was my fault. Everything has been my fault.”

“It’s okay,” Natalie told her.

“But I wanted to tell you—”

“Bree, let’s talk later. Just rest for now, okay?”

“Yeah. I need to lie down,” Bree said in a whisper. “Just for a minute.”

Natalie heard the crackle of a police radio and soon a policeman was kneeling beside her. “Are you all right, miss?”

“I think so,” Natalie said. She took the handkerchief away for a moment. “Is my nose still bleeding?”

“Better keep that cloth on it,” the officer said.

The young man who had stopped to help gave the police a quick account of what he’d seen. Listening to him, Natalie realized that he must have witnessed almost the entire attack. But two minutes? How could it only have lasted two minutes? It seemed like an eternity!

“I didn’t realize what was happening at first,” the young man explained. Then he described Natalie’s assailant: “A white guy, about five foot eight or nine. Heavyset. Big belly. A beard. A baseball cap. Dark pants, light-colored T-shirt, dark jacket.”

“He smelled like beer and cigarettes,” Natalie said. “I think he followed us from the bar in the shopping center. The Raven’s Nest.”

“You’re sure?” the officer asked.

Natalie hesitated. “No. I can’t be sure. Obviously. But I smelled him. Some guy said something to us when we passed the bar and it was the same voice. He had a fleece jacket on—and he’ll have a bite mark near one wrist. I also hit him pretty hard on the nose.”

The young man continued, “The other one wasn’t as heavy. About the same height.”

Natalie spoke up again. “His name was Eddy. The guy who attacked me called him Eddy.”

“I didn’t get a good look at him,” the witness said. “He veered off the sidewalk, toward the woods there.”

Woods? There were woods nearby? Natalie put a hand over her eyes.

“I think we’ll get you girls down to the hospital to get checked out,” the policeman told her.

“I don’t think I need a hospital,” Natalie said.

“Your friend,” he said. “Is she hurt?”

“Bree?” Natalie reached over to touch her arm.

There was no response.

“Bree!”

“Charlie!” the officer hollered. “Call for an ambulance!”

S
erena was only trying to be funny when she saw Natalie’s bruised and swollen face the next morning. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said.

Natalie didn’t even try to smile as she readjusted the ice pack on her face. “Is it that bad?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. It’s a good thing I can’t see you any better! But seriously, Nat, you were a real hero,” Serena told her as they walked to breakfast.

Eve was just behind them. “I think so, too, Natalie. I would not have been able to do what you did.”

Murph struggled to keep up with them. “Yeah, but aren’t you going to get in trouble for leaving campus? Why’d you do that anyway?”

Natalie ignored Murph’s questions. She was sure there would be repercussions for leaving school, maybe even a suspension—or an expulsion.

In the dining hall, Natalie slumped into a chair at their usual table, folded her cane, and set it beneath the seat. Unable to sleep the night before, she was tired and leaned against the hand that didn’t hurt, still keeping the ice pack on her face. Mostly, she worried about Bree.

“What can I get you for breakfast?” Serena asked.

“I don’t care. Anything,” Natalie said. “Thanks.”

Serena returned with a bowl of cereal and a carton of milk and sat down beside Natalie. “I got some Cheerios. Here’s a spoon,” she said. “Have you heard anything about Bree?”

Natalie took the spoon and shook her head. “Nothing. All I know is that they took her to Johns Hopkins Hospital. I’m going to ask Miss Audra if she’ll take me down to visit.”

Natalie reached into her pocket for the HOPE stone and hoped with all her heart that nothing serious was wrong with Bree. Then she sat up and tried the other pocket. Several times, she felt both pockets, because they were the same jeans she had worn yesterday. But the little pink stone was gone.

 

There was no visit with Bree that afternoon. Natalie had to get on the bus and go home to face her parents, who were horrified over what had happened and distressed about how narrowly Natalie had escaped serious harm. The whole weekend turned out to be an exhausting maelstrom of emotion: bouncing from sympathy for Natalie and Bree, to gratitude that everyone was safe, to abject anger at the girls for walking alone at night.

“What were you thinking?” her father demanded. “You could have been killed!”

“I know. I know. It was stupid, a totally stupid thing to do,” Natalie agreed with him, over and over. “But Bree begged me to come get her, and somehow I thought I could do it, Dad. But you know something? I did fight off that guy. If Mr. Lee hadn’t taught us that self-defense stuff in class, this whole thing might have turned out much differently.”

“Mr. Lee, phooey!” her father exclaimed. “Phooey to that whole school! I hate the city. This is why your mother and I live out in the country!”

All weekend, Natalie worried about Bree and was haunted by echoes of the incident. Even just brushing her teeth the first night she was home, she suddenly felt the man’s arm around her neck again and sent the toothbrush flying into the sink as her hands instinctually went to her neck
. What did that guy want? Was he going to rob me? What if the man in the car hadn’t stopped? What would have happened? I need to thank him. I don’t even know who he is. How will I find him?

Natalie wondered, too, if she would ever have the courage to walk alone again, in public, with just a cane.

She longed for the sympathetic ear of an old friend. She wondered if Meredith even knew what had happened.

A promised call from Miss Audra didn’t come until Sunday morning. “Good news,” she told Natalie. “The two men who attacked you were caught. They’re in jail. You may be asked to identify them by their voices.”

“Will Bree and I get kicked out of school, Miss Audra?”

“I don’t think so, Natalie. Don’t worry about that now.”

“How’s Bree? When can I see her?”

Miss Audra’s disturbing reply: “Let’s wait until you’re back, okay?”

 

Early Monday morning, snow started falling in Baltimore. It was the first snow of the season in the eastern part of the state, and kids at school were excited. No one seemed to be dwelling on the incident from the previous week, and no one else seemed concerned that one student wasn’t in class that morning. Instead, there was endless silly talk about how much snowfall was predicted and speculation over what was required to close school and send them home.

“Let’s turn our pajamas inside out tonight!” Murph suggested at lunch, instigating a round of laughter.