you're gonna wish you
had never met me
Trent's car rattled into the driveway with a blown tire and more than extensive body damage. The engine died on him, leaving him coasting, but no one cared because it was an automatic.
Inside the trunk, Jasmine was shaking, bleeding and crying, but somewhere, deep down inside of her, a different spirit had siezed control. Time had slowed down. Each second was an eternity within which she searched for the means to save her life.
The car came to rest just off the edge of the driveway, its front bumper knocking over one of two lawn ornaments: a garden gnome, defending the house from a garden goblin. The car knocked over the goblin.
Trent glanced around the neighboorhood. It was quiet. And not like a quiet-night-in-the-ghetto quiet, no, this was fucking rich people quiet. There were no eyes on him. Least, not that he could tell. He popped the trunk open. The lid actually came off one of its hinges, and this is what distracted Trent from realizing in time that the duck tape around Jasmine's wrists was cut.
Jasmine scrambled forward with all of her might and stabbed, or possibly cut, Trent with the piece of glass in her hand. She never quite remember which it was, but it made Trent scream.
Jasmine rolled out of the trunk. She was in so much panic, with so much adrenaline in her blood, that when she pawed wildly at the driveway surface she could find no purchase, and was unable to move, like a car doing a burn out. Finally she relaxed for just a second and she was up, forward, at the steps. The front door was open. Entering Trent's house was a bad idea, but Jasmine had no mind on where she was going, only what she was getting away from.
Trent barreled through the front door and tripped over bottles of Jack. Jack Daniels. He stopped for a second and stared. Tom had put them everywhere, on every surfaced. Thousands of dollars of liquor on every square inch of the floor, windowsills, shelves, the chairs, armrests, the tv.
"Holy fuck Tom!!!" Trent screamed. His roomate. His crazy fucking roomate. He screamed obscenities at Tom. He smelled the liquor. He watched Jasmine only a few feet away, trying to wade through the bottles of liquore on all fours.
"I'm here, Trent." Tom was perched--literally perched--on the railing the stop of the staircase. It was literally the only place you could put your feet without dislocating a bottle of Jack.
Jasmine heard the voice of another human--or perhaps we should say a human being--and headed for the sound. There was no time to think about the fact that she was in a house full of whisky bottles--her brain just didn't process it. All she could do was claw through and beg for help.
Jasmine reached the top of the stairs, and knew not where to go. She hugged the railing supports for her life. Tom looked down at her. Her face was covered in blood, apparently from a possible lacerating just above her left eye. There were bruises everywhere, and her breathing was labored. Had anyone been more perceptive at this time, that might have noticed that Tom's eye wasn't twitching.
Trent came up and smashed one of the whisky bottles onto Jasmine's back. Then he looked up at Tom. Tom has a metal lighter in his hand. He was flicking it open and shut every two seconds.
"You crazy fuck! You crazy little shit fuck! You filled the entire fucking house with-"
"You need to learn a new word," said Tom. He flicked the lighter open. "When you abuse the f-word like that, it loses its punch. People stop listening to you." He flicked the lighter shut.
"Fuck you!" Trent failed to realize that Tom wasn't stuttering, either.
Tom hopped down off the railing, standing between Trent and Jasmine. Jasmine whimpered and scrambled away. Trent advanced. Tom retreated, always staying between Trent and Jasmine. He was still flicking that damn lighter open and shut.
"Tom, Tommy, my little man, out of my way," said Trent.
Tom should his head.
Jasmine was up against the wall. Window, actually. She had nowhere to retreat. Tom stopped. Trent would have bumped into him and plowed him over if it wasn't for the lighter in Tom's hand. It was one of those fancy $10 metal lighters, with the blue flame. Tom left it lit this time.
Trent stopped and tried to compose himself. There was still time to deal with this situation. In fact, he could all blame it on Tom. Tom was 'mentally challened' or whatever--fucking crazy--Jasmine's honor killing could be blamed on him.
"I thought we agreed you wouldn't interfere, Tommy boy," said Trent.
"Like this?" said the man holding the lighter. Tom grabbed Jasmine with one hand sent her flying through the window. She fell with the shattered glass. The two men in the room heard a splash when her body hit the pool. The men stared at each other for a few seconds as the potent aroma of bourbon filled their notrils. Trent was actually soaked in the stuff.
"Tom...what...." Trent's mouth dropped open and hung there.
"My name's not Tom. Its Becker. Biff Becker." Biff tossed the lighter at Trent's feet.
The resulting fire expanded immediately, and Biff's own clothes were lit by the time he made it out of the window, but he too was falling into the pool. He wrapped up the water landing, and some rescue breathing for the damsel in distress, and a few other extraneous details. Then he scooped up Jasmine and carried her away from the pool fireman style, a wall of flame at their backs. Somewhere in the night Trent was still screaming. The cops would have an interesting time figuring out the liquor bottles, but there was no paper trail to identify 'Tom.'
Biff would have left Jasmine for the paramedics that were bound to show, or better yet carry her to an emergency room himself, but no one at the hospital would realize in time that Jasmine's parents were also trying to kill her, and Biff wasn't about to hang out and explain things.
The best place to take Jasmine was her own apartment. Biff checked her over and repaired her like a crash victim. Her copy of The Art of Driving was under her bed. Time to jet.
Biff looked at his patient. She was barely conscious. Biff sat down. He used the book he'd worked so hard to reclaim to prop up her IV bag. He'd take it back later.
He stayed, then, and talked to her. He'd break my hand if I wrote that he held hers, but I think its safe to admit that this was the one time that the new Biff, the new jaded Mr. Sadpants Biff, ever showed compasion.
"You know," he said, "Jasmine would be an excellent name for a blue sportbike. Maybe a yamaha. You know, a liter bike...."
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