Free Kiss the Girl by Susan Sey

jeans, white t-shirt and a blue bandana around his head.  Nixie patted at him with frantic hands , looking for the injury. 
    “Easy now,” she said, keeping her voice smooth and low even while her heart thumped around in her chest like a crazy thing .  “We’ll take care of you.”
    The kid scrambled away from her touch.  “What the hell?”   He glanced toward the d river, then back to Nixie.  “I ain’t hurt, bitch.”
    Nixie frowned , the first glimmer of alarm surfacing through her impulse to tend .  “You don’t seem to be.  What’s going on?”
    “Jesus,” the d river said.  “Will you just grab her?”
    Nixie eased toward the open door at her back, keeping her eyes carefully blank and uncomprehending .  “What?  Grab who?”
    The d river rolled his eyes in the rearview mirror.  “I ain’t talking to you, bitch.  Damn, dawg , grab her.”
    Nixie ’s stomach went hot and tight as the kid in the back seat snatched at her wrist with one hand.  With the other, he yanked up his t-shirt and showed he r the ugly black gun in the waist band of his boxer shorts. 
    “Get in the car, bitch.”
    She shook her head slowly.  Carefully.  No disrespect, even though her impulse was to grab the gun out of the kid’s shorts and at least engage the safety before he blew his baby maker off. 
    But s he’d seen too many boy soldiers in her line of work to underestimate the danger of her situation.  Just because kids didn’t understand death didn’t mean they couldn’t deal it out .  She’d often thought that was precisely the reason children were such effective killers.  After all, how hard is it to pull the trigger when you don’t fully understand what it means?     
    She raised her free hand slowly into the air-- See?  I’m harm l ess --but kept moving toward the open door at her back.  Toward safety. 
    The kid yanked at Nixie’s wrist again .  “Get in here, doc.  You got work to do.”
    Nixie yanked back.  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
    The d river slouched into his seat.  “ Just hit her, dawg .  Or you’ll be telling Ty how the girl doctor kicked your ass.”
    The kid balled his free hand into a fist.  Nixie squeezed her eyes shut, sucked in a breath, and released a scream of such startling volume that the kid released her wrist and dropped back against the vinyl seat , his eyes crossed.  Nixie snatched back her wrist, satisfied.  She’d been the victim of more haphazard kidnappings than she could count, and in her experience , a good, healthy scream derailed a would-be kidnapper far more effectively than pepper spray or some fancy martial arts . 
    “Jesus!”  The d river turned around and grabbed Nixie by the hair.  She doubled her volume and poked stiffened fingers toward his windpipe. 
    “ Aaaack ,” he said.  A surge of victory had her flipping her hair out of his lax fingers and scuttling out of the car like a demented crab.  The gun man recovered enough to thr o w himself after her, and since she was already on her butt on the sidewalk, Nixie pistoned out with both feet to slam the door .  He took it square in the face, the window a perfect frame for his stunned, squished expression before he sank out of view onto the floor boards.  Nixie wondered for one hysterical moment what the back door of a ’79 Ford LTD must weigh to ring a kid’s bell like that. 
    The driver cursed--Nixie read his lips; it was an easy one--and opened his own door.  Nixie scrambled up to sprint for the building, only to find Mary Jane a t her shoulder, an emergency kit in her hand and fury in her face.
    “What the hell is this?” she said.
    “I’ll explain later,” Nixie said, grabbing for her elbow.  “ For now, let’s run .”  She dragged at the smaller woman’s arm, but it was like trying to haul cinder blocks.
    The driver looked back and forth between Nixie and Mary Jane, a hint of uncertainty under the bravado and scorn .  “What the hell?  There