Free Picture Perfect by Steve Elliott Page B

and we settled down to take one apiece.
    It’s no fun being unarmed in a knife fight. Blades can cause debilitating injuries, even accidently, so you have to be extra careful. Unfortunately, Maria wasn’t as careful as I was. I heard her cry of pain and afforded her a quick glance to find her holding her left arm, blood running through her fingers. But she wasn’t helpless. As her attacker gave a triumphant shout and raised his knife to finish the job, she leaned back and kicked him in the chest. He flew backwards and banged his head on a nearby tree. I turned my attention back to my attacker, only to find that he had disappeared in the confusion.
    I rushed over to Maria, who was sitting on the ground, cradling her injured limb. “Let me see, sweetie,” I asked, gently taking away her hand.
    “Is not serious,” she said. “Catch me by surprise.”
    I examined her wound. It was long, but not deep. I breathed a sigh of relief. I bound it tightly with my handkerchief and helped her to her feet.
    “You scared me there,” I confessed, giving her a concerned kiss on the cheek.
    “Scare myself,” she replied, returning my kiss. “Need more practice.”
    “You okay, honey?” Paul asked, coming over while supporting a wobbly Roger.
    “I’m fine,” I answered. “How are you, Roger?”
    “Just a bit shook up,” he replied. “This was a bit more serious, wasn’t it?”
    I frowned. “They must be getting desperate,” I said. “But there seems to be only these three in the gang. Hopefully, there aren’t any more in reserve.”
    “What do we do with these two?” Paul asked, indicating the fallen and still unconscious attackers.
    “Me tell police,” Maria said.
    “It won’t do much good, dear heart,” Roger told her pessimistically. “All the police around here are corrupt.”
    “Not all,” Maria insisted, with conviction. “Some, yes. Me know good ones. Very straight. No take bribes. Me tell. You no worry.”
     

Chapter 16.
     
    We decided that we’d had enough excitement for the day, so we headed for home. Maria immediately went to the phone and had a long conversation with someone on the other end. Then she put the phone down with a decisive hand and declared, “All done. No bother us again.”
    “We’ll see,” Roger declared doubtfully. He went up to his studio to encase his impressions of the rodeo in charcoal. Paul wandered off to our room and I took the opportunity to wash and bandage Maria’s injury.
    “Me watch you fight,” she said softly as I wound the cloth around her arm. “You so fast and slippery. Where you learn?”
    I smiled in reminiscence. “All over the place,” I informed her, as the memories flooded back once again……. I’d been with Moonbeam for over nine months. I was ecstatically happy with my life because I loved someone and was loved in return. My days were complete. The memories of my earlier virtual imprisonment and abuse were fading into the background and I was gradually learning to wake up to the coming day with joy and not dread. But all of that changed soon after. I was shopping by myself – the commune ran a small market – when a hand clamped over my mouth and I was roughly dragged into a nearby alleyway between the market tents.
    “Well, what have we here?” a sneering voice remarked. “It’s my former girlfriend who ran off with some tart or other.”
    I twisted my head around to the very last sight I wanted to see again. It was my former captor, with a cruel, horrible smile on his lips. “We’re going to have so much fun together,” he leered. “It’ll be just like old times. Won’t you like that?”
    I tried to struggle free, but it did me no good. In fact, it earned me a vicious blow to the head that set my ears ringing.
    “Oh, no, you don’t ,” he advised, gripping my arm and twisting it until I cried out in pain. “Don’t struggle. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
    “How did you get here?” I panted. “The police