The Replaced Groom

"Chase him! Don’t let him get away! Make sure you take him down!”

Tanya sat up as she heard the approaching feet and commotion as a group of men seemed to be chasing someone.

“Oh great! She sniffled and added the mangled tissue paper in her hand to the growing pile on the passenger seat. ” Just my luck! A girl can’t even wallow in her misery in peace? Is it too much to ask for a moment of solitude?” She shouted to the roof of her car and then quickly shut her mouth when she saw a man dart out of a corner, running full speed towards where her car was parked in the dark away from the streetlights.

Tanya mistakenly flashed her lights while she was fumbling around for her phone on the console and quickly switched it off back but the guy had looked right at her in that fleeting moment.

Tanya was taken aback by the sheer terror on his face.

“Nobody should be that afraid” Then she shook her head when she realized belatedly that he was not just intending to run past her. He was running to her!

“No, no, no, buddy. Keep going! Keep going!” She said fervently to herself as she saw him getting closer to her car with intent. As if, if she recited it enough, it would happen. “Don’t stop, please, just keep going!”

She realized belatedly that her windows were rolled down and she was trying to reach for the button in the dark when the guy got to her.

Tanya screamed shortly, hating the girlish sound even as her subconscious registered how hot the guy was.

“Damn, he is so hot!” She thought as she shouted at him. “What the heck? Get….”

“Please, save me” he shouted in a gravelly voice.

“What are you talking about? Save you from what?” She shouted back at him and was answered almost immediately as four burly men with murder in their eyes rounded the corner the guy had come out from. The streetlight shone on their faces as they looked around obviously in search of the guy. The menace in their countenance made Tanya shrank back involuntarily against her seat.

“Those…those men are after you?” She asked in a whisper like they could hear her from three lanes away.

“Please! Please!! Please!!! Just get us out of here! They would kill me if they found me here! And they won’t spare you as well” He pulled urgently at the car door as he looked back to check if the men had seen him yet “Just open the damn door!”

“What? I can’t just…..” She saw the desperation on the guy’s face as one of the men spotted him near the car and then shouted to the others “The motherfucker is there!”

Tanya knew that she would certainly regret her next move but she unlocked the car. The guy got in, shouting at her “Please, go, go go!“. Tanya gunned the engine and pulled out while he was still getting in.

“Jesus! I am going to kill somebody. Are you okay?”

“Just go! I am fine!” He snapped.

Tanya froze when she saw that the approaching men did not intend to leave the road; instead, they were getting together to block the car’s path.