Sanaa clutches at Grace’s arm with a painful grip that belies her small stature, speaking right in her ear with an urgent whisper.
“We don’t have time for this, we need to hurry!”
Annoyed, Grace shrugs off her hand “Don’t paw at me please. We can’t just leave them here like this.” Grace makes a move to climb into the van. “It will only take a minute.”
Sanaa hisses at her angrily “We need to go now!”
Grace tosses her the keys to the Rav4 “You want to go? Go then, I’ll catch up.”
Sanaa lets the keys fall to the ground without trying to catch them “I don’t know how to drive!”
Grace shakes her head “Of course you don’t. Looks like you’re just going to have to wait thirty fucking seconds then, doesn’t it? If you want to make yourself useful, grab my clothes out of the back at least.”
Using her strength spell (and her non-magical strength) Grace yanks the first person free of their bondage – a fellow with short white hair, a craggy face, and hollow eyes. He rips the ball gag out of his mouth as Grace crawls/slouches to the next person in line.
His voice is hoarse and frantic “What’s going on?”
The next person in line emits a short yip as Grace yanks her arms back and breaks the zip tie off their hands “You were kidnapped by one of those rich people sex cults they’re always talking about on podcasts. They were going to rape the shit out of you and then most likely kill you and bury you out in the orchard. Under the trees it’s probably chock full of the bones of drifters and the like. The good news is that I rescued you before that could happen. Aren’t you lucky? What’s your name?”
“Max Falcon.”
Grace starts to say something else but then does a double take and looks at him as she rips another person free “Your name is Max Falcon?” He nods. “Jesus, okay Max Falcon, I’m putting you in charge of stage two of this rescue operation. Once I get everyone free, I want you to drive to the police station and tell them what happened. I have some clothes in my car that hopefully will fit so you don’t have to go in there hanging dong.”
All told, other than her wrestling gear and the clothes on her back, Grace has a grand total of three shirts and a couple pairs of pants, which isn’t much for six naked, confused, soiled people shivering in the California night, but you give what you have right? Grace gestures to the prone forms of Baby and Meat.
“You can take their clothes too, they won’t mind.”
A woman with blonde curly hair, a bony tense face, and more than the hint of a mustache, wearing nothing more than a pair of Grace’s Wal-Mart work-out shorts moves to take the shirt off one of the fallen men and then recoils in horror when she gets a close look at Meat’s melted face. Her hand flies to her mouth as she stumbles backwards.
“What happened to him?!”
“He fell” Grace deadpans.
As you might have expected, the dazed and confused and partially clothed people have hundreds of questions and even more demands but Grace is able to bypass that delay by saying that the rich people rapists are in the area and they need to get a move along. It’s not a super nice thing to do, but when time is of the essence you have to make allowances, right? Plus it may very well be true. Max Falcon looks out from the driver’s seat of the van.
“What do I tell the cops about you?”
Grace slides into her Rav4 with a fuming Sanaa beside her “As little as possible.”
A girl with her long brown hair in a painfully tight ponytail wearing Grace’s Johnny Cash t-shirt sitting in the passenger seat of the van chimes in “I know you, aren’t you a wrestler or something?”
Grace can’t help but laugh, the first time ever anyone recognizes her and it’s at a moment when she would rather be anonymous “No, no, you probably just recognize me from Instagram, I’m Erin Allston.” She winks. “Check out my merch and don’t forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications!”
