The sky had turned a darker shade of purple than the violets I’d picked for my bouquet. Essence had said those were her favorite color in our chats. I checked the time on my phone. She should’ve arrived well over half an hour ago. Most restaurants would have closed by now, and the next showing of the movie I’d picked would not be until tomorrow.
Where was she?
I sent her another message. No response. The waning moon was almost halfway up in the sky. Still no response. I could make out a few stars overhead despite the streetlights’ glow, and the passing cars were dwindling in frequency. Still no response.
That wasn’t like Essence. She’d always been good about getting back to me within seconds on the app. The dread was shaking me up. I had to call her.
Still no response. Not even a ring.
Maybe she was stuck in traffic. Rush hour had long passed, but I was desperate.
I called her again. Nothing.
Was something wrong with her? Was her phone dead? Why hadn’t she kept it charged?
I shouldn’t preoccupy myself with worry. Better to think of all the positives instead. We had so many great conversations. About her studies in English literature, about her cute little dachshund, about her equally adorable niece. How she liked strawberry cheesecake and gospel music, how her last ex had hurt her so badly, and how she thought I was the most sensitive man she’d ever met. In turn, I could tell her everything about myself, and no matter what was bugging me, she knew how I should deal with it and how to cheer me up.
Of course, if her photos on the app were anything to go by, she was as beautiful on the outside as the inside. I should dig them up.
Footsteps clipped on the sidewalk. My stomach fluttered with delight. That had to have been Essence. But why had she not called or texted me first?
It was not Essence. Too tall, too big and stocky, too clad in black, and much, much too white to be her. Whiter than me, even. The tattoos on his hand stood out like black clouds in front of the moon. As he regarded me with eyes as gray and sharp as the steel blade in his grip, he grinned with a show of bejeweled teeth.
“Waiting patiently for your Nubian queen, eh, Dylan?” the man said with a thick Russian accent.
The blood drained from my face, leaving it as cold as the night air. “How the fuck do you know my name? And where’s Essence?”
The big guy laughed like a hungry hyena as he tapped his temple. “Essence…is my own invention. Didn’t your mother ever tell you? You never know who you’re talking to online!”
More men came out of the shadows around me. All were big, all were clad in black, all had tattoos twisting over their pale exposed skin. And all had blades glinting in all their grips.
“You must be a well-to-do young man if you could afford the app…” the first man said. “You know the rub. Hand us your wallet and you’ll get out alive…if a little disappointed.”
I had felt too cheated to surrender anything to these goons. I dashed back toward my car. Two of the thugs merged together to block my path. A third slashed one of the tires with his knife, the gold fillings burning like hellfire in his sneer.
I opened my mouth to curse my luck. Before a single word could get out, the first brute slammed his fist into my brow. My back smacked hard on the sidewalk.
“I’ll give you a chance to reconsider,” my assailant said. “I’ll even sweeten the deal a bit. Your wallet for a ride back home.”
I tore out my phone. It flew out of my hand. Another mugger had it in his claws, snickering like a school bully before chucking it into a nearby trash can. I flung a fist at him. It punched through nothing. Icy steel sliced across the side of my ribs, stunning me with pain. I fell again onto the pavement with my own blood trickling on the concrete.
“Alright, you’ll get another chance,” the first of the thugs said. “Your wallet for a ride to the hospital. We’ll even cover the bill for you.”
“We might as well just kill him, Dmitri,” one of his accomplices said. “No need to bargain with him for it.”
“A fair point, Yuri,” Dmitri responded. “And it’d be more fun anyway.”
He raised his blade to the moon over me. I pushed my aching body to roll away. The knife’s edge still grazed through my shirt down to the skin. Another goon slammed his boot’s toe into my chin. I could hear and feel the bone crack. Like vultures over a dying wildebeest, the muggers closed in on me with their weapons ready to carve me up. I could only scream over their cackling.
Another crack of bone. It was not my own. A slender, dark-skinned foot had struck the fiend named Yuri in the back of his head, the stiletto heel puncturing his skin to draw a scarlet stream.
It was Essence. The same crown of fluffy black hair, the same deep brown skin, the same luscious lips glossed deep lavender like her dress, the same everything. Twirling like a purple tornado, she kicked, punched, and slapped away my tormentors. A lioness defending her cubs could not have fought with such tenacity.
Her dance of death crashed to a halt when Dmitri smacked the back of her neck from behind. He grabbed her by the throat, his snarling through gritted teeth almost as loud as her gagging.
Dmitri drew back his knife. “I should’ve known you’d interfere, you ghetto bitch! You and your admirer shall be together in hell!”
I picked up a knife that one of the other goons had dropped before fleeing the scene. My hand trembled as I staggered toward Dmitri, the pain from the cut still burning in my side. “I think you’re the one overdue for a ride to hell!”
I thrust into the sleeve of his arm. It did not penetrate as deep as I would have liked, but I could see the drip of red ichor, and he released his hold on her with a high-pitched holler. My next strike punctured his shoulder. He collapsed, and I pounced upon him with as much stabbing fury as he and his minions had intended to visit upon me. Only after Dmitri exhaled his final breath did I cease my barrage of attacks.
The other thugs either lay on the sidewalk, alternating between dead and unconscious, or had scrammed like the cowards they were. The one person standing there other than myself was Essence, with dark flecks of blood on her dress. It did not diminish her beauty in the least.
“Are you alright, Dylan?” she asked.
I nodded. “Wait…how come you know my name? I thought that account was…”
She squeezed her arms around me in a firm, warm embrace. “Hacked, not fake. And he stole my phone too. The moment I found out, I knew what he was up to.”
“So…I presume he’s that ex of yours?”
“The wonder that I ever gave time to that creep! Regardless, I’m so glad you came out okay. I’ll call an ambulance.”
While she grabbed her phone from Dmitri’s corpse, I went over to the trash can and dug in to retrieve mine. Thankfully, it did not even have a cracked screen.
“So, if that really was you chatting with me…so much for our first in-person date, huh?” I said.
Essence gave my cheek a long, wet kiss. “We can always reschedule. And thanks for the flowers, babe. You even remembered my favorite color.”
I wiped my cheek to admire the traces of lipstick on my fingers. “It was impossible to forget, my sweet Essence.”