The man was quickly running out of breath and his legs were starting to quiver. He couldnt stop now, though. That damn mob was still after him. So he owed them a little money. So what? The greedy bastards couldn’t wait for him to pay them off so they decided to chase him. Jerks.

“Hey!” one of the men from the group shouted, “Hey, you, stop now or we’ll shoot!”

He swore fiercely under his breath. He had to keep running, he couldn’t stop for anything. No matter how dark, dank and creepy this forest was, he had to keep moving. Otherwise, he was dead meat.

The path he was taking stretched out before him like a long, dark ribbon of earth. The little light cast from what sliver of moon showed from behind the clouds barely illuminated the path. So it was no wonder he couldn’t see the root jutting from the earth ahead of him.

Hi hit the ground hard. He lay there for a moment, stunned. He staggered back to his feet, though, knowing his fate if he laid still too long. Something wet, warm and sticky ran down the left side of his face. Belatedly he realized it was blood. His vision began to swim as drums pounded in his skull.

He took a sharp turn around a corner, nearly running into a piece of plywood with the words “Alex’s Guardian Service” spray-painted on it. A phone number was written just beneath it and a faded white arrow pointed the way back into the woods.

Well, maybe some good can come of me running blindly into this forest after all, the injured man thought with a sarcastic smirk.

“There he is!” another voice rang out from behind him, “Get him!”

“Crap,” he muttered putting on a fresh burst of speed powered by the panic he now felt. He ran doggedly down the path, determined to live this night through, if not the rest of his life.

Thirty breath taking minutes later, he finally reached the building. The old brick structure loomed impassively high above him. Two oak doors stood just before him in the center of the wall. Strangely enough, the wall continued about a third of the way up the front of the building and it was designed to look like a door. Man, this person has weird taste in architecture, the man thought with a wry shake of his head.

He quickly opened the door and stepped inside the main hall, his chest heaving, as he tried to regain his bearings. He partially succeeded but the rest of his efforts were thwarted by the sheer size of the place. Before him stood two more doors, “Appointments Only” and “Walk-ins Welcome”.

Well, he thought, might as well go in the second door since I’ve never been here before. No telling how much of a stickler for the rules this place is. Images of him being thrown back out into the night on his butt flitted through his mind.

He opened the door. Inside he found a long empty hall lined with chairs and a lone girl sitting at the only other piece of furniture at the end of the hall. She was staring at a computer screen with an annoyed look on her face, typing something. She sighed and huffed as she rapidly typed something on the keyboard. The keys pounded away beneath her fingers.

Slowly, and with great effort, he forced himself to walk to the end of the young woman’s desk. “Hey, Kid, look I–” Jake started, only to be cut off by the woman behind the desk.

“Look, Bud, My name is Aly, it isn’t kid. And no you can’t see ‘the boss’ because she’s busy right now. So if you’ll just have a seat and wait I’m sure she’ll get to you as soon as possible.” Aly said in a condescending tone. She gave a flippant wave of her hand in obvious dismissal. So many riff-raff, so little time.

“Look, Aly, you don’t seem to understand my situation here. There’s a mob of drunken men chasing me so let me see your boss!” Jake demanded hotly.

“I’m sorry, sir, I–” She never finished that statement, though, for at that moment the doors flew open and the drunken mob rushed in.

Shouts of “There he is!”, “Get him!”, and “We got you now, Jake McCoy!” echoed from the mob. The incessant cry of “The boss’s got a bounty on his head!” only made matters worse as the drunken men thought of what they could do with the money they would collect from this little venture.

“I’m sorry, sirs, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This is a private residence and you are not welcome here!” Aly said, rounding her desk and smoothly sliding between the mob and the man at her back.

“Shut-up, girl,” said a man, backhanding her.

The blow sent her flying into the wall. She hit hard and with a sickening thump. She groaned loudly but stood up as if to fight the men. One of her arms hung in an awkward position and she was holding onto it for dear life. There was a large bruise starting to form on one side of her face. Her lips were rimmed with blue and her face was ashen. What little bit of air she was able to take in was labored and wheezing.

“So you haven’t learned your lesson have you?” one of the men sneered at her. “Well then I guess we’ll just have to teach it to you!” He advanced on her, allowing his leering gaze to travel her body.

“There is no need for that! She isn’t part of this, so just let her go!” Jake said as he put himself between Aly and the mob. He looked back over his shoulder to determine how much fighting room he had. Another strange door-looking wall loomed behind him. That seemed to be a common theme in this place.

His attention was quickly brought back to the situation when Aly cried for him to look out before a massive fist crashed into the side of his face. Jake hit the floor hard but staggered back up again, always making sure to keep himself between Aly and the mob.

Jake did his best to defend both himself and the young girl behind him, but it was no use. There were too many of them and not enough of him. He was knocked to the ground a final time. As several boots landed in his ribs, he lost the fight for consciousness. His vision turned black as he passed out.

Aly couldn’t bear to watch any longer as the man tried to protect himself and her at the same time. She turned to the door-looking wall behind her and began pounding on it. “Alexis! Alexis! Alexis please help! Alexis I’m scared, there’s a mob out here! Alexis...” She slumped to the floor sobbing. There was no way her sister would hear her through the thick door.

Suddenly, much to everyone’s surprise and Aly’s relief, the door opened. What was even more surprising, though, was the imposing figure who loomed in the door way.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Alexis shouted. “Aly, what’s the matter? Oh my god, what happened to you? Are you alright?” The older woman quickly knelt to the ground, gently running her fingers over the smaller girl’s body.

“The mob...Lexi, please help him!” an overwhelmed Aly sobbed. She lifted her good arm tiredly to point out the drunken mob before she collapsed against the knee of the giant woman.

It was then that Alexis noticed the drunken mob that was thoroughly beating up on a helpless man.

The young woman’s suspicions were aroused. Who was the man? What was he doing here? She looked down as her little sister gently tugged on her pant leg.

“Please, Lexi, please help him,” she begged. Tears filled her doe-brown eyes as she looked up at her older sister.

The older girl nodded. If Aly asked for his life, then it was enough to allay her suspicions, for now anyway.

Alexis decided on the swiftest course of action. Reaching out across the room, she gently moved the unconscious man into her hand before scooping up her sister. She cradled the two in the palm of her hand, placing her waist at their backs and her other hand in front of them.

Jake’s head swam as he wearily cracked his eyes open. The breath he was trying to draw was once more knocked out of him as he recognized a boot in his gut. He nearly heaved all over the floor, just barely managing to hold the bile back.

He was nearly out of it again when he felt firm, strong fingers gently lift him into what seemed like the palm of someone’s hand. He vaguely wondered if he had suffered severe damage to his head. It wasn’t improbable, considering how much physical abuse he had already suffered.

The young man blinked again as he tried to clear his vision. Jake felt as if he was slowly being lifted into the air and heard two voices, one from above him, sounding rather loud, and the other from close by. He thought he could place the second, quieter voice but his mind was just too hazy. Suddenly, he felt his world shift again as whatever was holding him stood.


Alexis, making sure her very full hands were totally safe for her two passengers, slowly stood to her feet and turned, walking back into her office. She stopped for a moment, shutting the door behind her by pushing it closed with her foot, maintaining her balance very carefully. The last thing she needed was to fall on her precious cargo.

She felt one, or perhaps both, of them shift. Quietly, she spoke in a calm voice.

“Easy. Don’t move much. It makes it hard to keep a hold of you.” Her voice was low and she continued to look ahead as she spoke. There was no use in looking down. Since the pair was placed at her waist, it would be impossible for her to see them through her breasts.


A faint rumble passed through the semi-conscious man as a voice from high overhead spoke. The owner’s tone seemed feminine and gentle, yet Jake could tell there was tempered steel in there.


Alexis strode to her large mahogany desk, sitting in her chair. She lifted her hands and placed the two figures on the top of the wooden piece of furniture. Opening one of the deeper drawers, she pulled, what was to Aly, two twin beds out and placed them next to her and the prone, groaning figure.

“Lexi?” Aly asked timidly, watching as her sister worked. “Is he going to be ok?”

“I’m not sure,” the taller woman answered. “He’s pretty beat up. Do you know his name?”

The young girl paused a moment before continuing hesitantly. “I think his name is Jake. When the mob rushed in they yelled about having him now. They called him Jake McCoy.”

She looked to Jake, whose vision began to clear once more as he struggled to sit up until he was able to hold himself upright. The young man looked around to find he was on a very large desk and facing an even bigger woman. He whipped his head around, spying Aly beside him.

She was grinning from ear to ear, despite her broken arm and bruised face. Her lips were no longer ringed in blue but her breathing was still slightly labored. The girl seemed genuinely happy that he was alive.

He craned his head to look up as he heard gentle laughter. His gray eyes met emerald green framed by deep russet hair, with plump sausage curls, that hung loosely around the woman’s face heart-shaped face. Her light rose colored lips were full and tempting to any normal man. She had a fine, comparatively small nose that accentuated the shape of her eyes. Her ash blonde eyebrows were drawn in a perfectly plucked arch. There were gentle lines on her face framed by harder ones that told a story.

He gasped audibly at the size of the woman and the beauty she held in her soft face. Where in the world was he? What was going on and how on earth did he get into this position?


Alexis laughed lightly at Jake’s expression–one mixed between fear and shock. He grabbed his head and groaned at the pounding in his skull. Dazedly, he heard the laughter stop and a worried gasp from behind him. The world became black once more as he collapsed, unconscious, onto the hard surface of Alexis‘s desk.


“She took our meal ticket,” grumbled one of the men.

Another shuddered at the thought of what their boss would do to them if they returned empty-handed. The head of their gang was a dangerous, ruthless man who was not to be denied. His pleasures and tastes ranged from the normal to the strange and perverse.

“We’ve got to get that guy back,” a third said, resolution filling his voice.

“Are you nuts?!” a fourth screeched. “How can we possibly hope to fight, and win, against a fifty foot woman? We’re no more than a few inches tall to her! Even if we could get passed that enormous door, there’s no telling what she’d do to us.”

Most of the band grumbled and nodded in agreement with this fourth man. A few, though, were more scared of their boss than of the giant woman behind the closed door.

“Who cares? We’re as good as dead anyway if we return empty-handed. ‘It’s either the money, the man or…,’ Boss said. And, personally, I don’t feel like finding out what that ‘or’ is.”

“What does it matter? We can’t get past that door!” the fourth cried again.

“No,” the third replied slowly, an eerie grin lighting his face. “No we can’t. But, we can get her to open that door. When she does, at least one of us will have a chance to slip past her and grab the Jake character. Then we can hightail it outta here!”

The rest of the group, save the one who had originally spoken out against fighting Alexis, cheered at the wisdom of the plan. And just like that, the third man, Ace he was called, became the impromptu leader of their faction. There was no way they could lose with such a man as he in the lead! Now the only problem was how to draw the giantess out.

They looked around the room, searching for something to inform the titanic woman that they were still around. The desk and chairs fell into their line of sight. Sadistic, cruel grins formed on their twisted faces. They picked up the furniture, it took around four men to lift the desk, and began to throw it at the door. Two men placed themselves flush against the wall, on the side of the door that would open when Alexis made her entrance.

The fourth man, who had no desire in the first place to be here and was only here because he was so strapped for cash, quietly slunk back to a corner of the hall where he figured he’d be safe from the action. The poor guy watched as the rest of the mob threw pieces of furniture at the door. He was petrified the enormous woman was going to come out and indiscriminately squish them all.


Alexis looked up, a frown marring her features as she heard pieces of furniture colliding with her office door. “Idiots,” she growled under her breath. Did they honestly think they were going to lure her out there with that? She wasn’t stupid. They had far less strength and endurance than she. What could they possibly hope to gain by confronting her? A thought occurred in her mind.

“Aly,” the young woman said, “come here.” Placing her hand beside her little sister, she waited for the girl to climb on before lifting her before her eyes. “I need a favor. Can you hear those guys outside?”

Aly nodded, a little fearfully. “Lexi, is everything--?”

“Hush now, child,” Alexis interrupted softly. “Everything’s going to be alright. I promise. Okay?” Again, Aly nodded her head, not trusting her wobbly voice. “Okay, now, listen closely. I’m going to put you on the floor by the door and I need you to listen and see if there are any people waiting outside, as in, right against the wall. Can you do that for me?”

“Uh hu,” the girl sniffled.

Alexis smiled broadly at her tiny sister. “That’s a good, brave girl. I’m right here so you don’t need to worry. Ready?” Removing her boots from her feet and slowly standing from her chair, the older sister carried the younger around the desk before squatting and gently putting Aly on the ground.

The giant woman placed a few fingers on the ground to help steady her. Her plans would be all for naught if she gave herself away by making, what would likely be, an earthquake for the little people in the next room. She watched as her young sister quickly ran to the door, her broken arm in its sling clung tight to her chest. Her breath was baited as Aly knelt on the floor, doing her best to listen to those outside.

Her grey-green eyes widened as she listened to the snickering plans that were being made outside. Tearfully, she rose and sprinted back to her elder sister, who quickly scooped her up and held her close.

“Easy,” Alexis said gently, doing her best to calm her sister. “Easy, just tell me what happened. Shh, I’m right here; nothing is going to hurt you, I promise.” Her fingers softly stroked the girl’s back until the child was calm enough to speak. The young woman rose, her little sister secure in her arms, and softly walked back to her chair. Sitting down, she drew the child closer, laying her small frame across the top of her chest and tucking her head into the crook of her neck.

“Alright now, tell me what happened,” the elder sister commanded gently.

Aly took a deep breath, and began to tell what she heard.