The address turned out to be a warehouse in a bad neighborhood out by National City, though James didn't know that just from reading the address even though she did know it was a rough section of town. Popular opinion and the local board of tourism had people thinking there were no bad neighborhoods in San Diego, but much as she loved her real hometown over the Alabama backwater she had only thought was her home, James knew it wasn't true. There were gangs and prostitution and meth labs tucked away in the places tourists didn't go and the smartest of the locals usually avoided. Not the kind of place for a pretty young blonde to be wandering around without a gun in her purse.
Matt groaned and made a few feeble threats outside the motel room door, gradually recovering from a swift kick to the balls by James. Matt seemed to have taken it personally, especially so since he had been expecting oral stimulation to the area where James had put her knee. The young man showed no signs of shutting up or leaving until James threatened to call the cops. Matt started to yell again, but luck briefly took pity on her, and an ambulance or something went by. Matt heard the sirens, mistook them for the cops, and staggered away. James heard his clumsy footsteps retreating, pictured him gingerly cupping his balls in pain as he tried to run, and smiled.
"He better hope I never run into him again once I get my medallion back," James whispered fiercely as she began to dart about the room, gathering her cloths back up, searching for something to wear that wouldn't touch the still raw tattoo across her lower back.
Minutes later she was sporting a clingy pair of jogging pants that hung low enough across her hips to not make her eyes water with pain. The white halter top was cut low up top and high at the bottom, a twin attack of boobs and bare midriff that left the tender small of her back untouched. Unfortunately, this also meant flaunting Matt's twisted little message, You have the cock so you make the rules! The one shirt long enough to cover it had her wincing in agony with each step. Her whole back felt tight and sore, a lot like when she was about to have her period.
James suddenly cringed. She hoped her period wasn't coming. That was the last thing she needed. Even when she had thought she really was Jill it had been the worst part of every month. Now that she remembered who she really was having a period seemed wrong, twisted, unnatural. Worse, if she was bleeding the power of the medallion wouldn't work on her - - and that was if she could even find it!
Getting her things together James used the phone to call a cab. She didn't want to walk out of here. Matt might still be lurking around and follow her again. Best to take a cab straight to the exact address no matter how much it cost of her reamining cash. Once there, she could fake being Jill Dugan long enough to get to her gear and find the medallion. Hell, as far as most people were concerned, including Otis and Jill's mama, she was the real Jill Dugan!
James seemed to recall sweeping the medallion into a box with some other silly new age junk she, or rather Jill, had become interested in shortly after arriving in San Diego. Tarot cards, sticks of incense, even some little unicorn figurines and other ridiculous stuff. At the time she had thought she was Jill and it had all looked the same, the medallion just another piece of West Coast mysticism she wasn't going to need back home in Alabama, especially sicne she didn't remember what any of it was supposed to mean. Mama had said it wasn't Christian stuff and to leave it.
Damn you, Mama, James thought to herself without much real rancor.
The cab honked outside and, without one look back at that lying mirror, she went to catch her ride. So what if the medallion was on the wrong side of town? She was on the wrong side of her entire life. Nothing could really scare her anymore.
