Bossy(77)
A loud shriek cuts through the rumble, and I recognize her immediately. The surging mob crashes against the police officers and she’s right in the middle of it. I don’t think twice before throwing myself into the center of the mob. The crowd’s too dense, though. I’m not getting there fast enough.
There’s no time to deal with working my way through. I dodge around a furious guy with a bushy beard, wearing a t-shirt that reads WELDERS DO IT HOTTER, and leap at my chair, using it to jump to the top of the railing and then launch myself into the air above the crowd.
Claire
A large body shoves me from the side, pushing me up against a bench and knocking the breath out of me. My lungs work hard, gasping while I clutch my stomach with one hand and steady myself against the railing with the other. This is insane. Another person slams into me, and I’m surprised I don’t hear my ribs crack when I hit the wooden back of the seating. I shriek from the pain.
When I was little, I got caught in quickly moving water once. I’ll never forget that feeling of going from confident, to nervous, to terrified as my muscles tired and I realized “just swim a little harder” wasn’t going to work that time.
Standing there trying to make myself as small as possible to avoid the crush of much larger bodies, I feel just as helpless.
I don’t actually see Declan coming. It’s more like a tingle of awareness. What I do hear, is his roar. Startled, I look up, and all of a sudden I know what it’s like to be a rabbit on the receiving end of a tiger’s leap. Declan is literally flying through the air over the angry workers between us, his face a mask of angry concentration. I freeze, unsure if I’m about to be rescued, or flattened.
“What the fuck?” The guy next to me tries to dive out of the way, but still ends up going down with a thump as Declan lands on top of him.
Nobody is paying attention to who is on whose side anymore, and the flattened gentleman recovers quickly, rearing up to bring pain down on his recently airborne attacker.
“Sorry!” I scream as I kick him in the side, grabbing Declan’s arm as he springs to his feet and shoves the guy away.
“Thanks, babe.” Even in the middle of the chaos, he flashes a grin and in a moment of relief I laugh at the absurdity of our situation. At least until one of the other rioters charges him. Declan steps aside and grabs the guy by his collar, throwing him past like he weighs nothing. “How about we get out of here? I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“Riordan!” Cooper’s somehow managed to get free, and charges at us, eyes wild and his face streaked with blood from his nose. “This is all your fault!”
He’s charging Declan, but I’m closer. Swinging hard and putting my shoulder into it, I place my fist right in his face with a crunch. God, I hope those weren’t my fingers. That hurt like crazy, but wow, did it feel good.
It stops Cooper dead, and he howls with rage and pain, hands covering his face.
Declan looks at me and laughs. “Fuck, Catholic school must be a rough place.” Then he grabs Cooper by the shoulders, spins him around and sends him back into the crowd which swallows him up eagerly like a piece of meat tossed to a pond full of hungry alligators.
With absolutely no thought to our current personal differences, I throw myself at Declan, clutching him for safety. “We need to go. Like, now!”
He laughs. “I’ve got you, babe. Just don’t expect me to let go again later.”
I don’t have it in me to spend time analyzing what he means, but his words make my stomach flutter, and not in a bad way. He wraps one arm tightly around my waist, and as much carries as drags me along, clearing a path through the angry crowd with his other arm held out like he’s breaking through a scrimmage line.
There’s no doubting his strength as he moves us steadily towards freedom. A couple of cops barrel past us when we get to the doors, driving into the crowd and then suddenly we’re on the other side. The riot has expanded into the hall, but everyone is trying to get to the courtroom, so it’s not hard to break out to the side and escape the mass of people.
We round a corner and lean up against the wall, both of us breathing heavily.
“You okay?” he asks.
I shake my head but give him a weak thumbs up. “Been better, but I will be.”
“Shit, I think I fucked up again. Sorry.”
Claire
Guards and more police pass by without paying us more than the occasional glance. We probably look like innocent refugees from the fight, instead of the match that lit the whole damn thing on fire.
Declan grabs my arm. “Come on.” Dragging me behind him, he pushes the door open into an empty courtroom across the hall. The door slams shut behind us, and the sound of the chaos deadens to a muffled clamor.