Page 76 of Road Queens
“Roberta, I’m so sorry. I told you I never meant—”
“However it happened, you shouldn’t have taken that from me.” To Sidney: “Let’s go. Please?”
Prince Harming made a lunge for her door handle, only for Cass to catch his arm and yank, spinning him into the side of the van. They all heard the thunk as he bounced off the metal.
Then he turned, cobra quick, and Cassandra’s head snapped back as he connected. It was so fast that Amanda wasn’t able to track his movement, just the resulting kinetic energy that rocked Cass on her heels.
Backhand,Amanda guessed.Big and fast. Bobby never stood a chance in any face-off with this reasonable-sounding creeper.
Cass wiped her mouth, looked at the blood on her thumb, and beamed like a kid on Christmas morning. “Believe it or not, I’m awfully glad you did that.”
“Are you sure this is how you want to spend a reasonable chunk of your adult life?”
Cass grinned through bloody teeth and batted away Sidney’s hand. “This isexactlyhow.”
“Sit still, you fucking maniac.” Sid was dabbing at Cassandra’s split lip with damp towels. They’d taken Bobby to the Port of Prescott, a boutique hotel owned by Anna Simmons, a friend of Amanda’s parents and Cassandra’s mother. They’d spoken with her about Operation Starfish, and Anna had offered them sizable discounts on a trial basis.
Bobby had brightened as soon as they pulled into the parking lot. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she was taking positive steps for herself, or perhaps it was the incongruous and cheerful bright blue of the hotel. It was once an office building, and the snug, comfortable rooms and overhead lighting reminded Amanda of big cubicles with proper walls. Which, now that she thought about it, was the definition of an office.
Decor aside, it was a safe place, and Bobby had flopped down in the middle of the queen-size bed and had begun making calls as they left. What happened next? No idea. But more importantly ...
“We did everything wrong,” Amanda fretted. They were at their table at Muddy Waters; after the morning drama, all three of them were famished, and Sidney wanted a semisafe spot to indulge her inner Nurse Ratched. “From the second we got off our bikes.”
“Not everything. Kicking Bobby’s husband in the shin hard enough to draw blood was pretty terrific ... ow, Sid, that stings like hell.”
“Ha! Yeah, he squawked like a bitch. And hopped like a pissed-off kangaroo. Now shut up and sit still.”
“Ow!”
“You’re neither shutting up nor sitting still, so reap what you have sown, you contrary jackass.”
“It was all wrong!” Amanda insisted. “We weren’t supposed to have a confrontation; we certainly weren’t supposed to take sides—”
“How thehelldo we not take sides?” Cassandra asked, all trace of teasing gone from her tone.
Amanda backpedaled. “My point was, we’re supposed to be in and out and, at best, de-escalate. That was way more traumatic for Bobby than it had to be. We shouldn’t have dillydallied in the driveway; we should have left immediately; we should have let her confide in uson the way to the hotel. We certainly shouldn’t have gotten into it with Prince Harming.”
Sidney grinned. “I’m so glad we’re making Prince Harming a thing.”
“We, Amanda?” Cassandra asked, good humor restored. “Look. This was important, and yeah, we can get better, but wewilltake sides, and we can’t guarantee a trauma-free extraction. We just can’t. Cops and social workers can’t either. Damn, listen to me. ‘Extraction’? I feel like a Marine or something.”
“It was our first time,” Sidney reminded them. “We’ll get better, okay? Like with sex and math: the first time it’s a clusterfuck; then you learn from your mistakes, and pretty soon it’s awesome.”
“That doesn’t apply to math. And I’m just saying, someone could have been hurt.”
“Ow! Jesus, Sid, are you dabbing me with barbed wire?”
“Yeah, Cass. I am dabbing you with barbed wire. It only looks like gauze.”
“Hurt more, I mean,” Amanda revised. “And I know you don’t care, Cassandra, but we don’t want you to get hurt either.”
“Stop speaking for me, you silly, silly bitch.”
“We should have anticipated that. We should have had a policy in place before we even got there. And we have to be really careful how we go forward. If we can learn from our grotesque errors—”
Cass snorted. “‘Grotesque’ is harsh.”
“He dismissed us as kids pretty much immediately. That’s something we’ll have to work on,” Amanda mused. “We look too young to look like we know what we’re doing.”
