Page 41 of EverGreene
Although he managed to dodge a hit intended for his head, I was able to catch his flank in the same place I’d struck him before. Mayhem doubled over, folding like a deck of cards. This was it; my opportunity to wrap this fight up with a nice bow and deliver a first-round win to my team.
Still clutching his side, Mayhem wasn’t paying attention to me when I strode over to where he was standing off-center of the middle of the ring, raising my fist and drawing it back, thrusting it forward and—stopping in mid-air.
What the actual fuck? Was that Ever?
Fucking Peter, Paul, and Mary on a zipline, it was her. And was she holding up a sign that readCaught you, Motherfuckerwith a smirk across her face that would be adorable if not for the fact that it appeared to be insinuating that she was celebrating a victory over me.
I’ll be damned, she was, and it was. Bravo. Brav-oh, shit. Did she know who I was? Did she—Before I could have a fraction of a second to decipher what had happened, my head was propelled backwards by an unseen force striking me in the side of my face.
In cartoons, when a character is struck over the head, there’s often this depiction of stars, like a blow to the cerebral cortex somehow briefly opens up an astral plane to the human eye. After that hit from Mayhem, I can say from experience that the same happens in the non-cartoon world, too.
I ambled backwards, my awkward footsteps falling in time to the collective gasps from the audience while I struggled to maintain my senses. From my peripheral, I caught Mayhem’s form barreling toward me, ready to put this fight to bed. It was bad enough to lose a match and even worse to get your ass kicked in front of the woman you hoped would still want to bang you after your public humiliation.
Not tonight, Satan.
In the words of one Taylor Swift, I had just begun to shake it off and regain my composure when the steel doors to the building were kicked open and the last people anyone in the joint wanted to see filtered into the building.
“Police! Everybody, put your hands up.”
Chapter 13
Ever
Well, that had to be the worst song lyrics I’d ever heard.
And, unlike the song played in clubs the world over, no one in the crowd was, in fact, putting their hands up. Instead, relying on the odds of sheer numbers, the mob around us turned toward one of the few exits, pushing and shoving their way to the doors in an attempt to flee arrest, sandwiching Katy and me in the middle of the fray.
I ditched the sign I’d brought with me, satisfied that V had at least seen it, but not so much that it had caused him to have his face rearranged by the Second Coming of André the Giant. And also, there was the chance now that my calling him a motherfucker would be the last words I would ever “speak” to him again.
“Over here.” Katy grabbed my arm, pulling me in the direction of an opening in the mob that was quickly filled in by a mass of sweaty, smelly men, who were making us the non-consensual meat in their sandwich. More and more people swarmed around us, rendering any form of movement impossible as our bodies were pushed against the backs of the men infront of us. Whatever we did, we had to stay on our feet. If we went down, we’d end up as tomorrow’s headline, our trampling broadcast for everyone to hear.
“Ever,” Katy said, reaching out for my hand again. “If we die, I just want you to know that when you were at work a couple of months ago, I used the house key you gave me to get into your house and borrow a sweater from your closet.”
“The purple wool crewneck I tore up my house to find while you were lounging on my couch drinkingmywine?”
“That’s the one.”
“Okay, so bring it back.” My fingers interlaced with Katy’s when our hands finally reached each other between the sweaty bodies that were threatening to crush us alive.
“Yeah, so, I would, but I was attacked by a rogue drop of mustard while wearing it, and when I tried to wash it?—”
“What do you mean you tried washing it!”
“Yeah, my bad.”
“Can you at least give me its corpse back?”
“What the fuck, Ever? Considering our present set of circumstances, that was highly inappropriate. But no, I can’t. It’s buried in a landfill somewhere. I’ve been putting aside money to buy you a new one. Since we’re all going to die, can you forgive me?”
“Get the fuck away from her!”
That voice. So different, yet so familiar at the same time. I turned my head as far as I could just in time to see V landing a punch to the head of the man behind me. Stunned, the middle-aged man collapsed to the floor.
“Come on,” V ordered, having the presence of mind to disguise his voice even in our present circumstance. He grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him, with me tightening my grip on Katy and pulling her along with us. Katy’shand gripped mine tighter as we followed behind V, who was using the sheer size of his body to plow through the crowd.
Outside, sirens blared, making me wish I’d worn earplugs, and after spending the last hour standing on a concrete floor, shoes without heels. I’d only worn the heels to try to stand out in the crowd to make it easier for V to find me and see the sign I’d spent an hour making, solely because I thought glitter from the dollar store would be a nice touch.
When the mob of people thinned out ahead of us, V directed Katy and me to take off running to a stairwell a few yards away. Yet another reason why the heels were a shitty idea. In my defense, I didn’t know I was going to be running from the police tonight, which was naïve on my part considering the company I was keeping. When we reached the stairs, I stumbled down the broken concrete, having to use the corroded iron banister that divided the stairs in half to brace myself.
