Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) (28 page)

I don’t see the Tolek-Lookalike lift the
chain for the second swing. But I do see the chain
around his fist, as it comes
down again, crush into Declan’s shoulders.

And then he kicks him. Severely. At least
three times.

The man looks like a crazed
monster
!
And he’s
massive
. Or maybe he
just looks massive.

A lot of things happen at once, and it’s
the sounds I’m most aware of. The screech of speakers giving
feedback. Followed by a sudden eerie silence. And then an explosion
of noise as the crowd in the bar realizes what’s happening:
Someone’s swinging a chain, and trying to murder the blonde boy on
the ground.

And there’s a chick screaming.
Me!

So far, Deck’s been hit twice with the
chain: The first took him down. The second came when he was already
down. And then several boots to the ribs. On some level, I realize
this is that Dino Moretti guy that Deck told me looks like Tolek.
Before the brute gets a third swing with the chain, I jump at him!
A kitten to a bull!

But then my arms are held back
and I don’t reach him! Two
tight and firm hands grip my elbows and pull me away from the
monster about to pulverize Deck on the floor. Blood pours from
Deck’s nose onto the wood.

“NO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!” I scream.

And the words sound so darned
familiar...

“LET ME GO! HE’S GONNA KILL HIM! STOP!”

The chain is in mid-air again, held up for
an eternal second. The brute speaks: “You motherfuck—”

And that’s when Trev gets involved.

And, oh, motherfucker, that changes
things. Trev looks suddenly
gargantuan
.

It happens
so fast. Dino had been standing there, chain up in
the air, fist clenched around it. And then he was on the counter,
hit by a monstrous shadow that flew into him on his right.
Huge
! A football
tackle like no other.

Dino’s chin hits the edge of the counter!
Now I hear people behind me. My arms are still being held back.
“Let me go!” I don’t know who it is, but I guess it’s Skate,
because I don’t see him anywhere.

Then, again, numerous things happen at the
same time:

Trev’s arm cocks back and gets at least
three
jaw-shattering
punches into this Dino Moretti’s face! Dino’s eyes roll
and, I’ll be true with you here, I’m
happy
about it!

The other thing that happens is that
several men (not very large) from behind me rush ahead to Deck and
Dino. Two kneel by Deck’s head. “Don’t touch him! Don’t move him!”
I scream. Another three or four pile onto Trev to try get him off
Dino.

The dudes might as well be flies, because
Trev’s door-ram of an arm just cocks and fires another two more
times—
pam
kablam
! His elbow
connects with one bearded dude who flies back. Blood spews from the
dude’s mouth and he screams, “My tooth!”

An image of a movie comes to me: Joe
Pesci, killing a dude with a pen by ramming it into his face a
million times, then Robert de Niro pumping
his oxfords into the loser’s
face—
slam bam
pam
.

He’s gonna kill
him
, I think.

And this is a bad thing. This is a very bad
thing!

But before I can cry it out, another few
things happen:

The bartender’s on the phone, and I hear
the unmistaken chitter-chatter of a nine-one-one call—address,
emergency (“Some black guy is
killing
a dude here!”)

Oh fuck, that’s bad. What that dude just
said is bad.

The other thing that happens is that
Dino’s goons—two of them—have jumped on Trevor! These boys are a
little bigger. They hang onto him like flies to shit, not letting
go. Then one of them sticks a hand in his back jeans
pocket.

And I see the unmistaken handle of a
Stiletto Street Knife, its blade retracted. Trev gets in at least
another punch while these two dudes hang on.

By now, no one else is joining in, just
standing around in a circle, too afraid to join the rhinos killing
each other.

Hand behind his jeans, Goon Number One flicks
the blade open.

“LET ME GO, SKATE! THEY’RE GONNA KILL
HIM!”

All I can think is,
This is so out of control. Oh,
please, don’t let it get any worse.

But it does. It so does.

“
Skate, you have to help him! You have
to—”

He lets go of my arms and I fall forward!
I see another flying tackle and—

Crash!
Skate’s got Goon One on the ground! Goon Two
stumbles back, his leg caught underneath the other two. Goon one
has dropped his knife. I run for it! Goon Two goes for it as well.
He grabs it! He stands and aims it at me. Then Trev is suddenly
there! Fist to the jaw!
Crash
!
Flying tackle. Trev’s on Goon Two. I don’t know if the knife is
there or not.

But Trev goes to work on Goon Two’s face.
He straddles him and
pulverizes
him
with his right hand! “You fucking CUNT! YOU WANNA HURT MY BOY YOU
MOTHER”—
punch!
—“FUCKING”—
punch!
—“COCK”—
punch!
—“SUCKING—”

Me, from behind Trevor: “TREV, NO! PLEASE GOD
NO! YOUR SCHOLARSHIP!”

He hears me. His fist slows mid-punch, and
fades out as it gets lowered. He drops his head. Shakes it. I can’t
really see Goon Two at all from here, just Trev’s mammoth back, and
his heaving breaths. I call out to him, because I’m afraid he’ll
react mistakenly if he feels foreign hands on him.
“Trev!”

I look at Skate, and that’s a little out
of control
as well. Him
and Goon One are rolling on the ground. Chairs have fallen. Tables
are in the process of falling. Trev
flies
over to the two of them! Trev is such a monster.
Massive
.
He
rips
Skate off
Goon One and Skate falls back on his ass. Goon One is on the
ground, but not unconscious.

I steal a glance at Goon Two.
Oh, god, he’s dead.
He’s absolutely dead
.
Blood pours from Goon Two’s mouth and nose and,
fuckit
, I think even from his goddamned eyes!

I put my hands to my eyes.
I can’t believe this
is happening. What the fuck is going on here!?

Back to Goon One: Skate rising. Goon One
rising. And Trev’s booted foot rising.

Oh mother
—NO. NO!
“Trevor!” My calls are desperate pleas for
cessation, and I can’t believe I’m crying out for these men’s
mercy. But this is going so wrong that it just needs to stop.
“Please, Trevor! No! Don’t do it!” I’m crying now. “Don’t
do—”

He does it.

And Goon One lifts off the ground like so
much paper.

And he retches.

Then Trev kicks him again.

And again.

And. Again.

It’s a massacre. Just a massacre. Goon One
gets lifted by Trevor’s fists and boot. He’s a rag-doll now.
And if he’s not dead
yet, he will be soon.

I beg. “Skate! Please! Stop him! STOP HIM!
His scholarship! He’ll lose everything!”
If he hasn’t already.

Skate
charges toward Trevor. Trev’s fists are still flying when
Skate gets him off Goon One. “GET THE FUCK OFF ME, SKATE! They
tried to kill Deck. They tried to kill Deck for fuck’s sake! These
mother
fucking
pieces
of
shit
tried to
kill our fucking best friend—”

“Trev! Stop it! It’s over! It’s over,
bro!”

Skate wrestles him to the ground. There’s
blood everywhere. Goon One. Goon Two.

I don’t wanna look at the other blood, but
now that the immediate threat is gone, the other, more fundamental
threat, presses against my mind like a blunt blade:
Deck
!

I turn to face him. As I do it, I see Dino
Moretti. Actually, I see a group of three somber dudes around him,
one shaking his head. Dino’s on the floor. “Just hold him still!”
one says. “Ambulance is on its way, buddy!”

I don’t care for this
prick except for the fact that Trev’s ass
is potentially on the line if anything happens to him. Dino can get
thrown off a bridge just as he is right now for all I
care.

But then my eyes see Deck. Vikki’s
kneeling behind him. She’s crying. Her hands are around his bloody
head. She’s looking down at him.

He’s not moving.
And there’s blood all over his shirt.

I start shaking my head. “No. No. No no no no
no no NO! NO GOD NO!”

Maybe I fall to where he is. Maybe the
wor
ld moves. I don’t
know. Soon my hands are trembling over him. Spit drops from my
mouth and all I can say is, “No no no no no no oh baby nooooo OH
GOD NO. PLEASE NO!”

When Vikki’s hand touches my shoulder, I
jump.

“
No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!”

She
shakes me.

Blood sullies his beautiful white face.
His golden hair is black and brown.

Vikki shakes me again—

“WHAT!” I snap.

And when she tells me what, I don’t
believe it. It’s just too good to be true.
Because the last person I saw like
this
wasn’t
alive!

But she says it again. And then one more
time, because even the second time didn’t sink through.

But the third time does: “Blaze, he
is
alive
!”

I stop saying no, but I don’t stop crying.
I think I cry
even more
now. Tears of joy! And I grab his bloody shirt. I put my forehead
on his chest—
she’s right! I can feel him breathing!

And I keep it there. I’m not fucking moving
from this spot until someone rips me off him with the goddamned
Jaws of Life.

He’s alive!

The floodgates open
as I repeat those words to myself over and
over and over again.

I hear Vikki talking Russian, and then I
hear Vlad’s voice.
What the fuck? Where were they!?

I don’t bother asking, because none of it
matters now
anyway.
Trev’s probably gonna be up for manslaughter, and Deck is...barely
alive.
But
he’s alive, Blaze. He’s alive!

I hold onto that fact in the middle of
everything else. I feel like it’s the very lifeline of my entire
existence right now.
He’s alive
.

Everything else can go for a shit down the
river. I don’t care about anything else, but
Deck needs to live. That’s all.

I’ll give up music for
you
if I have
to
.

My head’s still on his chest, moist with
his blood. Vikki’s hand goes to my back
, rubs it. “Tolek was on his way here, Blaze. That
is where Vlad and Sasha were. I’m so sorry. They have orders to
keep him away from me completely. They came as soon as they heard
the noise but it all happened so fast, Blaze! Barely over a
minute!”

Barely over a minute?
I play the events in my
head—the chain, one, two, then the kicks—three in two seconds. Trev
charging for Dino.
Punch punch punch
. Men on him. Men flung away. Goons One and Two.
Punch punch punch
punch
. Skate wrestling
Trev.

Over.

A minute? It could’ve
even been as low as
thirty seconds.
And yet
it all happened with such gruesome clarity in front of my eyes
that, subjectively, it felt like an entire lifetime to
me.

I reach out for
Vikki’s hand and hold it. Who could’ve known? And
what was Tolek doing here anyway? Would it have been another
bloodbath—only with
him
instead of
Dino Moretti now on the floor?

It doesn’t matter.

I squeeze her hand. And I think,
Murphy’s Law.
Murphy’s
fucking
Law.

The
EMTs arrive. Cold air gusts over my bare arms as they wrest
me away from Deck’s ragdoll body. “I want to be with
him!”

The EMT tells me, “Sorry, ma’am, you can ride
up front. But not in the back.”

And what if he dies in the back?

“
Please. Please! I
need
to be with him!” Vikki embraces me from the side.
The EMT won’t budge.

“Let’s go together in my car,” she says.

I hold her hand. “Thank you.”

Another
lifeline
.

The fuzz arrive. Trev and Skate are nowhere
to be found.

Vikki
offers me a Parliament outside the hospital. I take
it.
I only
smoke when I’m stressed
,
Deck said earlier.