There must've been water or some mixture of leftover shampoo or soap on the shower room floor because it was slippery as hell. It was weird to watch Jimmy, by far the most coordinated person I knew, lose his balance while turning the corner and go into the tile face-first. He slid to the recessed drain along the shower wall before stopping.
"Fuck. Just smacked my chin." Jimmy got up all wobbly and curled his tongue over his teeth, behind his lower lip, and stuck his bleeding chin out at me. Like he had a chaw in.
His eyes were fine though. No concussion that I could tell, thank god.
"Jenny," he said. And the moment it came out of his mouth I fuckin' knew he was gonna say something stupid about last night, something gross. He felt vulnerable or open and he wasn't sure we'd both live, so he wanted to assure me that he really did love me and didn't want me to worry about him or maybe he'd go off about his dream of us going somewhere where no one knew we were cousins so we could live in happy-fun-love-land and—
"Don't," was all I could croak. Nobody needed his sentiment, me least of all.
"Thanks." That was all he said. Maybe he meant to say more, or wanted to say more, but he didn't.
So I forced my stored rebuttals to the back of my brain and I felt dumb as I kicked open the beat-up old door of the visiting coach's office. It'd been vacant for years because Kung Fu didn't exactly have a swim team. I pawed the dusty old first-aid kit off the wall shelf Thankfully the kit was still good. Jimmy opened it and I blotted him with an eye patch, then stuck it on good with both fists. I tried to help him duct tape it on because there was no med tape in the kit but I was worthless, my hands were still on fire and I couldn't use my fingers. So he used the office glass to see his reflection and tape lengthwise on the curve of his chin and then one from his voice box to the bottom of his mouth. They'd suck to pull off and it looked like a funny little patch of beard when he was finished.
Solid news though, there was a backboard just inside the office. A tall, flat piece of wood with ovular holes that could be used as handles or places for straps should the patient have a busted neck and need to be tied tight. Sometimes that happens in diving. You know, people smacking their heads on the board. Jimmy lifted it and I took it between my forearms and squeezed it hard, so that I had a real good grip on it.
"I've always wondered what it would feel like to hit someone as hard as I could," Jimmy said out of nowhere. "My whole life I've been holding back. I still haven't done it though. Hit someone with all of my strength."
Then what the fuck was that thing he just did to Donnie that threw him ten feet and broke his cabeza? Before I could even begin to fully contemplate his statement and its ill-timing, Jimmy threw open the door and pushed me hard in the back.
"Go!"
I had no choice. I was a reverse battering ram. Flexing my abs hard against the board, I powered out into the open pool area, pushing with all my Jimmy-fied feelings of confusion and hurt. The smell of chlorine took up residence in my nose right before I plowed into two waiting Runners and let go of the backboard. My momentum drove them into the pool with two wicked splashes.
I'd've laughed if I didn't have to dodge a ten-foot-long lifeguard hook getting stabbed at me. I yanked it right out of the guy's hands by wedging it underneath my arm against my body and then backhanded him with it. I spun and swept his legs before collaring him around the neck with the loop: him and the hook went right in the drink with a little push from Jimmy.
Then my forearm got grabbed and Jimmy dragged me around the far side of the pool, around the diving board, away from two Runners who slipped in the splashed water of the two I pushed in with the now-floating backboard and we took the stairs two at a time to the three sets of double doors that led to the cafeteria.
Jimmy busted through the fifth door from the right like a fuckin' locomotive and I was right behind him to slam the door shut when we were through. Now to find Melinda, I thought. But when I turned back to survey the cafeteria, I couldn't move. Jimmy was smothering me against the solid black doors with his body, holding me back with his arms and guiding me to the side. I soon saw why: Dermoody was holding a shotgun and keeping a group of six or eight Wolves at bay, including Melinda, while Cap'n Joe had Mark in a severe triangle choke near the cafeteria exit to the quad.
Melinda was screaming at Cap'n Joe not to do it, not to break Mark's neck, but it was too late as far as I could see. Cap'n Joe opened his arms and let Mark drop forward. He slid through the air like a crash-test dummy going out of a windshield in slow motion. His head was facing me and Jimmy but his body was facing Melinda. More than just about anything I've ever been sure of in this life, I was sure that Mark's open eyes didn't see us as he wrinkled up limp on the floor like a discarded T-shirt.