When Hoyt told me that “Ms. McCartney” came to get Elliott to introduce the governor, I knew she had some shit up her sleeve. When he wordlessly put me in the back of a police cruiser instead of walking me through the tunnel, I knew it must be bad. But when he pulled up behind another cruiser, a SWAT vehicle, and Mac’s fucking tank just to escort me into Plaza Park, that’s when I knew.
That dream was no fucking fluke.
That dream was planted by a certain little black-haired rag doll with a death wish.
As soon as the park comes into view, my mouth falls open in a silent curse. I’ve never seen so many people shoved into one square block before. The entire crowd is fighting and flailing and pounding their fists in the air as tear gas canisters sail overhead, and gunshots loud enough to hear inside Hoyt’s bulletproof cruiser ring out.
What the fuck have you done, baby?
I shake my head as adrenaline floods into my extremities, and panic seizes my lungs. My eyes scan the mob, frantically searching for a familiar heart-shaped face, but everything is just a blur of fists and weapons and smoke and mouths twisted in pain and anger.
I told you I’d get out of this. What the fuck have you done?
Hoyt glances at me in the rearview mirror. All the shaggy, unwashed hair in the world couldn’t hide the pity and remorse written all over his doughy face. I don’t have to pretend to be fucking terrified when I look back at him. I am.
Just not for me.
The tank barrels into the crowd, and the screams of the people in its path bounce off the windshield.
“Goddamn.” I cringe and cling to the seat with cuffed hands as people flood into the risers to get out of the way.
Hoyt and the other two vehicles pull into the park behind the tank, and the four of them form a perfect little square.
I don’t have to be able to see the ground to know what they’re protecting.
My fucking grave.
Hoyt throws the car in park and sits with his thick hands wrapped around the steering wheel. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. And gauging from the amount of swallowing and throat-clearing he’s doing, he’s not real happy about what’s about to happen.
Or at least, what he thinks is about to happen.
Poor bastard. I want to let him in on my plan just to put him out of his misery, but I can’t fucking trust him to play along. He’s a worse actor than Elliott. Look at him. He can’t even pretend to be professional.
My attention is pulled away from Hoyt when I notice riot cops in gas masks, carrying full-body bulletproof shields, marching over to the car. The first three climb directly on top of our cruiser, standing on the hood, the trunk, and the roof.
The fuck?
One by one, cops fill in from the sides of the park until all four vehicles have at least three riot cops standing on top of each.
Governor Fuckface is now standing between the tank and the gaping hole in the ground as Flip lifts a TV camera onto his shoulder and points at him.
As his pasty, bloated face opens and closes, my hands begin to shake.
No! I yell at myself, balling them into fists. Stop it! You don’t fucking end here. You survive, and so does Rain. That’s what you do. That’s how this shit works.
But as the crowd surrounds the vehicles and begins rocking them back and forth, including the one I’m presently freaking out in, I realize that I’m not so fucking sure anymore.
Yeah, I have a plan. But I didn’t exactly factor in an angry mob or tanks or riot cops or my girl getting trampled to death while I sit here and do nothing either.
I swallow back a surge of bile as Elliott marches over to my door and yanks it open.
Here we go. God, you better fucking have my back.
I step out into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree assault on my senses. The crowd noise is deafening, the air is thick and humid and tainted with tear gas, and the mid-morning sun is blinding as it bounces off the cruisers and shines directly into my face.
But even through all of the sensations I’m being blasted with, one ear-splitting scream rises over the rest.
She’s out there.
She’s fucking out there.
Goddamn it.
I don’t need this. I need to focus, but now, all I can think about is kicking Elliott right in the fucking face and diving into that crowd, so I can find my girl and drag her ass to safety.
Elliott steers me by the elbow to stand in front of a five-foot-by-five-foot hole in the ground—oh, look at that; they widened it just for me—and gives me a little pat on the shoulder before letting me go.
I have to physically shake my head to clear my thoughts of Rain.
Focus, fucker!
I blink and stare straight ahead, finding the cameraman and the devil himself standing across from me with their backs to the SUV.
Governor Fuckface sneers, and I spit at his feet.
“Mistuh Parkuh,” he begins, condescension oozing through every missing consonant, “you were arrested on May 5 for allegedly procuring and administering life-saving drugs to a young man with a fatally infected wound. On May 6, you were found guilty of this crime, and as such, you have been sentenced to death.”
Someone gets out of the tank behind me. A cop wearing a black executioner’s mask trudges past, coming to stand directly across from me. Fuckface is still talking, but I’m searching the man in black for some assurance that this is gonna go down the way I planned.
“I would offuh you a few last words, but as you can see, the little interview you gave yesterday has the constituency all riled up. So, I’m afraid those are gonna be the last words you eva get to speak in my state, boy. Executionuh”—he steps aside and gestures toward the man in black—“fire at will.”
Come on. Come on …
My entire body sways with every forceful pump of blood through my veins as the cop unsnaps his holster and draws his weapon. It’s a small handgun, probably a .22—something large enough to kill me without blowing the back of my head off in the process.
How considerate.
I swallow and hold my breath as the executioner lifts the gun and steadies it with the palm of his left hand under the clip. And that’s when I notice that every knuckle on both of his hands are as scabbed and mangled as mine.
Mac.
I exhale and close my eyes.
And for a fraction of a second, I’m at peace.
With the blinding sun and flashing blue lights and screaming mob and sinister scowl of pure fucking evil finally blocked out, it’s just me and the life I’ve placed in the bloody hands of a complete stranger.
Until I hear her.
Over the roar of the crowd, over the cruisers being rocked back and forth, over the shouted warnings from the riot cops, I hear her.
“Somebody, do something!”
She’s close. Too fucking close.
My eyelids slam open, and my head swivels automatically in the direction of her voice. Rain is the first thing I see, tangled in the branches of a baby oak tree, just like the dream I had last night. Only she’s not being devoured. Quite the opposite. She has her gun raised, and she’s aiming it directly at Mac.
Fuck!
Without thinking, I drop to the ground and sweep my leg out, knocking Mac clean off his feet as three gunshots ring out in rapid succession. The first one Mac fired into the air just before he hit the dirt. The second one shattered the passenger window of the SWAT vehicle he was standing in front of, splintering the glass—where his head would have been—like a spiderweb. And the third one came from somewhere to the left of me.
I turn in that direction and find Hoyt standing beside his cruiser, holding a smoking gun over the roof of his car. His face is slack-jawed and wide-eyed, just like the girl in the tree fifty feet behind him. Rain lowers her gun in stunned shock and raises one shaking finger to point at something on the other side of me.
Before I can even turn in that direction, I feel a rush of putrid air ruffle my hair as something hits the ground beside me like a three-hundred-pound sack of rotten potatoes. I swing my head around to find Governor Fuckface lying on the ground, bleeding out from the neck as he coughs and gurgles. His mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water as he holds one of his three chins with one hand and reaches out to me with the other.
“Ew!” Officer Elliott squeals as he walks over and lifts one perfectly polished hard-sole shoe, firmly placing it over the governor’s ribs. “Hoyt, did you have to shoot him in the neck? That’s so nasty!” With a disgusted grimace and a shove, Elliott rolls Beauregard Steele’s gasping body into the hole that was dug for me.
Or was it?
I did notice that it was a little bit wider than usual.
Another man in all-black civilian clothes, like a bodyguard, steps out of the tank and tells the riot cops to stand down. As soon as they holster their weapons, the crowd erupts in cheers. I walk on my knees over to Mac. I can’t help him up because my hands are still fucking cuffed behind my back, but he groans and sits up on his own, pulling his mask off in the process.
“You okay, old man?”
He nods and glares at Hoyt, who’s now getting a shoulder massage from Elliott.
“You’re jealous that he got the kill and not you, aren’t you?” I tease.
Mac’s jaw grinds, and his eyes narrow as they cut back to me. “Who knew those two clowns would have their own fucking plan?”
I chuckle. “Evidently, my girl had one, too. She damn near blew your head off, man.”
“You mean, that girl?”
I follow Mac’s smirk over my shoulder and find the riot cops helping Rain climb onto the hood of Hoyt’s cruiser. She’s wearing that fucking red lipstick again, and she has a red skirt or dress or some shit on under her spray-painted, blood-splattered hoodie.
I pull my lip between my teeth and stare as she hops down, the wind ruffling her hair and blowing her skirt up before she lands with a graceful thud just a few feet away from me.
She’s here.
She’s right fucking here.
I barely register the click of my handcuffs before I’m on my knees with my face buried in my girl’s belly and my arms wrapped around her thighs.
“Don’t look at me like that, little missy,” Mac’s deep voice grumbles behind me. “I wasn’t gonna kill him.”
I laugh. I fucking laugh until I damn near cry as Rain’s fingers comb through my hair and her body sinks into my lap and her swollen, red eyes stare through mine.
“Did you get tear-gassed?” I ask, swiping my thumbs over her wet cheeks.
“No, I’m just really happy,” she sobs, her red lips splitting into a smile that I’ve wanted to put on her face since the moment I fucking met her.
I let myself watch her smile for a whole second, maybe two, just long enough for me to take a picture of it with my mind. Then, I kiss that fucking grin right off her face.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice tells me that I need to be careful. Stay vigilant. That my story doesn’t end like this. That I don’t get to be happy. That my world doesn’t work that way.
But I tell that voice to shut the fuck up.
It’s a new world now.
And in this world, we can be whatever the fuck we want to be.
Even happy.