Val shoved Tristan’s back. He didn’t move an inch. She was like a Pomeranian trying to take down a Great Dane. I wasn’t even sure if he felt it. He just stood there with a strange expression on his face, his eyes roaming over the walkway, taking in the growing crowd.
The Hoover Dam and the scenic landscape no longer held the tourists’ attention. The foot traffic came to a standstill as they slowed down to gawk. A couple of guys, also wearing black Revelationz t-shirts, pointed their smartphones in our direction in anticipation of a smack down.
We were the major attraction now.
Jo snapped at a pair of giggling teens, shooing them away. “What are you looking at?”
Val ignored Zac’s nervous pleas to go back to the car with him and slapped Tristan’s back again. “Turn around, jerk!”
Tristan’s eyes danced around the crowd, relishing the attention.
I knew it. Guys like him were all the same. What an ass. “I’m so done. Let’s go.”
Jo gave a heavy sigh in agreement. She elbowed her way through the crowd as we moved toward the exit, grumbling. “Back it up, people. There’s nothing to see here.”
As we passed Val, I gave her my sincerest apology. I felt really bad for her having a jerk like Tristan for a boyfriend. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Karenna, let me explain,” Tristan called out after us.
“There’s nothing to explain.” I’d had enough of him and his kind.
“Let the skank go,” Val hissed. “You should be explaining to me.”
I jolted to a stop. I apologized to the woman and she calls me a skank?
Before I could give her a piece of my mind, Jo whirled around. Rage flowed from every pore on her body. It was so biblical, the crowd parted like the Red Sea as she charged straight for Val.
“You did not just call my friend a ho.”
“Ladies, please.” Zac kept lifting and dropping his hands, unsure whether or not he should touch the warring pair.
Val’s eyes narrowed. “Skank. Ho. Which do you prefer? Take your pick.”
“Cat fight!” Someone yelled. Instantly, a sea of bodies shoved against me, pushing me farther away from Jo. You would think someone had announced free championship football tickets by the way the tourists swarmed around the pair.
“Girl, you do not want to go there with me.” Jo placed her hands on her hips, standing her ground.
“Twenty on the hot chick!” A guy standing next to me waved a bill in the air.
Several people around him started throwing out their own bets. Tristan took it all in with an excited grin on his gorgeous face.
Val stepped forward getting into Jo’s face, which was hard to do considering Jo was several inches taller. “Oh, I will go there. Ho.”
“Ooh!” The crowd howled.
“I’m warning you. You don’t want to mess with me,” Jo snarled.
“You don’t want me to mess with you, but it’s okay to mess with my boyfriend. Hmm?”
“Say it, sister!” A woman from the back of the crowd cried.
Val tilted her head and smiled sweetly. “Do you and your skanky friend make a habit of stealing other women’s boyfriends?”
“Honey, you can’t steal what isn’t yours.”
Jo’s dark eyes locked with Val’s light amber ones as her words echoed in the unsettling silence. Even the wind gusts stopped. The crowd appeared to lean in with anticipation as the seconds clicked by.
Then all hell broke loose.
Tristan caught Val by the waist as she dove at Jo. Zac stepped between them, placing his hands on Jo’s shoulders, which was an act of bravery despite his hulking size, because at that instant Jo gut punched him. The smack reverberated above the astonished crowd’s hushed voices.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” Jo gasped. “It was instinct.”
“No problem,” he wheezed, hunching over, trying to catch his breath.
Thankfully, the crowd followed Tristan and a shrieking Val. She kicked her feet in the air, yelling obscenities in a variety of languages. The crowd’s phones recorded every single second of her rampage. A few talked into their cameras like news reporters giving play-by-play details.
I pushed through the wave of people, making my way to Jo. “Are you all right?”
“Puh-leese. You actually thought Itty Bitty could hurt me? I’m insulted. Oh, and don’t say I told you so.”
“Fine. I won’t—as much as I would love to. Let’s go before the crowd comes back.”
Zac stepped in front of us, reaching for my arm. Before he could touch me, he jerked his hand back as if afraid I’d bite it off. He hesitated for a moment, then taking a breath, he took hold of my arm. “Please don’t go. Just give us a moment.”
What was wrong with these people?
“Let go of me,” I demanded.
“You’ll understand in a moment. I promise.” Kind summer-blue eyes pleaded for understanding. There was a sweetness to him, different from his cocky friend. I almost felt sorry for him.
“Okay, this is getting out of hand. Hot Cross Hair Bun or not, if you don’t let go of her right now, I’m going to scramble your eggs.” Jo lifted her knee threateningly to his crotch. “You and your Revelationz friends can—”
She stopped midsentence, her lips freezing in the shape of an “O.”
“Jo, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, I know.” She blinked as if her brain had just crashed and then started to reboot. She pulled out her phone and walked away.
“Where are you going?”
I was about to claw Zac’s hand off me when Longhorn Cap Guy emerged from the crowd. The strange sensation I had in the parking lot returned. It felt like I was floating on air with him. The air stilled, and everything seemed to move in slow motion.
I could see every movement of Jo’s fingers as they lifted and dropped to her phone’s screen, every strand of her hair as it waved in the breeze, and every movement of her mouth as her teeth bit down on her bottom lip.
Longhorn Cap Guy slowly approached us. His head lifted inch by inch. I held my breath, counting the seconds until I finally saw the mysterious stranger’s face. The cap’s shadows lifted like a curtain, revealing his perfectly cut jaw, pink cheeks, and then, finally, his honey- brown eyes locked with mine.
I know him.
I wracked my brain, trying to think how I knew him. My thoughts churned slowly, sifting through memories. He looked older. Maybe he was a former teacher? I couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t I remember?
With a quiet grace, he floated past, his eyes holding mine. His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something to me. As he approached Zac, he bowed his head slightly, and then turned his attention to the center of the bridge.
Then, in the space of a second, the pace of the world changed, and everything around us suddenly shifted into hyperdrive. I turned my head so my gaze could follow Longhorn Cap Guy’s and I was shocked to see Val on the bridge railing.
“Is this what you want, Tristan? Huh? Is it?” She cried, one slender leg dangling over the abyss below.
“Stop it, Val. Get down from there,” Tristan snapped.
“Oh, now you’re listening to me. What else do I have to do to get your attention? How about this?”
In one fluid motion, Val placed her feet on the railing. The crowd gasped as she inched her body up, holding her arms out for balance. Voices cried out in panic.
“Get down. He isn’t worth it.”
“Someone call the cops.”
“Where’s security?”
“Knock it off, Val!” Tristan roared as he stepped toward her.
“Get serious, I know what I’m doing. I have excellent balance.”
I was so shocked by the scene I barely noticed when Zac released my arm. He motioned to a couple of guys wearing matching Revelationz t-shirts. They nodded, aiming video cameras above the crowd.
Who were these guys, and why weren’t they doing anything?
“I know you do, but please get down from there and let’s talk,” Tristan said. “We’ll work this out. I promise.”
“Promises. Promises. It’s all a lie.” Her lip twitched slightly as if she was holding back a laugh. Was she playing a trick on Tristan? It wasn’t funny, whatever she was doing.
“I’m not lying. I want you safe.”
“This is what you want. You want the entire world watching Tristan the Great. Well, I can help you with that.” She opened her arms, waving her hand over the crowd like a game show hostess as she looked straight into one of the video cameras. “World, welcome to my revelation. I am your hostess, Val—”
Then it came.
A strong wind blasted over the bridge. Her pink lips curled into a wide Cheshire grin as her tiny body fell back into empty air.