Chapter Twenty-One
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Carly’s fingers were numb from being locked around fistfuls of the man’s shirt. The violence happening all around them was getting worse, they were still trapped, and the police were too far away to help her.
A loud pop ahead made her jump. White smoke drifted up from the ground.
“Shit. Honey, close your eyes and cover your nose and mouth with your sweatshirt. Don’t open them until I say,” the man told her, spinning around hard to move away from the smoke.
The stress in his voice sent a new streak of terror through her. People near the smoke were screaming and coughing, and some looked like they were choking before they fell over.
Before she could force her frozen fingers to release his shirt, she spotted another man nearby in the crowd. Bearded, dirty face. He was coming toward them fast, and the frightening look on his face, the way he seemed to be staring right at her, sent a chill down her spine.
She slammed her eyes shut, let go of her rescuer’s shirt with one hand, and pulled the neck of her hoodie up over her mouth and nose, covering it with her forearm for good measure. But the smoke must have gotten to the man carrying her because he started coughing and doubled over.
She stifled a shriek as she began to tip forward, opened her eyes without thinking. The strange man emerged out of the crowd and grabbed her. Yanked her off the man’s shoulders before she fell.
Carly grabbed onto him, at first thinking he was trying to help her. But then he whipped her around so that her back was plastered to his chest, locking one arm across her chest and the other around her throat.
She tried to scream, but the smoke got into her eyes and mouth. It burned like hot pepper juice, way worse than the time she’d accidentally rubbed them with jalapeno-stained fingers after making salsa.
She bucked and thrashed her head back and forth, clawed at his arms, trying to escape the man and the choking smoke. But his arms across her throat and chest were like iron, the pressure relentless, making it impossible to breathe.
“Stop it,” the man snarled, jerking her harder against him as he tried to force his way through the crowd.
She couldn’t see, kept her burning eyes shut as tears poured down her cheeks, coughing spasms ripping through her. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think, the panic taking over, her body writhing.
The man suddenly stilled, his whole body going rigid.
“Let her go, Dan,” a muffled voice called out close by.
Through stinging eyes, Carly squinted at the blurry outline of someone wearing a gas mask standing in their way.
DAN FOUGHT TO hold onto his young insurance policy as TJ blocked their way. The girl was skinny but putting up one hell of a fight, even after being dosed with a bit of gas. The ongoing effects from his own exposure were making it even harder to maintain his grip on her.
His eyes still burned like hellfire, every breath like sucking hot fumes into his lungs despite the air clearing. The cops were only a short distance behind him and getting closer every moment. He had to act fast, get the hell beyond their reach and then dump the girl so he could disappear.
Escape was gonna be even tougher now that he’d taken off the balaclava, but he knew guys down at the docks who would help him. He just needed to buy a bit of time, stay off grid for a while, maybe up in the mountains until the heat was off.
But first he had to get past TJ, who was standing between Dan and his freedom. His face was hidden by a gasmask but that hard, clear stare pinned him through the lenses of the goggles.
“Let her go,” TJ repeated without budging.
“Get outta my way, man,” Dan warned, pivoting to move around him, his skin prickling in warning.
He liked TJ. Didn’t want to fight him, and didn’t plan to hurt the girl. She was merely a means to an end to help him escape. But he wasn’t fucking around, didn’t have time for this, and would do whatever he had to in order to protect himself.
“Let her go. She’s an innocent kid caught up in this shit.”
Dan couldn’t let her go. Not yet. She was his only currency to keep the cops at bay if they kept coming after him, and they were way too close. They had been trying to nail him for something for a while now.
“I don’t want to fight you, brother,” he warned, quickly moving a step or two to the right. “But I need her, because I’m not letting them take me.”
TJ didn’t move.
Desperation began to take hold, making him twitchy. He could feel the fucking cops bearing down on him, closing in. His nerve endings crawled with it, his inner radar screaming that he had to bug out now . “Fucking move !”
“Not until you let her go.” TJ spread out his arms as if to corral him, and took a menacing step forward.
Blinking his watering eyes, Dan gritted his teeth and balled his right hand into a fist, planting his feet in preparation to take a swing. If he had to throw hands at TJ here and now to get clear, then so be it.
A tear gas cannister landed less than ten feet away.
Oh, shit— He spun away, bracing for another wave of pain. Stumbled over someone’s foot.
An instant later, TJ slammed into him like a fucking linebacker. Dan flew sideways from the impact, lost his grip on the girl as he automatically threw out his hands to break his fall.
She was ripped from his grasp even before he hit the ground. He shot to his knees, tried to push to his feet and run for it, but the gas was already swirling through the air.
He choked. Rage exploded through him with the pain. Fucking pigs! He struggled to his feet. Blindly staggered several steps before strong hands seized him from behind.
“Get on your knees, now!” a deep voice boomed. A cop.
Dan refused to go down without a fight. He lashed out with his remaining strength, threw an elbow and slammed his boot into a leg, battling for his freedom.
A hard blow across the back of the head made him bellow in mingled fury and pain. His knees hit the pavement, and then they were all over him, pinning him on his belly and mashing the side of his face into the pavement as they wrenched his hands behind his back.
“Fuck you,” he snarled through bared teeth, tasting blood as he strained under the weight holding him in place.
The cuffs went around his wrists. Plastic flex ties digging deep.
He went rigid as mingled shock and denial slammed into him. Struggling to comprehend that this was really happening. That he had lost, without even getting within striking distance of the conference center.
His vision blurred. He struggled to breathe through the fiery pain in his lungs as they yanked him upright and began dragging him away. He hung in their grasp like a deadweight, knowing any further resistance was futile and wanting to make their job as difficult as possible.
They kept dragging him away, battered and bleeding. Broken inside.
The bitter, ironic laugh that bubbled up turned into a suffocating coughing fit. He bucked and twisted as it tore through him, but the cops never slowed their steps.
The corrupt government had won yet again. And once again he was the loser.
But the ultimate irony was that at least behind prison bars, he would have a bed and three meals a day while he served out his sentence, courtesy of the corrupt government he’d served so faithfully until today.