Chapter Twenty-Two #3
Josh is striding towards me with unrestrained terror and fury all over him.
“Oh my fucking God. What happened to you?” He stops in front of me.
“What happened to your face?” Both hands close around my upper arms as his eyes tear over me with such frantic concentration that I forget how to speak.
He looks at the graze across my cheek, then down both of my arms, turning one slightly when he sees the marks beginning to come up beneath my sleeve, and when his gaze catches on the blood across my knuckles his fingers clamp harder around me. “Is this yours?”
“I—I don’t think so.”
His eyes snap back to mine. “You don’t think so?”
“I hit one of them.”
“One of who?” He lets go, hands dropping from me as he turns towards the crowd with his chest heaving and his whole body wound so tightly that I barely recognise him.
Oscar moves closer to my side, one hand finding my lower back, and I lean into him, the sight of Josh losing his mind is wiping away any composure I’m trying to keep.
“They were attacked in the bushes by the pond,” one of the lads who came over when we reached The Shed says from behind us. “There were two guys. They were back that way when the girls came running out.”
Josh turns towards the path, pointing with one finger in the direction I ran from. “That way?”
“Yeah!” Someone answers and dread tears through me.
“Josh,” I hurry after him, catching at the back of his shirt before he gets too far. “Don’t go over there!” My fingers barely manage to graze him before he pulls out of my reach, and panic surges through me. “Please, just stay here! You could get hurt!”
He doesn’t slow or even turn around. He just shoulders through the students gathered behind us, knocking one lad sideways as he forces his way between them, then breaks into a run towards the pond.
“Josh!” I lunge after him, managing two steps before Oscar’s arm hooks around my waist from behind and hauls me backwards so quickly my feet skid across the pavement.
“Ruby, what the fuck are you doing?”
“He’s going back in there!” I grab at Oscar’s forearm and try to wrench it away from my stomach, twisting hard enough that my trainers squeak against the ground, but his grip only tightens.
Josh is getting further away with every second, his dark figure cutting across the path towards the trees. “Oscar, let me go!”
“Don’t worry!” Cam shouts, already moving. “I’ve got his back!”
My head snaps towards him. “No! Cam!”
Cam takes off after Josh, barging past a couple standing near the edge of the crowd before breaking into a sprint, his long strides closing the gap between them frighteningly quickly.
“CAM!” Oscar bellows over my shoulder.
Cam throws one hand into the air without looking back and keeps running.
“Oh my God.” I shove both hands against Oscar’s arm and bend forwards, trying to slip underneath it, but he catches me higher around the middle and drags me flush against his chest. “Let me go, Oscar!”
“No way.”
I kick backwards at his shin, then plant both feet and throw my weight forwards.
Oscar barely moves. His trainers stay rooted to the pavement while mine scrape uselessly against it, and the realisation that I cannot physically make him release me sends another surge of fear through my body. “They’re going after them!”
“I know what they’re doing.”
“They could have knives!” I twist again, craning my neck until I can see past the people in front of us. Josh has reached the bend in the path and Cam is only a few metres behind him. “They could have anything, Oscar!”
“They know how to fight. They’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that!” Josh disappears around the bend and my heart slams painfully against my ribs.
“Josh!” I scream after him even though there’s no chance he can hear me now, fighting Oscar harder, digging my fingers beneath his forearm and trying to peel it away one finger at a time. “I can’t just stand here and wait!”
“You can.” Oscar adjusts his hold when I nearly manage to turn around, locking both arms around me and pinning mine against my sides. His mouth is close to my ear when he growls, “And you have to.”
I jerk against him once more, uselessly, but Josh is gone and Cam is gone and all I can see beyond the crowd is the empty path disappearing into darkness.
Fuck those men for attacking me. Fuck Josh for not listening when I begged him to stay.
Fuck Cam for charging after him like none of them have a functioning sense of self-preservation, and fuck Oscar for being so much bigger than me that I can fight him with everything I have and he barely has to move.
I’d never realised before how weak I am compared to them.
Mum put me in self-defence classes, and I learned where to hit, how to break a grip, how to use somebody’s weight against them, and tonight it worked, but only because I got the chance to make it work.
If that man had held me differently, if I’d missed his foot, if my elbow hadn’t connected, I don’t know what would have happened.
Tonight has shown me that if a man really wants to overpower you, there is a terrifying chance that he can.
He can be stronger, heavier, faster, and your body can become something you have to fight to keep possession of.
One wrong move, one grip you can’t break, and suddenly somebody else gets to decide where you stand, whether you leave, what happens to you next.
They decided her body was theirs before I got there. Then one of them tried to decide the same thing about mine.
I stop fighting Oscar.
And start sobbing instead.