Dying for Rain (The Rain Trilog - BB Easton Page 0,61
my fingers.
And the powder keg explodes.
Rain
The second those shots are fired, a hundred more follow as the crowd erupts into a pushing, shoving, screaming, stampeding, mindless thing. Michelle, Lamar, and I are swallowed by the mob in an instant. People trample over Quint’s body as they push in all directions to get away from the madness. I watch as his mask goes flat under a cowboy boot, and I have to choke down my own vomit.
But there’s no time to process. I’m going to end up just like him if I don’t stay upright. With every jarring shove, every push and pull, I feel myself getting smaller. It’s like that time my parents took me to the beach, and I got sucked away from the shore by the undertow. I remember feeling so weak, my little muscles no match for the all-powerful ocean. The only difference is that if I get pulled under here, I won’t drown. I’ll have my internal organs liquefied under the stomping, panicking feet of Bonys and rednecks and newly released prisoners.
Shots ring out every few seconds, followed by more screaming, and I don’t know if the riot cops are firing at us or if we’re firing at the riot cops.
The giant ex-cons who were holding me up are able to force their way through the chaos, but when the crowd closes in behind them, it swallows me whole and forces me under, like a crashing wave.
Fight! I scream at myself. Stay on your feet!
Another ka-pow reverberates through the air as a man no more than five feet away from me topples into the crowd like a cut tree. I can’t get out of the way, and he lands on me, coughing up blood as we both go down.
I scream as I hit the grass under two hundred pounds of bleeding human. “Help! Hellllllp!”
I struggle to roll the dying man off of me as motorcycle boots and cowboy boots and combat boots and hunting boots stomp on my feet and trip over my legs and kick me in the side and crush my arms. Fear and pain hijack my brain as the assault continues. Instead of rolling him off, I pull the dying man back on top of me, using him as a human shield to protect my belly as I try to remember to breathe. Panic grips my throat and squeezes, stealing my voice as it whispers into my ears.
Weak.
Stupid.
Powerless.
Girl.
But then I hear another voice in my ear, one that sounds less like me and more like a female rapper who smokes two packs a day. Faded green dreadlocks tumble into my face as the voice chuckles.
“Bitch, how you gonna start a riot and then lie down and take a nap? That’s some gangsta shit right there.”
Two hands grab me under the armpits and hoist, lifting me out from under the now-dead body just before another surge of people tramples him as well.
I turn and find the feral, feline eyes of Q staring back at me, a smirk on her full lips and a spatter of blood on her right cheek.
“You came,” I mutter in disbelief.
“Pssh. Not from that speech, I didn’t.” She grins. “Come on. Let’s go get ya man.”
Before I can ask her how in the hell she thinks we’re going to get out of here, Q climbs the bodies around her like a jungle gym.
“Ow!”
“Fuck!”
“What the hell?”
“Come on, you little pussy!” she yells down at me, crawling on top of the angry mob like it’s her own personal magic carpet.
I do the same, but much more apologetically, and follow her every move as she crawls on her hands and feet over the undulating sea of bodies. But with the way the crowd is pushing back and forth, we take two steps forward and find ourselves three feet farther away.
“Ugh! Don’t these muhfuckas know who you is?”
Q squats on the shoulders of a bearded, plaid-covered redneck and places her fingers in her mouth. The whistle that follows is deafening and brings everyone immediately around us to a halt.
“Y’all need to get dis bitch to the front ’fore I start shootin’ muhfuckas just to make a path!”
Everyone’s stare shifts from Q to me, and suddenly, a sidewalk of hands, palms up, appears before me.
Q’s mouth twists into a self-satisfied sneer as she gestures for me to go ahead.
I give her a grateful nod and begin placing my wobbly knees and shaking hands on their open palms.