We all went rolling, Shard taking me with his hands at my wrists.
We stopped rolling still scuffling. Shard was working to free himself from Roam and me when, all of a sudden, he was lifted clean up into the air, like he was levitating, arms and legs reeling.
I stared in shock, Roam went still and then Shard was slammed face first on the ground next to me.
That’s when I saw Crowe.
He was crouched low. He planted his knee in Shard’s back, pulled Shard’s hands behind him and secured his wrists in cuffs like Shard wasn’t struggling like a mother (which he was).
Then Crowe straightened, jerking Shard up with him. Crowe cocked his knee to the back of one of Shard’s, taking Shard down.
I was lying on my back, staring up, unable to move.
Roam was lying on his side next to me, up on an elbow.
We were both (I hate to admit it) in awe.
I didn’t have to wonder why Crowe was there. He was following me in order to “shut me down”.
Shit.
Crowe pulled a gun out of a holster on his belt and trained it on Shard. “Don’t move,” he said to Shard, his deep voice was scary.
Then his head turned and even in the shadowed light I knew he was looking at me. I knew it because I felt his eyes burning into me.
“Get up,” he ordered.
I did as I was told, frankly too scared to do otherwise (he was holding a gun and he seemed a bit pissed off and he’d made a grown man levitate, even I wasn’t fool enough to spit in the eye of that kind of tiger). Then I turned and helped Roam get up.
Crowe pulled a phone out of his back pocket, flipped it opened one handed and hit a button.
I breathed heavily, staring at him.
“You… are… the… man,” Roam whispered. He was staring at Crowe too, eyes wide with wonder.
“Jack? I got a pick up,” Crowe said into the phone. “Speer bike path, South side, close to Broadway,” he hesitated, listening, then went on briefly. “Yeah. Out.”
Then he flipped the phone shut and looked at me again.
“You wanna tell me what the f**k’s goin’ on?” he asked me, his voice still pissed off.
I didn’t, really, so I didn’t say anything.
“How’d you do that?” Roam asked, cutting into Crowe’s short, one-sided conversation with me.
I looked at Roam. He was still staring at Crowe like he was a god among men. Then I remembered to be angry at him and turned to face him.
“What did you think you were doing?” I shouted.
Roam’s eyes came to me. “Law –”
“Don’t ‘Law’ me. I should knock some sense into you. You could have got hurt, pelting drug dealers with rocks. Are you nuts?” I yelled.
“You do it,” Roam said, assuming a teenage boy’s pissed-off-yet-pouty stance of jutting lip and slightly leaning body.
“I do not pelt drug dealers with rocks. That’s a fool thing to do. Honestly, Roam, what am I gonna do with you?”
“You’re Law?” Shard said, butting into my tirade and looking up at me.