Grabbing her arm, I heave up. I have her halfway to her feet when an elbow to the ribs sends a sharp pain down my side. I’m shoved back to the ground. I make an effort to get up again, but people are stepping on the edge of my open coat, pinning me down. The crowd presses in, and the gap I once occupied disappears.
I can’t breathe. Someone steps on me, then someone else. I’m lying on top of the girl, almost cheek to cheek with her. Her eyes are open, glassy. A reckless foot kicks her head. She doesn’t blink or cry out.
The screams from the crowd are actual screams now. I manage to slip out of my coat, then try to get off the ground yet again, but there are too many people around me, on top of me. I’m going to be trampled to death.
Then I’m wrenched back to my feet. I look over my shoulder, expecting to see Aren. It’s not him. It’s a human. Someone I don’t know and who doesn’t know me. Just a random stranger saving my life. I want to thank him, to make sure he gets out of this okay, but I lose sight of him when the crowd surges again. We’re all converging on the exit, an exit that’s far too small to accommodate this many people. Everyone’s screaming and yelling and shoving and pushing. No one will make it out that way.
I shove backward and sideways at the same time, manage to slip through the thinnest gap in the crowd. Adrenaline and a desperate urge to survive are fueling me now. Everyone’s trying to escape the club, so the farther I get into it, the less resistance I meet.
To my left, a trio of girls have broken a window. They’re climbing out of it. I start to head that way when something on the stage catches my eye.
Paige.
A fae has a sword in one hand, my friend in the other. He wrestles her behind the thick, black stage curtain.
“Paige!” I scream, even though I know she can’t hear me. I don’t see any other fae in the club. They could easily have fissured out, so I run, jumping on the stage and sprinting for the split in the curtain where I saw them disappear.
There’s an exit back here. I run through it, scan up and down the street. I don’t see Paige or the remnant, just humans, some who were obviously in the club and others who are watching the rest of us spill out the exits. Some of the women are sobbing. The men look disoriented, too, and the sound of sirens grows louder as the authorities respond to the scene.
Then I hear something else, something I’ve heard far too much lately: the sound of fae fighting.
It’s coming from a side road to my left. I run that way, stop at the corner of the building to peek around its edge. Trev brought back help. He and Aren and at least ten other rebels are fighting an equal number of remnants.
“McKenzie!”
I turn to see Paige sprinting toward me. Before she reaches me, fissures open up all around us.
“Paige!” I scream when a remnant appears out of a slash of light right next to her. She doesn’t blink or swerve away from the fae. Normal humans can’t see the battle taking place in the middle of a London street; she has no idea how close her enemy is.
Fortunately, the remnant doesn’t pursue her. He intercepts a rebel’s attack, swinging, then fissuring and swinging again.
She reaches me. I take hold of her arms as she takes hold of mine. She has a scrape across her left cheek, but otherwise, she looks okay.
“This way,” I say, pulling her to the right at the same time that she pulls me left, and says, “Over here.”
“No, Paige—”
“Come on!” she yells. “We have a plan.”
“A plan? Who’s we?” I demand, but she’s still pulling me down the street. “Paige, what are you doing?”
She turns back to me.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she says. “I’m saving your ass.”
SIXTEEN
SHE’S SAVING ME?
My gut tells me I know what that means, but I don’t have time to ask what the remnants have told her. A police officer or cop or whatever it is they call the authorities here approaches us.
“I need to see your identifications,” he says in his lilting British accent. Lights from the city’s emergency vehicles make his neon vest bright. They also disorient me. I tense with every flash in my peripheral vision, but I don’t see Aren or Shane or any of the remnants. Where the hell did they go?
“Now,” the officer demands, taking a step forward and resting his right hand on the baton at his hip.
Paige and I take a step back.
“I left my ID in my other jeans.” Totally true, but the cop either doesn’t believe me or he doesn’t care. He slips his baton an inch out of its holder. I don’t know what his deal is. Hundreds of people were in that club. He should be asking if we’re okay. He shouldn’t be treating us as if we’re…
Criminals. As if we’re armed.
I am armed, and if the bodies in the building next door have been discovered, the cops are probably searching for the killers.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” the officer says.
Paige suddenly loops her arm around my waist, throwing her weight against me with enough force to make me stagger.
“Call an ambulance!” she says, her bright blue eyes going wide. “Can’t you see she’s bleeding?”
Bleeding? I look down, see that my shirt and jeans are covered in blood. I’m not hurt, though. Not badly, at least. This is all from the girl in the club.
The dead girl in the club.
“You have to help us,” Paige says, forcing me to move toward the officer. “Please.”
Paige is a great actress, but the cop isn’t buying it. His baton slides all the way out of its holder, and he shouts a name, calling for backup, I presume.
I look toward the right, where the rest of the cops are congregated, helping the injured or setting up barricades to keep out traffic and the decent-sized crowd that’s developed.
Speaking of that crowd, it surges toward the sidewalk, making room for a black sedan to pass. The car hits the opposite curb, nearly clips the post holding up one side of the canopy in front of the theater’s entrance before returning fully to the street. Completely ignoring the barricade the police are moving into place, it heads straight for us.
It has to be Shane. Thank God he made it out of the club okay.
I grab Paige’s arm, removing it from around my waist and using it to pull her toward the approaching vehicle. Then I remember the last time Shane came to my rescue. He plowed into me. I don’t want a repeat experience, so I backpedal toward the sidewalk.
“Hey!” the officer in front of us shouts, moving forward. He notices the car a second later. I tense, hoping Shane doesn’t intend to run him down—hitting a remnant is so much different than hitting a human who’s only doing his job—but the officer staggers backward, out of the way.
The car screeches to a stop between us. I grab the handle of the back door, jerk it open, and am halfway inside before I realize the driver isn’t Shane.
He is human, though.
His dark brown eyes meet mine. “You have two seconds to make a decision.”
He shifts into first gear. Paige shoves me from behind. I’m not in the mood to see the inside of a British jail, so I scurry across the seat. Paige barely has time to fall into the car beside me before the driver takes off.
Or rather, he sort of takes off. I’m thrown back, then forward and back again as the transmission protests. This is a standard. Whoever this guy is obviously doesn’t have much experience with them.