shoved her back. “Wait. I’ll see what the hell is going on.”
Abby grabbed his arm. “Forget it. I’m sticking with you.”
He started to object, but she just hung on to his arm and peered over his shoulder as he rounded the corner.
It was a scene from a nightmare. A crowd of guys circled around two men who were fighting. The onlookers jeered and howled. The two men waved broken bottles at each other. They were drenched with blood. One feinted to one side, tripped the other when he fell for it, and lunged, slashing at his throat. Blood spurted. Abby shrieked.
Zan sucked in a harsh breath. “Holy fuck, that’s…Jamie!”
He hurtled into the melee, breaking through the ring of onlookers, and dove at the two men locked in a bloody embrace on the ground.
Everyone started yelling. Five guys leaped onto Zan. Abby backed away, hand clamped over her mouth to choke off the terrified mewling sounds. Don’t panic, you stupid bimbo ditz.
She wanted to wade into the fray like that chick from Alias, save Zan with a few kicks and karate chops. But there were over fifteen guys in that heaving clump of men, and she was no TV ninja babe. Zan was on his own. The best she could do for him was run for the cops.
She kicked off her sandals and sprinted for the boardwalk while she fumbled for her phone. Her feet barely touched the ground.
Chapter
6
Someone grabbed Zan’s arm before he could slash it down across the throat of that shithead and smash his trachea into pink mush. He bellowed as fury gave him the strength to wrench it free to try again.
Someone landed a blow to his face, someone else grabbed him from behind. In that moment of confusion, a ton of bricks hit him in the back and splatted him facedown on the ground.
He bucked and heaved. Someone sat on his legs, someone else on his feet, someone else on his ass, and then the whole fucking pack was sitting on top of him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs so he had to stop yelling and struggle for air, which made it possible to hear someone screaming his name. Two someones. His brothers’ voices.
“…fuck is wrong with you, man? Chill out!” Jamie.
“Calm down, Zan. Do you hear me? Zan? Stop fighting.” Chris.
Jamie. That first voice had been Jamie’s. So Jamie wasn’t murdered. His throat was not slashed. He was alive. He was OK.
The red haze in Zan’s head began to subside, and his muscles went limp. He started shaking so hard, the guys on top of him had to be shaking too, like they were perched on a volcano about to blow.
He realized that the shaking was laughter, or maybe tears.
Nah. Call it laughter. If tears and snot were mixed with the blood streaming out of his nose, the fifteen guys sitting on top of him would never need to know. His body shook harder.
Jamie. His smart-mouthed, scrappy baby brother. God.
“Yo, Zan. Earth to Zan.” Jamie’s voice vibrated with tension. “Do you hear me? Get off him, Martin. Move your ass.”
“No fucking way. This freak practically killed me. I’m sitting on him till the cops get here.”
“OK, let me put this another way.” Jamie’s voice was underlaid with steel. “Get the fuck off him, or I’ll knock out all your teeth.”
The crushing weight on Zan’s back reluctantly shifted. Then the other various weights lifted themselves off. Someone shoved him, not gently, onto his back. He blinked, eyes burning with grit. He stared up at the grotesquely backlit circle of faces. They contemplated him with cautious dread. As if he were some sort of gigantic, mutant cockroach.
His brother Christian helped Zan into a sitting position, and wiggled his nose, which hurt like hell. “Hold your head up,” Chris directed. “Or the blood will go down your throat.”
I know that, Zan wanted to say, but his talking apparatus wasn’t functioning. His body still vibrated at a screamingly high pitch. He was so zinged, he could have floated right up off the ground.
“Use your sleeve. It’s all bloody anyway,” Chris said. “Jesus, Zan. You scared the living shit out of us.”
That crack found Zan his voice again. “Me? I scared the…” His voice trailed off into a harsh crack of laughter. “I scared you? I see my baby brother getting his throat slashed, and I’m the one who—”
“I told you!” Jamie bellowed. “How many times do I have to tell you about the fucking play? You’re as thick as a brick wall! I choreographed this fight!”
Zan blinked at him stupidly. “Oh. Ah…shit.”
“Yeah! Shit! We called a fight rehearsal tonight, but the dancers already had booked the practice rooms at the performing arts center, so I just brought them here. Figured I couldn’t bother anybody here. Ha!”
“Did it occur to you to warn me that you planned on simulating your own murder in front of our building tonight?” Zan snarled.
“I thought I had!” Jamie yelled back. “If you’d get your head out of your ass and listen to what I say, you’d have figured it out! I told you, I’m Tybalt, right? I told you about getting my throat cut! This is Martin, who plays Romeo. Anton here is Mercutio. Me and Mercutio have a big fight, and I stab him to death, and then Romeo here freaks out and kills me. And the rest of these guys are various henchmen for the mob fight.”
Zan’s head had begun to throb. “Who hit me?” he asked.
Chris looked sheepish. “Uh, that would be me. Sorry.”
Zan looked around at the bizarre assortment of guys. Half of them had dreadlocks, spiked hair, piercing, Goth makeup. The rest of them were clean-cut, dressed in jeans and polo shirts. He focused on the one he’d jumped, the one who had simulated slashing Jamie’s throat.
He shivered. The guy he had almost killed.
Romeo’s face was wet with sweat. He was spattered with fake blood, and his eyes slid nervously away from Zan’s gaze. Probably he had just an inkling of how close he’d just come to death. Poor bastard.
Zan turned to Chris again. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
Chris nodded, his face somber. “Way too fucking close,” he murmured, pitching his voice for Zan’s ears. “You were this close to another murder rap. You need to chill out. You scared me bad.”
“Yeah,” Zan said hoarsely. “I scare myself.” He looked up at Romeo. “Sorry,” he muttered. It was all he could think of to say.
Romeo’s eyes darted around at everyone but him. He nodded, tried to speak, and failed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
Zan tried to struggle to his feet, but his legs shook under him. He might have fallen if Chris and Jamie hadn’t grabbed him by the armpits and hauled him upright. He searched for something to say.
“Uh…nontraditional
