by Barry Lyga
“What’s wrong with you?” she heard herself scream at the rock thrower. “What in the world is wrong with you?”
Her anger only seemed to embolden them. The four closed in. Rachel cursed and told Cassie to follow her as she quick-walked toward the library, wishing she had some sort of weapon. Her purse contained nothing more hazardous than a little canister of Mace that was probably past its expiration date.
She checked anyway, rummaging through her bag, and then realized, to her shock, that Cassie wasn’t following her. She turned to see her daughter standing perfectly still on the pathway as the four students advanced on her.
“Cassie!” Screaming, she forgot all about the Mace, all about everything else and anything else. Her only child was standing in harm’s way, and Rachel reacted the same way she would if she saw Cassie standing in the middle of a busy highway.
She ran back to Cassie, swinging her purse by its strap. There was nothing dangerous in the purse, true, but there was a heavy hardcover book she’d been meaning to read for two weeks now. Still uncracked but solid. Her purse connected with the first student who’d seen them, the boy, clocking him across the face.
He shouted in pain and shock and surprise, and took a step back that satisfied her immensely. The migraine was now a hard, piercing pain above her left eye. She ignored it and swung the purse again, this time smashing it straight into his nose. Blood burst from him, gushing, and he staggered back, his hands to his crimson face.
Of the three others, one was the clearly hungover woman who’d ditched her friend for some Hive action. The other two were boys. Men, really. One tall and stocky, the other smaller, but with the feral look men have when they know they can get away with something. Rachel took a deep breath and raised the purse.
“Run, Cassie! Run!” She would hold them off as long as possible. Keep them from chasing Cassie. Give her some cover.
Cassie shook her head sadly. “There’s no point, Mom. This is how it works. Let me just get it over with.”
The migraine was nearly blinding. Her hearing was fine, but she still couldn’t believe her ears. “I did not raise you to quit!” she yelled. The two men exchanged glances and then advanced. The woman hung back, licking her lips.
Who needed an entire mob? She almost laughed out loud. All it took was a clutch of college students with phones to track and do whatever they wanted to Cassie.
“Run!” she shouted again and just then the two men pounced, one of them dodging Rachel’s clumsy new purse swing as the other knocked her off-balance. She stumbled backward and nearly fell — would have, if not for one of the men, grabbing her and keeping her upright.
“Keep out of this, bitch,” one of them snarled, and some hell, no part of Rachel just broke in that moment and she began screaming at them, screaming and flailing as the man pinned her arms to her side, screaming her throat raw, the migraine now banished by some fight-or-flight hormone racing through her body.
And still Cassie did nothing, standing frozen, staring dopily into the middle distance as the woman came up behind her, one high-heeled shoe brandished like a club.
Crack! The sickening sound of struck bone resonated as the woman brought her heel down on the back of Cassie’s head. Rachel’s scream died in shock as she watched her daughter stumble forward, blood geysering into the air from where she’d been hit.
Barely realizing she was doing it, Rachel stomped down on the foot of the man holding her. She had thrown on her boots, thinking she’d need something more practical than heels for running with Cassie, and their heavy soles made a solid impact. She felt rather than heard a crunch as bones in the man’s foot snapped under her weight. He howled in anger and pain … but mostly in pain. His grip on her slackened, and she pulled away, spinning around and delivering a clumsy but effective kick between his legs.
She’d never in her life kicked a man in the nuts. It felt surprisingly satisfying, especially the way his howl jumped an octave.
Something no one had ever told her about kicking a man there — it hurts, sure, but it pisses them off. He was clearly in ten sorts of agony, but lurched toward her anyway, arms reaching out. Fortunately, his broken foot hobbled him and he collapsed to his knees before he could put a hand on her.
The other two men seemed a little wary now, especially the one with the nose gushing blood. Their buddy had touched the stove and gotten burned. They didn’t want to suffer his fate.
“Cassie!” she called out. Her voice was clear and unwavering. The migraine was banished to some dusty corner of her brain. Fighting for her kid’s life was the world’s best analgesic. Who knew? “Cassie! Are you OK?”
Nothing from behind her. She thought of Cassie, bleeding on the ground, dying, and forced herself not to. One of the men — the only uninjured one — feinted in her direction and she swung the purse again. It connected with the side of his face. Never intended to be used as a weapon, the purse split along one of the seams, spilling its contents, a tangle of makeup accessories hurtling at him. A power cable for her phone. Her wallet. The now-useless canister of Mace …
And a nail file. She’d forgotten that was in there. And now it was embedded in his face, having speared through his cheek. When he opened his mouth to scream, she could see the glint of the metal file inside.
Rachel spun around. The woman was closing in on Cassie, who was down on her knees, pressing her hands to the wound in the back of her head.
“Get the fuck away from my daughter!” Rachel bellowed at the woman, who looked up, startled, as though she had been innocently reading poetry when Rachel raged at her like a maniac.
Rachel took a step toward her and the woman’s nerve — probably pretty frayed to begin with — broke. She bolted.
A quick check over her shoulder told Rachel that the three men, though wounded, were still a threat. Bloody-Nose Guy was edging closer to her. Speared Cheek had yanked the file from his face and now brandished it like he thought he’d pulled the sword from the stone. Broken Foot was out of the running but was goading the other two from the ground.
She pulled Cassie to her feet. “Just want it over …” Cassie mumbled.
The back of her daughter’s head was a matted mass of blood and hair. Head wounds bleed a lot, Rachel reminded herself. It’s not as bad as it looks.
“Let it be over,” Cassie said.
“Sweetie, we have to run. Do it for me, baby, OK? Do it for your dad, OK?”
At the mention of Harlon, a light seemed to flicker in Cassie’s eyes. Rachel tamped down her jealousy, channeling it into action. “Let’s go.”
Cassie stumbled with her, arm in arm. Then, after finding her footing, she broke into a proper run. The two raced up the walk, then took a sharp turn and ran down a tree-lined pathway. The library came into view ahead of them. It was, Rachel realized in that moment, now completely useless to them: her ID card was on the ground in the wreckage of her purse, a hundred yards behind them.
Casting a look over her shoulder, she saw one of the men — she couldn’t tell which — hobble-running up the hill toward them. There was no way to go back.
She’d failed. She’d had one job to do — protect Cassie — and she’d figured out how to do it, but she’d failed nonetheless. The other lionesses were going to kick her out of the mom club.
I could use an actual mom club right about now, she thought, imagining herself swinging a spiked mace at the head of the guy running after them.
Her mind raced. Where could they go? At this hour, nothing on campus was open. She was tempted to tell Cassie to toss her phone. Yes, it was illegal. So what? She’d rather see her daughter prosecuted for avoiding Hive Justice than subjected to it.
The library was right in front of them now. Rachel’s breath was ragged in her throat and chest; Cassie was wheezing.
“Around back,” Rachel managed, tugging Cassie in the right direction. Cassie’s
eyes questioned the move — the door was right there — but she had no breath to ask why.
The back of the library. There was an old return slot there, from back when people bothered to borrow books. They would slip Cassie’s phone in there and then make for Rachel’s office. She could talk the security guard into letting them in. They’d hole up there for a couple of hours, plan a new move.
They crashed through a thicket of bushes that ringed the library, taking a shortcut that brought them around the side of the building, cutting them off from the sight line of the man chasing them. Now that he could no longer see them and they could no longer see him, Rachel’s breathing came a little more easily. She didn’t want to slow down, though; she urged Cassie to run faster, and they came around the other corner of the library and —
Ran smack into a man who emerged from the shadows.
*
The guy who stepped out of the shadows had long red dreadlocks and shoulders wider than most doorways. He looked so much like a Norse god that Cassie half expected him to wield a hammer and drink mead from a horn. Part of Cassie noted that her mother would be very proud of her for the reference; she hoped she would be able to remember this later, post–Hive Justice, when they had a moment to breathe.
The other part was just plain gobsmacked. College men = impressive.
And threatening, she reminded herself, coming back to earth and banishing her inner Brontë heroine to some corner of her subconscious. He was several inches taller than Cassie, clearly a workout buff, and — most important of all — he had his phone out, the Hive proximity alert bleating.
Cassie moaned. The throbbing in her head where that drunk-ass Hiver had clocked her with a shoe was beginning to fade; she no longer felt her heartbeat there. With the ebbing pain, she began to feel like herself again. She’d had a scary moment there when she’d wanted to give up, when it had seemed too overwhelming to run. And then that first moment of physical violence, so crushing and complete and horrifying … She’d wanted to lie down and die.
But Mom had made her run. Had reminded her of Dad. Had forced her to live. And that’s what she wanted — to live.
The redhead’s phone kept beeping. He thumbed the Mute switch and shoved it into his pocket. Cassie gritted her teeth and decided she’d throw herself right at him. Take him by surprise. His wrists were exposed, their blue veins standing out against his skin. If she bit through them, he’d bleed out pretty quickly, she imagined.
Before she could move, though, her mother blurted out, “Bryce?”
Cassie turned to her mom.
“You know this guy?”
“He’s a student.” She wedged herself between Cassie and Bryce the Giant. “But I’m still not letting him hurt you.”
Seeing her tiny mother stand between her and a guy the size of a California redwood once would have inspired a derisive blast of laughter from Cassie. But after watching her mother go full ninja on a quartet hell-bent on hurting her, Cassie could do nothing but take her mother very, very seriously.
Bryce hesitated an instant. “Professor McKinney,” he started, then seemed to think better of it. With a smooth, graceful sweep of his arm, he shoved Rachel aside and grabbed Cassie by the wrist. The clutch of his massive hand sent a jolt of pain up Cassie’s arm, which worsened when she tried to pull away. Bryce held her fast, and all she managed was to come close to dislocating her shoulder.
“Let go, you freak!” She twisted, trying to slip out of his grip, but it was like trying to dance with a boa constrictor.
“Bryce, please!” Rachel pleaded. “Don’t do this! You’re better than this!”
Bryce turned to Rachel, which was Cassie’s opportunity. She stopped pulling and instead leaned in, flinging herself at Bryce, kicking out at the same time. She connected with his knee, and he yelped with surprise and pain, dropping onto his other knee. No luck, though. He still held her fast.
Rachel took advantage of the moment and came at Bryce, raking her nails down his face. He jerked back his head, and she was able only to rip the flesh of his forehead. Shallow but bloody furrows appeared there.
“Stop it!” he whispered fiercely. “I’m trying to help! We’re wasting time!”
Both McKinney women froze. Cassie tugged ineffectually at her own captive arm. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
Bryce glared at her and then, testing his sore knee, stood up. “You have to come with me. It’s the only way.”
Cassie blinked. Was this actually happening? Was someone trying to help?
“You can trust me,” Bryce said, as though he could read her mind. “I’m one of the good guys.”
Rachel looked from Bryce to Cassie and back again.
“I don’t think we have a choice, Mom,” Cassie told her. Bryce was still holding her by the wrist, but he’d relaxed his grip quite a bit. She knew she could twist out of his grasp now, but she didn’t want to. Maybe it was desperation talking, but she trusted him. Her own words rang in her head; she really, truly had no choice. There was a mob coming for her, and she’d take any chance she could to get away.
Rachel nodded thoughtfully, then started at a sound. From behind them and around the corner, a cry had gone up, followed by footfalls on cobblestones. Someone was coming. Many someones, from the sound of it.
“I’m going with you,” Rachel said.
“No,” Bryce said firmly. “We have to travel light.”
“This is a better chance than we had before,” Cassie said, and instantly regretted it. An expression of wounded shock flickered to life briefly on her mom’s face before her expression returned to concern and fear.
Cassie hadn’t meant it that way. Her mom had done her best. She was just safer without her now, was all.
More sounds.
“Mom —” Cassie began, but then Bryce pulled — not hard, but insistently — and she ran off with him, leaving her mother alone in the dawn.
*
Guys something big is happening on MS/BFU campus. Who’s got boots on the ground? #msbfu #PotentialHive
I just saw someone hurl a shoe. WTF is happening on the #msbfu quad right now?!
I need pizza. #msbfu
Wait, who’s being chased? I want in! I never made it to the gym today lol. #GetThoseStepsIn #msbfu
Hey #msbfu! It’s almost SENIOR WEEK! Have you signed up to volunteer yet? → ms.bfu/volunteer20
Anyone else hearing weird noises outside on the quad? I’m trying to cram for my chem test and a-holes are making it hard. #msbfu
Ummmmm I just saw four people attack someone. Is there a #HiveMob happening on #msbfu right now?!
HIVE ALERT: Activity is being tracked on the MS/BFU campus. Follow for details.
Yasss! There hasn’t been a good mob on campus in ages. What’s this one for? #msbfu
HIVE ALERT: A mob seeking justice for #CassieMcKinney is forming on the MS/BFU campus. #msbfu
10010900101
“Where are you taking me?”
“Where were you going?” Bryce countered. His hand, large and hot, remained wrapped around her wrist as they ran.
“We were headed to the library,” Cassie said through gasps for air. The backpack bounced against her shoulder blades, but she was more attentive to the flare of pain at the back of her head that each step produced. She ignored them both as best she could. “Cell signals —”
“Good idea,” Bryce said, guiding her around a cluster of small trees, “but wrong place. They’ll know you went into the library, tracking your last known signal. Then they can just close it down and find you. There are only so many ways out of there, and most of them are alarmed.”
“Then where —”
“Left now.”
She followed Bryce’s lead, crashing through a thicket of overgrown shrubbery. The university needed to reconsider its landscaping budget.
&n
bsp; Scratched and torn by brambles and sharp branches, she emerged with Bryce into a smallish clearing, no more than ten feet wide, canopied by a massive nearby elm tree that seemed to almost stoop with age. Bryce crouched down and swept his hand along the ground, brushing away leaves to reveal a sewer cover.
“Are we going —” She broke off at a glare from him, then lowered her voice. “Are we going into the sewers? Is that …”
“Wouldn’t stink be better than death?” he whispered back, wiping his forehead. Sweat had mixed with the blood from Rachel’s claw attack, and now it smeared over his flesh. “Besides, it’s not the sewers. It’s an old steam-heating maintenance tunnel from before the university switched over to solar heat.”
He focused his attention on the grate, fitting his fingers into slots on the rim of the cover. Cassie wondered if she should help, but he seemed to know what he was doing and besides, Bryce was a Norse god, right? What good would her puny mortal muscles do?
He strained and grunted, pulling with all his might. His face went as red as his hair. Cassie thought something might rupture.
She hunkered down next to him, aware of sounds and shouts in the near distance, aware of how much time they were wasting. “Do you need help?” she asked.
He huffed in a breath, puffed it out and fixed her with a solid, annoyed stare that said, Please for the love of God shut the hell up — I’m trying to focus here.
She shut up. Let him do his big-man-on-campus thing.
Bryce drew in another breath, exhaled, then, on the next inhale, heaved with all his might. The edge of the grate came up an inch, and he twisted it to the side, setting the cover gently and silently on the rim of the hole it concealed.
“Yes,” Cassie hissed. From where they had run came fresh shouts, closer than the others had been.
“Usually do this with two other guys. Come on.”
Lying on his back, he shoved the cover aside some more with his feet, then dropped into the dark space below. Cassie swallowed hard, seeing absolute pitch-black down there and nothing else. By reflex, she went for her phone and poked at the screen, looking for the flashlight app. Instead, she was greeted with the flashing 5, over and over. It was ungodly bright in the predawn gloom, and she hurriedly stuffed it back into her pocket.