Where Winter Finds You

“I don’t know,” Emile hollered back. Then he shrugged and pointed in some direction. “Here?”

Therese made the universal sign for Why not? because it was easier than trying to get heard over the music. And then she had more problems. Heading toward where he had randomly pointed turned out to be harder than communicating. There were so many humans on the floor, pushing, shoving, dancing, slipping, falling. It was as if the slick roads from the storm had come inside and there were three hundred drunk drivers careening down Caldwell’s streets.

Speaking of which, how was it possible that none of these people had stayed home because of the storm? It seemed like the inclement weather had inspired them in the opposite way, no hermitting to be found anywhere.

Then again, did she really think good choices were at the top of anyone’s To-Do list in here?

She was looking around, trying to locate Emile’s kind-of-girlfriend’s hairstyle, while at the same time not get left behind, when the fight broke out.

At first, she didn’t notice the jostling because she was getting bumped into by all sorts of shoulders and elbows anyway, but then a body slammed into her and knocked her off her feet: One moment, she was upright and ambulatory; the next, she was on her ass.

After which there was a stampede’s worth of boots and stilettos within inches of her face, her hands, her internal organs.

It was amazing how fast you could move when you didn’t want to get hurt. As the crowd surged and retreated like a school of fish, all those humans swirling together as if they were choreographed, she jumped up—

Only to get knocked into again, this time by a human man who not only put her back on the dance floor but also used her as a cushion, his heavy weight landing on top of her. As the breath was knocked out of her lungs, she got fed up. Planting her palms on his shoulder blades, she shoved him off of her, sending him flying into the crowd, toast out of a toaster.

Therese did not mess around with vertical attempt number two. She punched herself up and stayed in a crouch, arms in front of herself, eyes sweeping around and looking for the next dodgeball.

That was when she saw the real trouble. Two human men were locked in a joint throat grab, and it looked like their posses had gotten involved—and not to peel them apart. There were spin-off fights around the center conflict, satellites of smackdown that agitated the crowd even more.

Meanwhile, Emile was not anywhere to be seen, especially as another one of those purple lasers nailed Therese right in the eye, the impact like being Three Stooges poked.

Cursing, she brought her hand up—

The gunshot was unmistakable, even with the music, a high, hot pop! that cut through the bass and the treble. And then there were screams, shrill and piercing.

In slow motion, Therese turned to the sound and held her arms up to shield herself. Although her right eye was uselessly blinded, she was able to focus her left one, and that was when she saw the muzzle of the weapon point in her direction.

The true target was a human man who had stumbled into her path, but it wasn’t as if a little nuance like that was going to matter to the bullet.

There was a flash out of the tip of the gun, and Therese jumped to the side, going full Superman on the lunge, arms out ahead, body straight in the air, feet pointed. She even turned her head to track that muzzle, just to make sure she was out of range.

So she saw the man get shot.

The impact wrenched his torso to the side, as the lead slug went into the meat of his shoulder, and she yelled for him to get down—which was stupid. The shooter was closing in on the victim and about to—

The salvation tackle came from the right, and whoever it was knew what they were doing. Somehow, they managed to get control of the weapon and take the shooter down to the floor at the same time. It was one in a million, unless, of course, they had been trained to do it.

Therese hit the floor hard, her teeth clapping together, the heels of her hands skidding on the wood. One of her knees burst open with pain, and so did her left elbow, and she was worried she’d been shot.

Rolling over, she curled into a ball as the trampling feet she had tried to avoid in the first place came in what seemed to be a fleet of thousands, the size of the crowd geometrically increasing now that she was at the mercy of their panic. If she stayed like this, she was going to get seriously hurt, assuming she wasn’t already, so she forced herself up, rising to all fours and scrambling as fast as she could in what she hoped was a straight line. She kept her head down to protect it as much as possible, and she prayed she could just get the hell out of the way—

Without warning, her body levitated.

She was on the floor, paddling with her hands and feet like she was in choppy water, and then she was in the air, nothing under her.

Her first thought was that someone had used her like a football and kicked her. But no. Arms were around her waist—or one arm was around her waist.

Looking forward, she saw the other of the pair thrust out in front, like one of those police battering rams that SWAT teams broke doors down with, and holy crap, it was working, clearing the path, getting her and her savior out of the crush. Determined not to be dropped, she grabbed onto the torso of whoever was carrying her, wrapping a tight hold around what turned out to be a hard, hard body.

After a few dozen feet, they were out of the chaos and away from the panic, but whoever it was didn’t stop. They seemed to want to run into the black wall—

A hidden door opened in advance of their going cartoon character through the Sheetrock, and then they were in a well-lit corridor.

The trap door slammed behind them.

Twisting around… she looked up into Trez Latimer’s harsh face.

 

* * *

 

Trez was breathing so hard, his eyesight was checker-boarding on him, although the visual optics were not the result of exertion. He had been scared fucking shitless as he’d tried to get Therese to safety.

He’d been up in his office, trying not to think about her, when he’d seen the fight break out between two asshats competing for the attention of a woman who was a sure thing either way. The men had started pushing and shoving, and then, of course, their buddies had gotten involved, the testosterone taking over and escalating everything. In a rather bored fashion, he had called down to Xhex and her team, but she was already headed in that direction, alerted by staff on the floor, and he was more than happy to stay out of it.

Except then, from his perch on high, he had seen a familiar face in the crowd, the flash of a laser illuminating what could only be Therese.

Without wasting a second, he had dematerialized through the glass, some sixth sense of impending doom calling him into furious action.

And then the shooting had broken out.

“Are you hurt?” he asked as he laid her down on the cold concrete floor of the passageway used to bring liquor to the bar during business hours.

“It’s you…” she said with wonder. “What are you doing here?”

Outside in the club proper, the music was abruptly cut off, the voices and yelling of the crowd taking the place of the beats.

“I own this place.” He stared down at her. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know.” She pushed her upper body up and looked herself over. “I don’t think so. I can’t smell blood.”

“Neither can I.”