The One That Got Away by C. Kelly Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

do I gotta escort you out of here?”
    â€œEscort this, partner!” As the heckler stood again, a shiny black pistol in each hand, the crowd scattered like grains of sand. Streams of frantic folk knocking him to and fro, Tony stood but rejected the urge to follow the fleeing crowds. He couldn’t leave Zora to fend for herself.
    Struggling to his feet, taking knocks to his forehead and shins from the fleeing crowds, he looked anxiously betweenZora and the impulsive Johnny Two-Guns. The heckler stood fifty yards from Zora, guns still raised, when the crowd behind him convulsed suddenly. As some people fell to the floor and others flew through the air, the club’s two largest bouncers burst into sight. In seconds they wrestled the gunman to the floor, but when the loud report of a pistol shook the club, the crowd’s anxiety only increased. Calm pleas for people to keep moving became frantic shouts, insistent nudges became desperate shoves, and a survival of the fittest vibe filled the cramped space.
    His ears ringing at a second burst from the pistol, which had either been fired into the wood floor or into the heckler’s chest, Tony steadied himself against the nearest table. Craning his neck, he caught sight of Zora, who stood alone on the stage with arms crossed and feet tapping anxiously. Breathing a sigh of relief, Tony turned back toward the flailing heckler, who was overpowered by the bouncers and Owen, who’d joined in. Satisfied they were beyond serious danger, Tony stayed put. He’d be hard-pressed to get through the panicked crowd, which had nearly morphed into a stampede. Besides, with the gunman apprehended, why risk getting his pretty head bashed in? He’d wait for Zora where he was. Turning back toward the stage, he prepared to wave in her direction. . . .
    Where’d she go? His heartbeat rocketing, Tony stared at the empty stage. Had she slipped back to the dressing room, maybe? Climbing onto his table, he scanned the crowd for signs of Zora and finally located her. Pressed nearly flat between a crowd near the bar, his sister fought to keep her balance, shifting uneasily against the mishmash of frantic women and angry, agitated brothers. Elbows flew, legs kicked, and Tony finally realized that some people were literally walking over others . This was a genuine stampede: people were going down.
    His brain spinning emptily, trying to believe his eyes, Tony stood there atop the table, foreboding creeping up his spine. That’s when a football-player-sized brother thwacked the back of Zora’s head with an out-of-control elbow. Her hands in the air,clawing for a lifeline, Zora was sucked beneath the churning crowd.
    Without calculation or thought, Tony dove off the table, landing halfway between it and where he’d last seen Zora. Shoving aside the two brothers who broke his fall, he blazed a path to his sister, who lay on her stomach, arms splayed wide. The back of Zora’s blouse was smeared with blood, sweat, and dirt stains, stamped together by several sets of footprints. His breath coming in shorter clips, his eyes full of stinging sweat, Tony screamed for space and knelt over her. Turning Zora over, he slid his arms underneath her torso and lifted her as he stood. Before he could move forward, a booted foot landed hard on his leather loafer, sending a fiery spike of pain up his leg. He didn’t even hear his own shouted profanity, but he immediately felt his grip on Zora slacken. He couldn’t drop her, not in the condition she was in. . . .
    His grip restored, Tony’s neck pivoted this way and that, seeking the clearest path forward, only to find swarms of fear-crazed folk everywhere. That’s when he made the only choice he could. With Zora nestled in his arms, he lowered his head and made like a battering ram, pile-driving his way past two bodies, then one, then three. . . . “We’re almost there, Zora,” he