“Who knows?” Callum asked, trying to tug Keith toward the parking lot again.
“I do.” A deep voice carried over the sound of crunching gravel and dirt, stopping Callum and Keith in their tracks.
“Fuck,” Keith mumbled, gripping Callum’s hand tighter.
Callum’s adrenaline spiked, his entire body going on alert as the stranger who blocked their path to the parking lot came closer. Step by step and then there was a second set of footsteps that had Keith shaking his hand free of Callum’s hold.
There were two men blocking their path to the parking lot, both tall and broad, dressed all in black. They stepped into the light and Callum saw that one of the men had a goatee, the other was clean shaven; they both had black ski-hats on, pulled low over their ears.
Callum looked behind him as his and Keith’s fingers disconnected in time to see Keith dart toward the back of the building. The man with the goatee lunged, making a quick chase and slamming Keith down into the dirt. He let out a painedoomphnoise and Callum turned back toward the first man. He opened his mouth to call for help, but was stopped short by a beefy fist connecting with his jaw.
He stumbled backward, rubbing his jaw with his hand then he lunged forward with a shout, pummeling a fist into the man’s chest. Callum quickly knew it would be a losing battle, though. The man was easily twice his size, his hands so big they wrapped around Callum’s biceps completely.
“Keith!” Callum shouted, realizing there was still another struggle going on. He was able to look behind him in the direction Keith had taken off and found him on his stomach, his face pressed into the dirt while the man attempted to wrestle him into submission.
Keith squirmed and kicked out, struggling valiantly until Callum recognized a familiar sound of metal on metal that was followed by a sharp scream from Keith’s mouth and a renewed struggle.
Callum managed to shake loose from his assailant and he made it one step toward Keith, but found himself stopped by a rough hand in his hair yanking him backward. The man spun him around and punched him in the jaw again.
“The fight isn’t with you,” the man said. “Let us do what we came to do and you won’t get hurt.” As he spoke, the man loosened his own belt and whipped the leather strap free of his pants before working his zipper down.
Callum took a swing so hard it threw him off balance. He stumbled back, his shoulder blades connecting with the brick wall of the building. The man was on him again, punching his head, his face, even his chest. Callum could feel the man’s erection press against his hip. He renewed his struggle, swatting helplessly in front of him. A heavy punch landed near his throat, and a searing pain vibrated through his body. Callum cried out, agony wrenching through his collarbone to his shoulder and arm. He raised his other arm to try and shield his face, but he felt the bone of his clavicle grind, obviously broken.
“Help!” he cried, as loud as he could through tears he didn’t realize he’d been shedding. His follow-up shout was cut off by a hand around his throat, the grip so strong it forced his entire body up the wall. The movement yanked his collarbone and he sobbed, a watery and gasping plea as the bone in his broken clavicle rubbed against itself.
The pain was so great he wasn’t aware he was struggling to breathe until his vision darkened around the edges. He raised his left arm and scrabbled at the man’s hand, but he was held firm. Callum kicked his legs out, making contact with the man’s thighs and shins, but never the ground.
Callum had the fleeting thought of dying like this—suspended in the air. Is this what Landon meant when he’d talked about feeling so vast? There wasn’t anything anchoring Callum to the earth beyond the fingers curled around his throat and the bricks at his back. It was a peculiar feeling of near weightlessness that danced around a pressing fear of vanishing into oblivion.
His shoulder hurt, he couldn’t open his left eye, and his throat felt like he’d swallowed fire. He whimpered, now afraid he’d never get to see Jack again. The man’s hand tightened and, with a grunt of exertion, he shoved Callum harder against the wall. It knocked the remaining breath from his lungs and he was allowed one fleeting moment to mourn the vows he’d never get to speak, then everything went black.
26
Jack
Jack wokeup groggy and alone, his phone ringing incessantly on the nightstand. Half asleep, he struggled to figure out why Verity was calling him, why Callum wasn’t home…
“Hello?”
“Jack, you need to come to Huntington Memorial right now.” Verity sounded shaken, like they’d been crying—or screaming.
“What?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing a hand over his face, blinking the heaviness of sleep from his eyes.
“Jack,” Verity trailed off.
“What happened?” Jack asked again, louder and more insistent this time. He was out of bed, shoving his legs into sweatpants and yanking a shirt over his head, not realizing it was one of Callum’s until it was already stretched around his shoulders.
“Callum and Keith were attacked outside Rapture.”
Jack’s heart dropped into his stomach like a brick.
“The paramedics picked him up. I don’t think it’s too bad, but he’s really banged up and he was crying for you,” Verity choked back a cry of their own.
Jack was out the door, not sure if he’d locked it or even pulled it closed. The twenty minutes it took to get from Silverlake to Pasadena was the entirety of Jack’s life three times over.
He met up with Verity in the emergency room lobby, and they quickly pulled him into a hug.
“He’s fine, Jack,” Verity soothed.
