“So, you’re the crazy chica who thinks she can go up against my Locos, poking my boys in the eye day after day, and keep breathing?” he sneered. “Now you come here to my corner, trying to take Big Rube home to his granny? Bitch, you must be even dumber than everyone says.”
He lunged for her, swinging his fist at her face.
Selena’s first instinct was to back up and lift her hands in a useless effort to protect herself. But for reasons she couldn’t explain, she met the gangbanger head on, anger rumbling from her throat in a low sound as she threw up her left arm and blocked the incoming punch. She barely had time to marvel at how easy the move had been before her right fist whipped out in a straight jab.
The shot connected, and Aaron stumbled back a good five feet, jaw bones crunching and teeth clacking together with an audible sound. Selena waited for pain to explode through her small hand. She’d never punched anyone in her life and feared she’d done it horribly wrong. But as blood dripped from a gash near Aaron’s mouth, she realized her hand didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt fine. Like she hadn’t hit anything at all.
Some part of her took note of the fact that absolutely nobody was moving, that everyone, including Ruben, was standing there staring at her like she was some kind of strange creature they’d never seen before.
Then Aaron was mumbling an endless stream of mostly unintelligible curse words as he charged at her. At the same time, another guy—a few years younger than Aaron—moved toward her back. There was a third one slightly off to the side headed her way, too.
The low growl that had slipped out when she’d punched Aaron escaped her lips again, louder and harsher this time.
Selena ducked under Aaron’s first wild blow like he was moving in slow motion, growling again as she grabbed the front of his jacket and jerked him off his feet, spinning him around like he was nothing more than a bag of laundry and slinging him at the man behind her. Both gangbangers went down hard.
A tiny part of her wondered how she’d been able to move, much less throw a man who weighed so much more than she did. But then the third man—the one who had been moving slower—jumped over his two friends and came at her, and she had no more time to wonder about anything.
Selena rushed forward to meet the man even as she screamed at herself that this was insane. The man’s fist grazed the side of her head, but she didn’t slow down. Instead, she put her hands on his chest and shoved as hard as she could. He flew backward over his friends like he’d been hit by a truck, bouncing off the tall privacy fence and collapsing to the ground.
Even though the man hadn’t even come close to hitting her jaw, her gums suddenly felt like they were on fire, and she tasted blood. She snarled, the metallic tang turning her anger into blazing white-hot rage as she turned to see if any of the other gang members were coming at her.
But they were all running away.
Selena started after them, stunned at how badly she wanted to chase them. The desire to drag them down from behind was like a physical need, but she stopped herself, teeth grinding together so hard, she heard them crunch.
Ruben looked over his shoulder at her, like he was thinking twice about leaving. But ultimately, he kept running, choosing to stay with his new friends. It tore at Selena to realize that, but at the moment, there was nothing she could do about it. Hopefully, she’d be able to find him later when his friends weren’t around and talk some sense into him. But she couldn’t help worrying it was already too late for that.
Noise from behind spun her around, and she saw two of the men who’d attacked her half running, half limping toward the street.
Selena glanced at Aaron, watching disinterestedly as he stumbled to his feet. He looked a little unsteady, and his chin and neck were covered in blood.
His face was stiff with barely controlled fury, but Selena found she had very little interest in continuing the fight. It was like something inside had already decided going up against Aaron by himself was boring. Eyes never leaving hers, he yanked down the zipper of his coat and reached inside. Selena knew what he was going for, and while there was a part of her that wanted to run, the part in charge propelled her feet once more toward the threat. Suddenly, she wasn’t bored anymore.
The taste of blood flooded her mouth again, but that only fueled her fire. She growled louder as excitement coursed through her body. She didn’t know why, but she was almost eager for Aaron to pull out a weapon. An image suddenly popped into her head, of her leaping across the ten feet that separated them and crushing him to the ground, then taking the weapon from his hand and using it to beat the crap out of him.
Maybe Aaron sensed her anticipation, because his face suddenly paled. Pulling his empty hand out of his jacket, he held both of them up and slowly backed away.
“There’s something wrong with you, chica,” he said. “You’re crazy.” Turning, he ran after his two friends.
Selena watched him go, fighting that same urge to chase after him like he was some kind of prey.
The moment he was out of sight, it was as if all the adrenaline that had been holding her upright drained away at once, leaving her shaking and wrung out. She could barely stand, much less be sure if she could walk back to her car. That’s when what she’d just done and how insane it had been finally hit her.
Selena replayed the last few minutes through her head, trying to understand how any of it had been possible. She’d beaten up three men bigger than she was, had thrown them around in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. It seemed like a dream, making her wonder if any of the stuff she remembered had truly happened at all.
But the exhaustion in her arms and legs, along with the taste of blood in her mouth, confirmed she hadn’t been dreaming. She’d gotten furious and gone crazy on those men like some kind of animal. She instinctively knew it was tied to the shooting in her classroom in some way but didn’t understand how.
Turning, Selena slowly walked toward her car. She needed to talk to someone about everything that had happened. She just wasn’t sure who.
Chapter 9
“Why the hell is Curtis here?” Brooks muttered as the Dallas chief of police joined Gage, who was standing with the prison warden, the Anderson County sheriff, and a collection of state troopers and U.S. Marshals by a large map board. There were mugshots of the seven escapees—Frasheri, Engler, Oliver, three omegas, and the truck driver—attached to the perimeter of the board, but at the moment, the group seemed more interested in the map itself, mulling over checkpoints and roadblocks the police had established around the prison and at nearly every major intersection connecting to roads leading south. Everyone except Gage assumed the escaped prisoners were heading for Mexico.
The board, along with a bewildering array of radios and computers, had been set up under a large pop-up shelter in the middle of the field where the prison truck had crashed earlier. The human driver, a contracted employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, had been pretty messed up. He hadn’t been wearing his seat belt when the vehicle flipped, so the guy was going to be in the hospital for a while before starting his prison sentence.
On the other hand, the two omegas who’d been in the back of the truck appeared to have come through the crash with hardly a scratch. Not true of course, but how was anyone to know their broken bones and wounds had essentially healed themselves before EMS arrived?
“I think the chief showed up because they’re here,” Zane said, motioning to the state and local reporters being herded into an area outside the crash site, a good fifty yards away from the command post. Most of the newsies were jockeying for space near the front where the microphones were set up. The rest were either doing sound bites in front of video cameras or taking photos of the overturned truck.
