Page 86 of Cosmo

The thing was, when Liam felt that old familiar fury, his body reacted on its own, and what was worse, he gained a strength that could only be from rage and adrenaline. He slammed one elbow into the windshield and the thing cracked, spider cracks over the face of the man.

He got out of the car, and Liam saw him reaching into his pants for the gun that he’d shot Taran with, but Liam was quicker, sliding off the hood and grabbing the man by the throat with one hand while the other started hitting his pale, ugly face.

The feeling of it, a hard fist punching into the bones of a face, like that fist was trying to punch through it, like one would a piece of wall made of nothing more than sheetrock. The blood matching the red glare of his eyes, the cracking of the skin of his own knuckles blending in that blood.

He felt hands on him, and he tried to strike out at them, but arms were around his arms, pinning them to his sides, and he was taken from the shooter. The screams of frustration were echoing loudly in the garage, and he spit and fought to get back to the man to finish beating him to death.

Then he heard the voice yelling in his ear. It was Goldie. “Calm the fuck down!”

Murphy, Mims, and Haze were holding the shooter on the ground and the gun was kicked away as they all heard sirens in the distance.

The parking attendant was there, asking what the hell was going on, and Liam came around enough to realize he was the one who’d called the police.

“That motherfucker tried to kill a man,” Murphy screamed.

“Yeah, I saw that,” he screamed before getting back on the phone with 911. “They got him, they’re holding him!”

Abs started screaming then, and it snapped Liam out of his rage enough to respond. “What?”

“The guard guy thinks you are the one that shot Taran!”

Goldie felt him change and let him go. “Don’t start beating him again.”

“Where’s Taran? Is he okay?”

Just then, Taran was walking in, with Eazy helping him. “Liam! I’m okay!”

When the cops got there, they first listened to the security guard, and he took them into the booth to show them the tape of Liam jumping onto the moving car, but Taran, when he could breathe better, told them what really happened.

It was a mess, shouting, Liam seeing the man standing as they took him to an ambulance, and the red covered his vision again. Luckily, the others kept him from going back after him in front of the police.

Liam was taken into custody, but Taran promised him things would work out once he could get to the station.

After he raged, Liam swam in a deep pool where everything was off kilter. Things slowed, like he was walking along the bottom of that pool, and lights refracted strangely, voices were warbled and muted.

The cops in the car's front were talking, but Liam caught little of what they said. That was until the cop in the passenger seat turned his head and looked Liam in the eye. “Beating a fucking cop, on camera. This guy is fried.”

“And he’s on parole,” the cop driving said.

“Fucking fried.”

The guy who’d shot Taran was a fucking cop. It all became clear. “That guy was a cop?”

“Oh, he speaks,” the one in the driver’s seat snarked. “Yeah. You shoot a fed and beat a cop. You must not want to live long. If you make it to death row, that is.”

Knowing there was no point in arguing, Liam sat back in the seat and stared at the city as they sped past the intersections.

He was placed in a cell by himself, where he paced, worried over Taran’s injuries, worried over his freedom, just about everything he could worry over.

Then, the door of his holding cell opened, and Taran was there. He wanted to fly to him, hold him, thankful that he was okay, and not dead, like he’d first thought when he was shot but Taran shook his head just enough to remind him that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Mr. MacManus, come with us, please,” he said.

He moved slowly, and one of the cops that had brought him in looked away from Liam in embarrassment, but the other actually apologized. “Agent Rochester told us what happened. Not that beating the guy half to death was okay,” he started, then Taran threw him a dirty look, and the cop backed away from where he was going with that. “He’s in custody at the hospital.”

Taran and one of the cops took him into interrogation, and as soon as the cop left, Taran told Liam, “I told them you were my CI. Dangerous to do here, but there was no other way to explain why I was there with you.”

“Right. A cop and a criminal fucking would likely not be a good idea.”

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