Page 71 of Secondhand Smoke
Nell, thankfully, didn’t resist the tug he gave, and though her eyes stayed on the stage, her feet shuffled forward and away from this mess.
That is, until her other wrist was caught, and she was yanked backward and to the ground by Jake.
As Barrett said, he was a lover, not a fighter.
So it was a damn good thing that his friends knew a thing or two about bloodying their knuckles.
The tension in the building echoed into yelps from the groupies Barrett had forgotten about and the shriek of bar stools sliding on the ground as multiple people rose from their seats.
By the time they were standing, Dennis already had Jake backed against the bar and was pummeling him in the face.
A crowd of people descended on the scene—some of them Jake’s friends, trying to pull Dennis away with little luck. Some drunk men whooped and chanted, but Barrett barely paid attention to all that.
He was more focused on the fact that Nell had disappeared behind the legs of the crowd.
Barrett panicked, pushing through the crowd, scanning the ground for her recognizable hair or the denim jacket she’d been wearing, but there were too many boots and fists. One of them caught Barrett in the side of the head, and he winced and lost his balance into a table, groaning as his eyes tightened against the pain.
The crowd was growing louder, tighter, and his window to Nell was closing. So, despite the incoming headache, he pushed up and shoved back into the ruckus.
A few more blows brushed his skin, but he ducked under the arms into a crouch and managed to catch sight of that messy hair covered by thin, pale arms.
Nell had her legs tucked into her chest for protection, with her face hidden from sight.
Barrett’s heart snapped.
She was so small, like a child hiding in the only way they knew how.
The image urged him forward, desperate to get to her before the monsters did.
Barrett dropped next to her and winced when a stray boot hit her side. She made no sound.
His hand landed on her shoulder, and he searched above them for a way out, but it seemed futile in the blood-hungry crowd.
So he did the only thing that came to mind.
He stayed in place.
Wrapping his arms around her, he covered her with his body and did all he could to take every blow and kick that passed them, oblivious to their presence on the ground.
With all the jolting and shifting, he couldn’t tell if she was still shaking, but he was able to make out a single, breathy voice through her shielding arms.
“Scott?”
“It’s me,” he said, pulling her tighter into him and wishing he was bigger and braver so he could protect her better. “I got you.”
Her head shifted under his chin until it was pressed against his chest, and her arms circled his waist.
It was ages until the crowd broke.
When they started to part, Barrett lifted his head to take in the drunken and beaten masses as the bar owner screamed for them to disperse.
Barrett searched for his friends and found them backing up with the others. Their faces were ragged, their hair tangled and mussed, and Toni grimaced as he wiped a stream of blood from his nose with his arm.
Jake was still conscious, but barely. His non-swollen eye blinked slowly, and he gripped the bar to keep from toppling over.
“I ain’t tolerating this sort of behavior in my establishment,” the owner, Neil, snapped. “All of you, get your raggedy asses out of here.”
Alarmed, Barrett moved to stand. With her arms around him, Nell had no choice but to follow. Once they were up, her arms fell away, but her eyes met his.
