Chapter 81
Rob hit him.
It wasn’t a graceful move—it was a single, hard, boxer’s punch. It landed square in the centre of the kid’s face, Rob’s arm faster than a lightning strike, and Eli heard the sick crunch of the kid’s nose. He dropped, for good this time, and Eli saw the advantage Rob had when the other two hesitated before attacking—they were already scared of him, despite Danny’s lounging and non-interference, despite their being armed and Rob not.
One of them smashed what looked in the gloom to be a screwdriver down in a stabbing motion, but his aim was poor and his speed crap. Rob caught his wrist and snapped it with a deft twist, effortlessly bringing the kid to his knees. He cut off the yowl by kneeing the kid in the underside of the jaw. The clank of teeth didn’t come; the muffled scream and the flood of blood down his chin said why.
“You don’t,” Rob snarled, before twisting and heavily introducing a knee to the side of his head, “fucking attack fucking pregnant women, you stupid fucking fucks!”
The kid scrambled to get away from Rob, who refused, briefly, to let go. There was a screech of pain as the broken bones of his wrist were jerked around. That sparked the third hanger-on, it seemed, who scrabbled in his hoodie.
It happened all in a blur. The wide-eyed, scared face of the last shit standing. The flash of metal in the headlights. The sudden flash of motion as Danny bellowed and launched himself bodily from the bonnet of the Suzuki. Jenny’s scream from the car.
And Rob’s sudden roar of pain as the kid ducked under his punch and buried the knife to the hilt in his gut.
“Rob!” Eli bellowed.
Danny bodily smashed into the kid, throwing them both sideways onto the tarmac. The knife clattered onto the ground in a spray of dark, wet liquid and Rob, for a brief second, merely cupped his fingers around the wound and looked down at the deep crimson flooding over his fingers.
“Fuck,” he said, sounding…oddly surprised.
Then his knees buckled, and he went down.
Eli hurtled around the car, but not fast enough—Rob hit the ground with a sickening thud, head appallingly limp. Eli tore the knees of his jeans, and the skin of said knees, as he skidded across the tarmac and slammed his palms down over the shocking red flooding over Rob’s white T-shirt.
Rob screamed
He arched under Eli’s hand and screamed, one boot scraping loudly as he writhed. It was all Eli could do to keep his hands pressed as hard as possible over the wound, hot blood bubbling up between his fingers and tears blurring his vision.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just hold on, they’re coming, Jenny called, they’re coming—”
Then the cavalry arrived.
In the form of a siren screaming down the main road, blue lights flashing off the buildings. One of the kids swore and bolted; Danny turned flawlessly on the other, eyes wild in his white face. Eli twisted to seize him by the shirt and haul him bodily towards Rob.
“Help me!” he shouted, desperate to get Danny to stop, to listen, to fucking help him because if Danny got nicked, if Danny…if Danny wasn’t here…
“Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck, you fucking fucker!” Danny shouted, ripping off his jacket. He ripped off his T-shirt, too, wadding it into a ball and crushing it over the bloodstains, slamming it onto Rob’s gut so hard he received a heavy punch in the face. “Fuck off, you retard! I’m trying to fucking help you!”
“You’re trying to finish me the fuck off!” Rob bellowed, then his voice cracked and he sagged against the tarmac again, eyes rolling in his head.
Eli flung Danny’s jacket over Rob’s upper chest and neck, then wrapped both hands into Rob’s hair, smearing blood onto his greying skin.
“Stay with me,” he whispered desperately. “Fuck, Rob, c’mon, stay with me, it’s not that bad, it’s not that bad…”
“Hand,” Rob grunted, screwing his eyes shut. Eli caught Rob’s hand, and promptly had his fingers crushed.
“Fuck!” Eli hissed, then steeled himself and weakly clung back.
A strong grip was good. If Rob was just…just reacting to pain, as long as he had strength in him…
“Get me a fucking ambulance!” Danny bellowed over his shoulder.
A stray copper skidded to his knees, a green first aid box in his hands.
“What the fuck use is that, he’s been fucking stabbed!”
“Gauze,” the copper said, not batting an eyelid. “It’s better for packing the wound and stemming the flow.”
Danny snarled, but allowed for the assistance.