“Rocky,” he said, looking up at me and managing a smile. “You found us.”
“And you saved the day.” I kissed him. God, I kissed him. Never had I felt so relieved to press my lips against someone else’s. I kissed him and I kissed him. I held him. I breathed him in.
Angel was at Peter’s side, helping him up onto his feet.
“I was so scared, Rocky.”
“But you did it. You were the hero tonight.”
Sam’s lip quivered. The shock must have been wearing off. “Come on. Let’s get you both back down on solid—aggh!”
The pain was severe. A molten hot shot right through my shoulder, radiating outward so that my toes curled inside my shoes and my lungs contracted with the gasp. I twisted, the pain turning lava hot. Nick stood there, blood on his hands, a twisted smile on his face.
“Fuck you,” I said, and went forward, pushing past the pain that still radiated from my shoulder. I lifted my hand, a balled fist ready to come crashing down on Nick’s face, but the move did something. Whatever was in my shoulder cut into me, slicing something that must have been pretty fucking important, because my entire hand went limp and I fell to the floor.
Angel took my place. He rushed Nick. With a shout, they both tumbled to the ground. Angel landed blow after blow, but Nick rolled them over and somehow grabbed the upper hand. He may have been thin, but he must have found some reservoir of strength. He lifted Angel and pushed, pushed, pushed.
They went to the edge. I couldn’t move. Sam and Peter were both paralyzed in the way someone is when they watch a fatal car crash happening before their eyes, knowing there was nothing they could do to help.
Not until the aftermath.
Nick pushed Angel to the edge. He pushed him again. Angel’s feet couldn’t find purchase. He grabbed onto Nick’s shirt, but the fabric tore, the sound of it competing with the wind. Competing with the desperate shouts, seemingly carried on the wind from a thousand different directions.
And then Angel was gone.
Just like that. Nick stood there, no Angel in sight.
“No!” Peter cried out. He got up, but Nick whipped around and landed a kick to Peter’s already swollen face, sending him falling back to the ground. He stood there, his shirt torn open, his dirty tattoos showing through them.
I recognized one of those tattoos. The jagged cross on his chest. He had reached out to me on my hookup app, months ago. This monster had cast his shadow on my life, and I was done. Fucking done. He wasn’t going to take anyone else from me.
No one would.
With a roar as loud as the wind around me, I stood and ran forward. For Angel. With the shoulder that wasn’t damaged, I pushed forward, ramming into Nick’s chest. I saw his eyes bulge in surprise as he flew backward, back over the ledge, into the empty night sky. His hands flailed around, as if he were a baby bird just learning how to fly.
And then he dropped, falling through the dark expanse, his cry swallowed whole by the night.
I fell to my knees, exhausted, pain still flooding through me, but sadness beginning to push it all aside. A profound sadness that left me as empty as the night sky.
“Help!”
I thought it was a hallucination. Surely, a trick of the wind. I looked down anyway. There, staring up at me, fingers holding death-tight to an exposed beam, was Angel. The beam shook as Angel tried to get a better hold.
“He’s here! I need help!” I shouted behind me.
Peter and Sam were at my side in seconds. The three of us reached down. I helped steady the beam with my good hand. Peter and Sam both grabbed hold of one of Angel’s hands and on the count of… “Three!” they pulled.
Angel fell onto the floor, Sam and Peter falling back with him. I let go of the beam, which dislodged and went spiraling downward, clattering against other beams as it fell.
I looked around at the scene, unable to really digest everything that happened. Or even what had happened to me. I craned my neck, trying to see my shoulder for the first time since the searing hot pain sliced through me.
“Oh Rocky, jeez, don’t move.” Sam was looking at me, sweat on his face, concern on his brow, but reprieve in his eyes. I wanted to kiss him. To kiss him and never let him go, never let him out of my sight. I moved in, feeling a little light-headed, wanting to stabilize myself with my lips on his.
“You’re losing a lot of blood, Rocky.”
“What? What is it?” I craned my neck again, unable to see anything.
“It’s a massive shard of glass,” Sam said. He put a hand on my arm, and it was all I really needed. I took a breath, finding strength in the knowledge that we were all okay.