He's the Man (The Alexanders 3)

Matt strode out onto the stage and grabbed Kaylee, ignoring her gasp. The girls had been facing the crowd, so they hadn’t even realized what was happening behind them.

He pushed her toward the exit, causing her to stumble into Sasha. The other girl stopped singing mid-lyric and turned to glare at Kaylee. “What is going on?” Sasha cried.

“Security breach. You need to leave the stage now.” The other girls ran over and he herded them toward the other side of the stage where Tank was waiting. “Go!”

“Look out!” Tank’s surprised face gave him a split second of warning, so he moved to the side. The arm that came slashing down had a knife with a three-inch-long blade in it. Another fist crashed into his cheek.

Tank ran out and jumped in front of the girls. Matt shoved the guy and then kicked him in the kneecap. The man fell to one knee with an anguished cry. Then he swiped at Matt’s legs.

Matt jumped back and landed on his ass. He got to his feet and pulled his weapon.

“Stay right where you are.”

The other man chuckled, the sound incongruous with the position he found himself in. “It’s about time you got here,” he rasped.

Matt figured the

guy was delirious until he heard the click of a chamber near his ear. Instinctively, he rolled the other direction and ducked behind one of the large speakers. He peeked around the side, then pulled back abruptly. A bullet whizzed over his head and took a chunk out of one of the stage backdrops. Great, there were two of them.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a voice taunted.

Matt fired blindly to the ceiling, hoping the noise would scare them. There was a shout and a thud to his left. It sounded like the men falling to the stage as they dove for cover. He couldn’t actually shoot toward the crowd because there were still people in the club.

It was time to assess his options. He pulled out his phone and sent Eli a quick text, letting him know his location and how many assailants there were. He could likely hold them off for a while since he had a lot of ammunition on him. But sooner or later, they were going to lose patience and rush him. At that point it was just a matter of who shot who first.

You’re also assuming there are only two of these guys.

Matt sent up a silent prayer that Eli wasn’t busy holding off any other attackers. Tank had been with the girls, so he could only assume they were safe.

Another shot whizzed over his head.

“Come on, Eli,” he whispered.

* * * * *

WHEN THE FIRST scream rang out, Mara thought it was just the usual crowd noise. Ridley had asked her to come because she wanted to support Kaylee. Mara didn’t know her that well, but Kay seemed like a real sweetheart and she’d been a sport about helping Mara spy on Penny and Matt that day. She’d heard that Eli hadn’t been too happy about how that had gone down.

Mara shivered. She couldn’t imagine having Eli mad at you. He was always friendly when he saw her and she was grateful to him for giving Matt a job, but he kind of scared her a little. There was something about the way he stared at you without blinking.

“I don’t know how Kaylee deals with this all the time,” Mara remarked over the sound of the crowd.

“Well, it’s not always this rowdy,” Ridley yelled back. “But Kay was really nervous about performing today. Things have been tense. The other girls don’t want the group to break up.”

“Why are they breaking up, anyway?”

“Because Jackson thinks Kay will do better on her own. She’s really the one carrying the group.” Suddenly Ridley stopped talking and grabbed Mara’s arm. “Oh my god. What the hell is he doing?” She started pulling Mara backward.

“Where are we going?”

When someone else screamed, Mara clutched Ridley’s arm. She wasn’t much of a concert-goer, so she wasn’t sure what was normal. It was actually kind of strange that she didn’t enjoy them more. She loved parties and concerts were like parties on steroids.

But this was just a little too much for her senses to handle.

“I’ve learned a few things lately. When something weird starts going down, you don’t hang around to watch. There’s a guy who just jumped onstage from the ceiling.”

Mara tried to look over her shoulder as they pushed through the crowd. Matt had come out onstage and was dragging Kaylee to the other side. Then she saw the man come up behind him.

“Matt, look out!” She knew it was useless, there was no way he could hear her over the crowd. But she had to warn him.