The UN Series Complete Box Set (18 page)

“Bitch!” he snarls as he takes a step towards me. I don’t step back; if he starts swinging at me I will fight back.

Slade wraps an arm around his neck from behind and pulls him back as Matt reaches for me. “Get her the fuck out of here!” Slade yells to anyone who is listening, but his eyes are on mine and he looks pissed.

Josh grabs me around the waist from behind and picks me up, carrying me to the back exit. I scream Slade’s name over and over. I don’t want to leave him. He needs help. Josh should be helping him, not pushing me out the exit.

“Shit,” Josh says as I manage to lay one blow with my elbow to his side. He drops me and I spin around to head back to Slade. “Sam!” Josh yells as I run from him and to Slade.

Slade turns when Josh calls my name. “Fucking get her ass outside!” Slade demands to Josh as Matt hits him in the back.

Josh grabs me again from behind, pinning my arms down to my side. “No! No. No! Don’t!” Tears run down my face as I watch Slade. I try hitting Josh again, but I can’t make contact. “He needs help!” I kick and scream as Josh pushes us through an exit.

“He’s a big boy. The guy can fight. You shouldn’t have gotten that close. What the fuck were you doing hitting Matt? Is your hand ok? Let me look at it,” he rattles off angrily as he sets me down, keeping a grip of me.

I shake my head angrily. “Who cares about my hand! He needed help! Let me go back in there.”

“No!” he screams back.

The back door swings open, and Holly comes running toward us.

“Get in my car. We have to leave,” she says frantically, waving my purse in the air.

“No! I won’t leave Slade here!”
Are these people out of their mind?

Josh picks me back up and walks me towards Micah’s truck I’m screaming so loud that I don’t hear the back door open again.

“You can put Angel down, Josh.” We all turn to see Slade and Micah walking towards us. As soon as Josh puts me down, I run to him. I need him. Need to see that he is breathing and okay. He meets me halfway and pulls me into his arms, lifting my feet up off the ground. I know he’s probably hurting, but I can’t stop hugging him tight.

He puts me back on the ground and grabs my face. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he growls, wiping away my tears. I can’t answer. I can only shake my head. Is he crazy too? I didn’t want to see him get hurt. There’s blood everywhere, and I can’t tell where it’s all coming from.

“You’re bleeding,” I choke out. My throat is hoarse, and I have to blink several times to clear my tears in my eyes.

“Don’t worry about me,” he snaps.

I ignore him and go to wipe the blood off his face, but my hand never makes it.

I feel the wind knocked out of me, then the next thing I know I’m rolling around on gravel in the parking lot, trying to catch my breath.
What the hell just happened?
I try to get up on my hands and knees when a sharp pain shoots up my side. I drop back down, holding my side and gasping for air.

What happened? Where’s Slade?

I look around aimlessly to find him. He has his back against the building, and he bends over as Matt’s fist connects with the brick instead of his face. Matt screams out in agony, grabbing his hand, and Slade takes advantage, charging Matt and wrapping his arms around his waist, taking him down to the ground. They roll around as I spot Micah kicking some guy on the ground.

“We have to get you out of here,” Josh says as he helps me up off the ground, wrapping an arm underneath mine to keep me up.

I try to fight him, but the pain in my side is making it hard. “No! I’m not leaving him!” I look over my shoulder and see Slade punch Matt in the face three consecutive times until Matt falls to the ground. Out cold. I let my body relax in Josh’s arms, knowing that Slade is no longer fighting. Josh helps me over to Micah’s truck where he drops his tailgate, he picks me up sitting me on top of it with my legs dangling over the back.

“You’re covered in blood. Where are you hurt?” he asks, looking me over.

“It’s...” deep breath, “not mine.”
It’s so hard to breathe
. “It’s Slade’s.” I bend over in pain.
Shit, it hurts.

“What’s wrong?” Slade asks, walking up glaring at me and breathing heavily.

“Nothing.” I shake my head as I look at his torn shirt and jeans covered in dirt and blood. I put my hands on his chest, moving them around to feel for anything broken. He pulls away from me, shaking his head harshly and running a hand through his hair.

“I’m going to ask one more time. What in the fuck were you thinking? Do you have a death wish? One hit from him, and you could have been killed!” he shouts.

“I was trying to help you!” I scream back and instantly regret it. I grab my side and lay back into the truck, rolling onto my good side.

“Fuck! Angel, where are you hurt?” I feel the truck shift as Slade jumps into the bed. He kneels down next to me. I try to sit up, but he has to help me.

I shake my head. This is not about me. I wasn’t hit over and over by Matt’s fist. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not—”

Police cars pull into the parking lot, putting a halt on our conversation.

We spend the next hour explaining to the cops what happened as they arrest Matt and his friend. Micah and Slade know most of the cops that are on the scene, so they don’t have to do much explaining.

“Miss. Hall, I need you to tell me how all this started,” a potbellied, bald headed officer named Kent said as he writes in his notepad.

“I walked out of the restroom, and Matt was standing there. He said he had seen me go in there and was waiting for me. That he was going to take me home. He said Slade had told him I was his girlfriend, but that he knew Slade was lying, and that he was going to prove it to him. He told me Slade didn’t do girlfriends, and that everyone in town knew the girls Slade slept with were always available.”

I take in a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain in my side. “I told him I wasn’t and that Slade would kick his ass if he touched me. That’s when he shoved me against the wall and screamed that Slade wouldn’t give a fuck what he did to me. That Slade would probably enjoy watching. Maybe even join him.”
What he had said pissed me off!

“Was that all?” Officer Kent asks, looking down at his notepad as he writes.

“I screamed back in his face to go fuck himself, then the next thing I knew he was on the ground.”

He nods as he continues to write, once he’s done he looks up at something behind me. “Slade, can I talk to you for a minute?”

I take a shaky breath and turn around. I look up to see Slade standing there, looking like he could kill someone. A muscle in his jaw is twitching, his nostrils are flared, and his eyes are looking straight ahead to Officer Kent.

He nods his head once and starts to walk away from me, but stops and turns around. He hands me his car keys, then walks away without saying a word.
Guess he wants me to go wait in his car.

I sit down slowly in the passenger seat, leaving the door open so I can try to hear what is going on, but Officer Kent and Slade have walked out of ear shot. I can still see them, though, and Slade looks stressed as he runs his hands through his hair a few times.

He looks over, and his eyes lock on mine; I get a chill up my back that freezes me in my seat. He holds my stare for a few seconds, then looks back to Officer Kent without blinking. He is obviously extremely pissed…at me.

I take in a shallow breath and lean back in the seat, closing my eyes. My side is killing me, and the rest of my body is getting achy. Probably because all my adrenaline is now gone.

“Are you okay? I saw you hit that concrete barrier,” Holly says as she kneels down by my door.

“I’m fine. Don’t say anything. I’m not going to the hospital.” I shake my head. She doesn’t look happy with my answer. “Are Slade and the guys going to get into trouble?”

“No, they know all these cops. Any one of these cops would have stood up for their girl. I’m just glad Matt and his friend got arrested.”

“Me too.”

I hear the driver side door open as Slade gets in.

“I’ll call you tomorrow to check on you.”

“Thanks, love you.”

“Love you too.” She leans down giving me a soft hug before she closes my door and walks off.

We take off, and I notice he’s driving in the direction of his house. I figured he would take me home because it’s not like he’s hiding the fact that he’s mad at me. The drive to his house is silent. I don’t know if he’s mad at me or just mad about the entire situation, but I just wanted to help him. How can he be pissed about that?

My mind wanders back to all the stuff Matt said to me. I know Slade lied to him and told him I was his girlfriend; I just can’t figure out why he said it. And why did Matt all of a sudden want me? I had seen him around Larry’s quite a few times, and he had never even spoken to me.

We pull up in his garage, and Slade turns off the car and exits. He comes around to my side and helps me out of the car without saying a word. My entire body aches, though my hand actually hurts the least compared to the rest of me.

Slade lets go of me and walks to the back of the car as I walk my way to the door. I walk in the house and stop in the hallway. Slade is still in the garage getting my bag out of the trunk. I continue to stand there as he walks into the house. I don’t know what to do or say. He comes up next to me, taking my hand in his, and pulls me towards his bedroom. Thank God it was the non-injured hand because he’s got a tight grip on it.

Once we enter his room, he lets go of my hand and continues to walk as I stand in the doorway, not really knowing what to do. I decide to take off my heels that are now scuffed beyond repair. I’m actually surprised the heels didn’t break off. I have to place a hand on the door to hold myself up while bending over. Once they’re off, I continue to stand there, watching him. He’s pacing back and forth at the end of his bed, looking down at the floor while running his hand through his hair.

I clear my throat. “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. This all started because of me. In retrospect, I know
sorry
won’t come close to what can fix it.

“Sorry,” he says above a whisper like he’s trying to believe me as he continues to pace, not looking at me.

I wrap my arms around my chest, thinking they can save me from all the pain my body is feeling right now. The more I stand here, the more pain I start to feel. I have a pounding headache, and my neck is very sore. I keep having shooting pains up my side, and my arms ache where Matt grabbed them as he shoved me up against the wall. I can feel cuts and bruises on my legs from where I rolled around on the ground.

I close my eyes as I take short, shallow breaths. They don’t hurt as much as the deep ones. I open my eyes, and Slade is towering over me with that killer look on his face, and his arms crossed over his massive chest. I take a step back.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” He asks it so calmly that it scares me.

“Why do you keep asking me that question?” I whisper, looking at the floor. “I told you why. You needed help. Micah was fighting someone else, and I didn’t know where Josh was.”

He gives a dark laugh that makes me flinch. “And you thought you could help me?” He asks amused. “You weigh about a hundred and ten pounds. If that! I was fighting a man who weighs over two hundred. It was an idiotic move, and you know it!”

I swallow. He’s right. It was.

“I’m sorry,” I say again because I have nothing else to say for myself. I just wanted to help him out, but now that I think of it, it was stupid that I hit Matt. It was just a split second decision.

I look up at him, and he throws his hands up in the air.

“You’re sorry? Sorry? Quit saying you’re fucking sorry!” He turns away from me and punches the bedroom door so hard that he puts a hole in it.

I yelp as I take several steps back into the hallway. My throat closes, and tears well up in my eyes while I watch the pieces fall on to the carpet, some covered in blood.

“Fuck!” he continues to yell as he takes his head in both of his hands and turns away from me. “God damn it, Angel!”

I had just wanted to help him.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, whispering. “I got tired of watching you get hit,” I add shakily as I feel a tear run down my face. “I was drunk and confused, trying to keep up with what was happening around me. I yelled at you to stop, but you wouldn’t.” I shake my head, looking at the floor. “Then, when you did stop, he came at you from behind. And it was my fault you got punched in the face. I saw blood running from your mouth, and I wanted to help you.

“Yes, I agree that trying to step in was stupid, but I was afraid for you. I didn’t want him to hurt you.” I take a deep breath, and it makes me cry because of the pain in my side. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much,” I take in another shallow breath, “but I couldn’t just sit back and watch him hit you.”

I rub my crossed hands up and down my sides. “I wasn’t going to leave you,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. This all started because of me. It was my fault, but I’m not the type of person that could just leave you there.” A sob rips through my throat and I can’t hold it back. I back up until I hit the wall in the hallway and slide down it, bending my knees to my chest. The position actually helps with the pain in my side. I put my forehead to my knees and cry like a child.