He bucked and heaved. Someone sat on his legs, someone else on his feet, someone else on his ass, and then the whole fucking pack was sitting on top of him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs so he had to stop yelling and struggle for air, which made it possible to hear someone screaming his name. Two someones. His brothers’ voices.
“…fuck is wrong with you, man? Chill out!” Jamie.
“Calm down, Zan. Do you hear me? Zan? Stop fighting.” Chris.
Jamie. That first voice had been Jamie’s. So Jamie wasn’t murdered. His throat was not slashed. He was alive. He was OK.
The red haze in Zan’s head began to subside, and his muscles went limp. He started shaking so hard, the guys on top of him had to be shaking too, like they were perched on a volcano about to blow.
He realized that the shaking was laughter, or maybe tears.
Nah. Call it laughter. If tears and snot were mixed with the blood streaming out of his nose, the fifteen guys sitting on top of him would never need to know. His body shook harder.
Jamie. His smart-mouthed, scrappy baby brother. God.
“Yo, Zan. Earth to Zan.” Jamie’s voice vibrated with tension. “Do you hear me? Get off him, Martin. Move your ass.”
“No fucking way. This freak practically killed me. I’m sitting on him till the cops get here.”
“OK, let me put this another way.” Jamie’s voice was underlaid with steel. “Get the fuck off him, or I’ll knock out all your teeth.”
The crushing weight on Zan’s back reluctantly shifted. Then the other various weights lifted themselves off. Someone shoved him, not gently, onto his back. He blinked, eyes burning with grit. He stared up at the grotesquely backlit circle of faces. They contemplated him with cautious dread. As if he were some sort of gigantic, mutant cockroach.
His brother Christian helped Zan into a sitting position, and wiggled his nose, which hurt like hell. “Hold your head up,” Chris directed. “Or the blood will go down your throat.”
I know that, Zan wanted to say, but his talking apparatus wasn’t functioning. His body still vibrated at a screamingly high pitch. He was so zinged, he could have floated right up off the ground.
“Use your sleeve. It’s all bloody anyway,” Chris said. “Jesus, Zan. You scared the living shit out of us.”
That crack found Zan his voice again. “Me? I scared the…” His voice trailed off into a harsh crack of laughter. “I scared you? I see my baby brother getting his throat slashed, and I’m the one who—”
“I told you!” Jamie bellowed. “How many times do I have to tell you about the fucking play? You’re as thick as a brick wall! I choreographed this fight!”
Zan blinked at him stupidly. “Oh. Ah…shit.”
“Yeah! Shit! We called a fight rehearsal tonight, but the dancers already had booked the practice rooms at the performing arts center, so I just brought them here. Figured I couldn’t bother anybody here. Ha!”
“Did it occur to you to warn me that you planned on simulating your own murder in front of our building tonight?” Zan snarled.
“I thought I had!” Jamie yelled back. “If you’d get your head out of your ass and listen to what I say, you’d have figured it out! I told you, I’m Tybalt, right? I told you about getting my throat cut! This is Martin, who plays Romeo. Anton here is Mercutio. Me and Mercutio have a big fight, and I stab him to death, and then Romeo here freaks out and kills me. And the rest of these guys are various henchmen for the mob fight.”
Zan’s head had begun to throb. “Who hit me?” he asked.
Chris looked sheepish. “Uh, that would be me. Sorry.”
Zan looked around at the bizarre assortment of guys. Half of them had dreadlocks, spiked hair, piercing, Goth makeup. The rest of them were clean-cut, dressed in jeans and polo shirts. He focused on the one he’d jumped, the one who had simulated slashing Jamie’s throat.
He shivered. The guy he had almost killed.
Romeo’s face was wet with sweat. He was spattered with fake blood, and his eyes slid nervously away from Zan’s gaze. Probably he had just an inkling of how close he’d just come to death. Poor bastard.
Zan turned to Chris again. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
Chris nodded, his face somber. “Way too fucking close,” he murmured, pitching his voice for Zan’s ears. “You were this close to another murder rap. You need to chill out. You scared me bad.”
“Yeah,” Zan said hoarsely. “I scare myself.” He looked up at Romeo. “Sorry,” he muttered. It was all he could think of to say.
Romeo’s eyes darted around at everyone but him. He nodded, tried to speak, and failed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
Zan tried to struggle to his feet, but his legs shook under him. He might have fallen if Chris and Jamie hadn’t grabbed him by the armpits and hauled him upright. He searched for something to say.
“Uh…nontraditional casting, I take it?” he ventured.
“You bet.” Jamie’s habitual cheerfulness had reasserted itself. “Guess we don’t need to worry whether the fight looks realistic, right?”
“Right,” Zan said sourly. “No worries. Put your minds at ease.”
“It’s a cool production,” Jamie went on, warming to his subject. “The Montagues are tight-assed preppies, and the Capulets are punk-goth wackos. We’ve got an acid rock band to play the Capulet party that Romeo and Mercutio crash. The scene is miked. It’s going to be a blast.”
“That’s nice,” Zan said faintly. He contemplated Jamie’s blood-drenched costume. It made his stomach roll. “That stuff looks real.”
Jamie’s blood-spattered face split into an evil grin. “Yeah, don’t it though? Look here.” He indicated a plastic bulb that hung inside his jacket. “All I have to do is squeeze this, and…voilà!”
An arc of blood shot out of a tube attached to Jamie’s throat, splattering liberally across Zan’s face, shirt and jeans. Assorted Montague and Capulet goons giggled and snorted.
He looked at them. The laughter petered out into nervous silence.
“Gee, sorry,” Jamie said, but the gleam in his eyes was supremely unrepentant. “Didn’t know that tube was pointed straight at your face.”
Anton cackled. “I hope that shirt’s synthetic,” he said. “Fake blood stains, big time. Your jeans are pure cotton. They’re, like, history.”
Zan swallowed back a savage and inappropriate response. His ruined jeans were the least of his problems.
The biggest problem was…it hit him, and another jolt of adrenaline assaulted his shredded nerves. “Oh, fuck me. Abby!” He looked around wildly. “Did anybody see the girl who was with me?”
“What girl?” Chris said. “I didn’t see any girl.”
“I was with Abby.” Zan lurched around the corner of the building, heart hammering. No Abby. Only a pair of flimsy spike-heeled sandals, lying in the gravel. Zan scooped them up and stared at them in blank dismay. “She’s disappeared.”
“Smart woman. I don’t blame her,” Chris said. “I’d disappear too, if I saw my date pull a stunt like that.”
“Oh, would you shut up?” Zan snapped.
Jamie poked the delicate sandals dangling from Zan’s hand, making them sway. “Left her shoes and bolted, just like