Run Away(5)

For the first time, he saw a hint of the little girl he once knew.

When Paige spoke, he could finally hear the echo of his daughter: “Dad?”

He nodded. He opened his mouth, closed it because he felt too overwhelmed, tried again. “I’m here to help you, Paige.”

She started to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

He stretched out his arms to sweep his daughter into safety, when another voice sliced through the park like a reaper’s scythe.

“What the fuck…?”

Simon felt his heart drop. He looked to his right.

Aaron.

Paige cringed away from Simon at the sound of Aaron’s voice. Simon tried to hold on to her, but she pulled her arm loose, the guitar case banging against her leg.

“Paige…” Simon said.

But whatever clarity he had seen in her eyes just a few seconds ago shattered into a million pieces.

“Leave me alone!” she cried.

“Paige, please—”

Paige started to backpedal away. Simon reached out for her arm again, a desperate man falling off a cliff and trying to grasp a branch, but Paige let out a piercing scream.

That turned heads. Lots of them.

Simon did not back away.

“Please, just listen—”

And then Aaron stepped between them.

The two men, Simon and Aaron, were eye to eye. Paige cowered behind Aaron. Aaron looked strung-out, wearing a denim jacket over a grungy white T-shirt—the latest in heroin chic minus the chic. He had too many chains around his neck and had that stubble that aimed for fashionable but fell way short, and work boots, which were always a sardonic look on someone who wouldn’t recognize a day of honest work if it kicked him in the groin.

“It’s okay, Paige,” Aaron said with a smooth sneer, still meeting Simon’s gaze. “You just keep moving, doll.”

Simon shook his head. “No, don’t…”

But Paige, almost using Aaron’s back for leverage, pushed off and started to sprint down the path.

“Paige?” Simon shouted. “Wait! Please just—”

She was getting away. Simon veered right to go after her, but Aaron slid with him, blocking his path.

“Paige is an adult,” Aaron said. “You got no right—”

Simon cocked his fist and punched Aaron straight in the face.

He could feel the nose give way under his knuckles, heard the break like a boot stomping on a bird’s nest. Blood flowed.

Aaron went down.

That was when the two tourists from Finland screamed.

Simon didn’t care. He could still see Paige up ahead. She turned to the left, off the pavement and into the trees.

“Paige, wait!”

He jumped to the side of the fallen man and started toward her, but from the ground, Aaron grabbed his leg. Simon tried to pull free, but now he could see other people—well-meaning but confused people—approaching, a lot of them, some taking videos with their damn phones.

They were all shouting and telling him not to move.

Simon kicked free, stumbled, got his legs back. He started down the path, down toward where Paige had veered off.

But it was too late now. The crowd was on him.

Someone tried to tackle him up high. Simon threw an elbow. He heard the tackler make an oof noise and his grip slackened. Someone else wrapped their arms around Simon’s waist. Simon pulled him off like a belt, still running toward his daughter, still moving like a halfback with defenders all over him toward the goal line.

But eventually there were too many of them.

“My daughter!” he screamed. “Please…just stop her…”

No one could hear over the commotion, or perhaps they simply weren’t listening to the violent madman who had to be taken down.

Another tourist jumped on him. Then another.

As Simon finally began to fall, he looked up and saw his daughter back on the path. He landed with a crash. Then, because he tried to get back up, blows rained down on him. A lot of them. When it was all over, he would have three broken ribs and two broken fingers. He would have a concussion and need twenty-three stitches in total.

He didn’t feel a thing, except for the ripping in his heart.

Another body landed on him. He heard shouts and screams and then the police were on him too, flipping him onto his stomach, digging a knee into his spine, cuffing him. He looked up one more time and spotted Paige staring from behind a tree.

“Paige!”

But she didn’t come to him. Instead she slipped away as, once again, Simon realized that he had failed her.





Chapter

Two



For a while, the cops just left Simon facedown on the asphalt with his hands cuffed behind his back. One cop—she was female and black with a nametag that read HAYES—bent down and calmly told him that he was under arrest and then read him his rights. Simon thrashed and screamed about his daughter, begging someone, anyone, to stop her. Hayes just kept reciting the Miranda rights.

When Hayes finished, she straightened up and turned away. Simon started screaming about his daughter again. No one would listen, possibly because he sounded unhinged, so he tried to calm himself and conjure up a more polite tone.

“Officer? Ma’am? Sir?”