The Meridians(56)

And now Lynette was in two fights, one with her son, one with the woman standing protectively over her screaming infant. "Screw you, lady," said Lynette, and she felt years of repressed anger at the sideways glances and the nasty looks from those who were too fearful or weak to deal with someone like Kevin boiling to the surface. "At least my kid only attacks bigoted bitches."

That drew a gasp from the crowd. "Now, then," said the manager, clearly trying to assert some level of control over the gathering group and just as clearly not succeeding. "There's no need for name calling."

"This is the last time I ever come to this market!" screamed the young mother, now directing her attention at the manager, who was wringing his hands in a gesture of futile anxiety.

"Good!" Lynette screamed back, managing to get a hold of one of Kevin's hands and pinning it to her chest. "Then I know I can always come here!"

Kevin lashed out with the other fist, then, and did another first: he struck Lynette. Though he had occasionally hit himself before, he had never once raised his hand against her. Lynette almost let go of her son, she was so surprised at the move, and immediately felt her eye begin to throb as blood rushed to what would surely be a bright purple bruise in a few more hours.

But she didn't let go, even when he balled his other little hand into a fist and raised it to strike her again, and Lynette was so aghast that there was nothing she could do about it.

Then a large hand, callused and rough, came out of the crowd and caught Kevin's hand mid-strike.

She looked up, and saw Scott. The man with the scarred face was not angry-looking as most of the people around were, but neither was he smiling. At first she thought that he was going to try to wrestle Kevin to the ground, but in the next instant realized that she needn't have worried about any such thing.

Instead of trying to overpower Kevin physically, Scott dropped the groceries he had been holding and then knelt on one knee in front of her son. "Hey, son," he whispered intensely, "if you're going to hit someone, why don't you take a poke at me?"

Instead of continuing his temper tantrum, instead of "taking a poke" at Scott, Kevin did something that not only had Lynette never before seen, but even on this day of firsts she was utterly stunned by it.

Kevin stopped crying.

He stopped screaming.

He dropped his hands.

And ran into Scott's arms, rushing at the man so hard and fast that Scott was almost knocked off his feet.

And then Lynette was knocked off her feet, along with the rest of the people who were watching at the entrance to the store.

Because at that moment the world exploded.





***





26.

***

Scott felt something strange. A bee was in his ear. Only not in his ear, bees didn't go in people's ears, did they?

Did they?

"Scott," said a voice. The voice was familiar, but at the same time impossible to place. It was warped and strange, as though the speaker were at the other end of a long tunnel, the echoes reverberating until the original sound was lost and the voice an enigma of tone and timbre. "Scott," the voice came again.

Scott looked up and saw a familiar face. "Gil?" he said quietly. "What the hell are you doing here?" And though he did not say it out loud, internally he continued, "And where the hell is here, anyway?"

Gil looked at him - looked down at him; Scott gradually realized that he was laying on the ground - with tenderness. "I came shopping with you, bud," answered the tree of a man. "Remember?"

Shopping. The word seemed familiar, but like everything else in this strange day, Scott was having trouble putting any meaning to it.

"Shopping?" he said out loud.

"Here," said Gil, and reached down a large hand. Scott took it, and felt himself hefted to his feet as easily as if he were a poodle rather than a grown man.

Gil looked at something directly to the right of Scott. "Better get that looked at."

At first Scott did not know what Gil was talking about, then he realized. "The bees?" he asked.

Scott's large friend looked at him quizzically. "I don't know about bees, but your ear is probably going to sting like heck."

Scott put a finger to his right ear, and felt a thick stickiness. He pulled back his hand and looked at it. His fingers were bloody. He looked askance at Gil.

"Don't worry, you're not going to look like Van Gogh. Piece of shrapnel just nicked you is all."

Shrapnel? thought Scott. What's going on?

Then it all came back in a flash. Lynette's son had been having a tantrum of some kind, and Scott had grabbed the boy by the hand to keep him from attacking his mother.

His mother.

"Where's Lynette?" he asked, surprised at the level of concern he heard in his own voice.

"She's okay," said Gil soothingly. "She's with her son."

"Where?" demanded Scott.

"They're over there," said Gil, pointing at a crowd of people milling around nearby.

"What the hell happened, Gil?" Scott asked, his head starting to throb.

Before the big man could answer, Scott heard someone call his name and turned around just in time for Lynette to barrel into his arms.