Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(63)

When I near Lo, Connor steps aside a little, but my brother looks pained as he meets my eyes. “You shouldn’t have had that whiskey,” he says, his eyes glassing with remorse. Not I’m sorry. Those two words barely exist in his vocabulary, so I wasn’t f*cking expecting them.

“One glass isn’t going to make me f*cking addicted, Lo.”

He rubs his lips and lets out a bitter, dry laugh. “Lucky you.” He cringes at his sharp words and just shakes his head.

“We should go back to the hotel—” An elbow digs into my f*cking back, the force pushing me into someone else. I look up and realize a new fight has broken out behind me, between two blue-collar looking guys with beards.

Screaming pierces the f*cking air, and I’m being pushed in every f*cking direction. Fights break by the curb, shoving people into the slow traffic, ramming bodies into the hoods of cars. Stumbling between vehicles. I hear the smash of glass as people start shattering car windows.

People are yelling about the rugby game, about England’s loss. Angry f*cking drunk fans are storming some of the bars, thrusting people aside. I’m trying to grab ahold of my brother. My heart runs wild as my mind catches up with me.

They’re rioting.

And we’re stuck in the middle of it.

I turn my head, and a taller guy decks Lo in the face. Lo snatches his shirt and hits him back in the stomach. The guy doubles over, and someone is pulling at my f*cking leather bike jacket, trying to drag me to the ground. I spin around and shove him off me.

Daisy. Where the f*ck is, Daisy?! My head whips from side to side. I don’t see where I left her. Christina is gone too.

There are too many people running around, screaming. Fire. Someone started a fire in the pub we were just at. Flames licking the windows.

Fuck. Connor ducks as someone swings at him, and he catches a terrified girl around the waist before she face plants on the cement.

“Daisy!” I yell. Where the f*ck is she?! I push people away from me with hostile aggression. Why did I leave her alone? “DAISY!”

Everyone is f*cking screaming. Like she said, it’s the land of the f*cking giant people. With models taller than her, she doesn’t stick out like she usually does. I start looking at the ground, at fallen people, and I lift up a young girl who cries in pain, her leg bent in the wrong direction. I carry her towards a street lamp and set her beside it, out of harm’s way.

And then just as I go back in, I spot Christina clutching onto the same iron lamp, flinching as a guy punches another man right in front of her, their bodies starting to drift this way.

“Christina,” I call. Tears streak her cheeks.

She meets my gaze and cries harder.

“You okay? Where’s Daisy?”

Christina shakes her head over and over. “She pushed me out, and then she got swept in it. I couldn’t find her…” She sobs into her hand and then points at the center of the riot, where so many men are brawling.

I don’t think twice. I just go back in, another elbow ramming my back. A head knocking into my jaw. I shove and push and dig my f*cking way through the people.

And then I see her.

She shakily stands. Blood trickles down her forehead, the source by her hairline, like someone ripped the strands, like they could’ve been caught in something. She teeters, disoriented. I try to reach her, but a couple guys shove me back and punch me in the face. I’m too f*cking concentrated on her to feel the pain.

I tear through them, hitting them back with as much force.

Daisy touches her forehead, blinking a couple times to clear her vision. And then she meets my gaze, and relief floods her eyes.

“Ryke,” I barely hear her say over the noise, but I see her lips form my name. Sirens blare in the distance, but no cop or ambulance will make it here anytime soon, not with this f*cking traffic. Not with this madness.

She stands on the curb. And out of nowhere, some guy comes up from behind her. I watch in slow f*cking motion, and I scream as loud as I can. “DAISY!!” I shove against so many f*cking people, but it’s like a current draws me back, pulling me under. “DAISY!!!”

He holds a two-by-four, part of the construction waste on the sidewalk and street, bracing the piece of wood like a bat.

I can’t see his face. It’s shadowed by the blur of bodies. But I do see him swing. Just as she turns her head to the side, the board smacks hard into her cheek.

Her body thuds to the cement with the force—limp and motionless.

I f*cking lose it.

I barrel through whatever’s keeping me from her, shouting more expletives than necessary. I worry about people trampling her body. And then I finally f*cking reach her, the fastest and slowest moments of my life.

I instantly lift her unconscious body in my arms. I have to get her out of here. That’s my only thought. I edge through the masses, glancing down at her once. Her face is turned into my chest, but I feel a wetness seep through.

It’s not tears.

It’s blood.

So much f*cking blood, beginning to turn my white shirt into something red.

My heart is in my throat. I can barely breathe. I make it into an area where people frantically try to find their friends, calling out to them in French, German, English, Russian, pressing their phones to their ears.

I can’t even look for my brother. I just think hospital. She needs a f*cking hospital.