“Leave him alone!” she shouted.
The men heard her this time and turned to look at her, their gazes raking over her, smiles taking over their faces.
“Well, hello, there,” said one with bleached white hair and tattoos on his neck and arms. “What’s your name, sugar?”
She tried to reach Bear, but they wouldn’t let her pass. “Let him be. He hasn’t done anything to you. Go on your way. Bear, find Eric or Austin, okay?”
The SUV had stopped in the street, two more young men watching, big smiles on their faces as if this were merely entertainment. She knew now that she ought to have gone for help rather than trying to deal with this alone. She didn’t even have her phone.
Bear stared at her, fear in his eyes, cake still held protectively against his chest.
“What if we don’t want to go?” said the one with the white hair. “What if I’d rather have you suck my cock?”
She ignored the taunt. “There are a hundred people at this wedding who care about the man you’re bullying, including law enforcement.”
“Ooooh! I’m scared.”
The other one—the man who hadn’t spoken to her—grabbed Bear’s cake away from him and smashed it on the front of his jacket. “Eat that, retard.”
“Don’t touch him!” She started toward Bear, but the one with the white hair shoved her.
“Back off, bitch.”
Victoria stumbled backward, one heel catching on the hem of her dress. She fell back into the street.
Squealing breaks. An approaching bumper.
Pain exploded against her skull.
And then ...nothing.
* * *
Eric sawthe bastard shove Victoria, saw her fall backward into the path of an approaching car. His heart gave a sickening thud, fear like ice in his blood. “Vicki!”
He shouted back to Taylor. “Call EMS! Call Scarlet PD!Now!”
Please let her be okay!
His brain couldn’t form any other coherent thought as he ran toward her, his mind taking in only fragments of what was happening on the street.
A woman jumping out of the car to stare down at the street in front of her vehicle. The bastard who’d pushed her jumping into the SUV. The SUV’s tires squealing as it sped away. Bear standing as if frozen.
Eric reached the front of the car—and he saw her.
Victoria lay unconscious on her back, her head mere inches from the car’s tire, the bouquet smashed beneath it, its petals crushed.
“Jesus, Vicki.” He dropped to a knee beside her, bent over her, pressed his fingers against her carotid, searching for a pulse. “Can you hear me, baby?”
Years of training kicked in, forcing his panic aside.
Her airway was clear. She was breathing. Her pulse was rapid and weak.
She was going into shock.
“I didn’t hit her,” babbled the woman from the car, clearly terrified. “I’m sure I didn’t hit her. I was already slowing down because those boys were in the way. It’s their fault! One of them pushed her into the street.”
“I saw, ma’am,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault. Why don’t you come over here and sit on the curb?”