Free Hall, Jessica by Into the Fire

redhead?"
     
    Sable cringed as the media pressed in. Terri Vincent started
calling out loudly for everyone to step back, but they weren't listening to
her. The same way it had been that night before the dance.
    She was covered in filth, her dress ruined, everything she'd done
for nothing. She was on her hands and knees in the mud, where they said she
belonged.
    But she didn't belong there. She'd done nothing wrong.
    The biggest boy pulled her up and shoved a huge handful of gray
Spanish moss down the front of her ruined dress. "Don't forget your
corsage!" He kept his hand in long enough to squeeze her breast.
    That was when all the feelings she had been holding back for
months erupted, and she snapped.
    She wrenched out the boy's hand and the moss, and flung it in his
face. Then she bent down, filled her hands with mud, and started throwing it at
anything that moved.
    "Don't you like my perfume?" She pelted the girls' fine
white dresses and the boys' immaculate tuxes. "Come on, try some on!"
    The girls ran away screaming, and their boyfriends followed. Like
the cowards they were.
    Other girls came out of the dorm and shrieked at Sable to stop.
She threw mud at them, too. She threw mud at anyone who came near her. It felt
wonderful. She stopped only when she heard someone shouting to call the police.
Then she walked away from the dorm and out to the highway, never stopping or
looking back. She paused to get most of the filth off her face, using her
pretty new gloves to wipe it away. As she waved down the truck, she dropped her
gloves by the roadside before climbing up and asking for a ride out to the
Atchafalaya.
    She'd go home, and she'd stay there, where she belonged. And God
help anyone who came after her.
    A heavyset man grabbed Sable from the side. "What is your name?
Are you Marc LeClare's mistress?" He shoved a microphone in her face.
    "Get away from me." Sable slapped the microphone away,
but the reporter pushed back. "Leave me alone!"
    Someone else pushed from the
other side, and Sable lost her balance and fell backward, arms flailing.
     
    Terri shouted for assistance while J. D. made the grab to catch
Sable, but her head struck the corner of the elevator door frame with a loud
rap. He got his arms between her and the floor before she could hit it, but she
went limp. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
    J. D. knelt and supported her head. "Sable?"
    "Is that a first name, or last?" One of the reporters
pushed forward eagerly.
    Terri elbowed him aside, crouched down next to J. D., and leaned
in. "Get her out of here; take her to the hospital."
    J. D. gathered her up in his arms, stood, and used his shoulder to
ram his way through the throng of reporters. He strode past the gaping Moriah
and Laure, proceeded behind the reception desk, and pulled the keys for an
unmarked car from the vehicle board.
    "I'm taking her over to Mercy," he told the desk
sergeant in a low, furious voice. "Tell these fucking piranhas she'll be
at Charity."
    The uniformed officer
started to say something, then looked at J. D.'s face and nodded. "You got
it, Lieutenant."
     
    When Caine got back from the city, his men were already out on the
water. Only John had stayed behind, and after one look at
Caine's face he got busy repairing some traps.
    Caine called Billy's wife, Cecilia, who began crying as soon as he
told her that he'd fired Billy. He offered to have someone take her in until
her husband got over his latest binge, but she only hung up on him.
    Someone would look after Cecilia anyway. Bayou people took care of
their own.
    Caine kept the radio on while he worked on patching a hull, and
stopped only to listen to the latest update on the warehouse fire. It hadn't
been confirmed, but a source was quoted as identifying the body found at the
scene as gubernatorial candidate Marc LeClare. The reporters didn't have the
name of the young, redheaded woman who had survived the fire, or why she'd been
in the warehouse with LeClare.
    Caine