Free Ntshona by Matthew A Robinson Page B

her.
    It was a policeman.
    Lon’s blood turned to ice. He did not understand what was happening. What was Eve doing?
    The policeman reached his right hand over to the left side of his belt where he had sheathed a baton. He quickly grasped the handle, immediately drew it, and whipped Eve across the face.
    Eve took the hit without falling over, yet the velocity at which it struck her forced her to stumble.
    There was confusion in the half-encircled crowd. Many quickly walked away, yet many had stopped to stand as audience.
    The policeman raised the baton into the air, ready for another strike.
    Lon was gobsmacked. He could not believe what was happening. Somehow the two had rapidly fallen into a very dangerous situation, one which could only get worse. He did not know the best course of action he could take, nor did he have the time to consider each possible consequence. All he knew at that specific moment was that his friend was vulnerable, in pain and in trouble; Lon had to do something soon.
    With barely a thought his legs began to move quickly in the direction of the policeman. This gave him less than two seconds to think: all he needed to do was something that would give him and Eve time to escape, however, he also wanted to inflict some form of punishment on the policeman for beating Eve. He decided. The policeman’s raised arm gave exposure to the side of his torso, where, from behind, Lon planted a roundhouse kick, right in the ribs.
    The crowd gasped in shock.
    The policeman instantly dropped his weapon and fell to the ground clutching his injured chest.
    Eve, dazed, tried to stand straight and make sense of what was going on. Her face hurt a lot.
    The crowd were silent, they had just witnessed somebody assault a police officer, yet they also knew that the police officer had seemingly unprovokedly attacked a young girl. Each was either at a loss about what to do, or simply did not want to get involved in fear of being arrested out of disrespect for authority.
    This worked well in Lon and Eve’s favour, as the crowds would eventually be used to hide them again.
    Lon snatched up the baton from the ground in case he would need it for any further encounters or the impending pursual, grabbed Eve, this time by the hand, and yanked her away in the direction the two were originally heading, gaining some ground before reintegrating with the pedestrian masses. He then slipped the baton up his sleeve in order to appear a little less conspicuous.
    Despite the lack of available space between the multitude of people, Lon drove through shoving, pressing and pushing, uttering “sorry” every few metres, all the while pulling Eve through his wake.
    She was still stuporous from the attack, and was in effect an anchor for Lon, yet she tried her best to stay on her feet and follow him closely.
    A siren sounded down the road behind them. The day was becoming difficult.
    “Fuck!” yelled Lon, “We can’t stay in the crowds, we need to get away quickly!”
    Eve tried hard, but could not reply on account of the searing pain in her cheek.
    “We need to cross the road over there!” shouted Lon, pointing in the direction through the crowds, even though Eve could not see. He dragged Eve and himself from the traffic of pedestrians in order to speed up, and ran down the pavement towards the next crossing.
    The siren was getting louder.
    “Dammit! We have to cross now!”
    They were close to the intersection, yet not near enough to have any claim to right of way.
    Lon, knowing he was about to do something stupid, jumped out into oncoming vehicle traffic. He dodged the first car easily, but had to pull Eve from its path and almost threw her into the car in the next lane. He quickly pulled them both through between a gap in the flow, and then the next lane, but then had to contend with traffic flowing the opposite way. Lon was surprised at how no vehicle had not tried to run them down, instead preferring to maintain their journeys with no