In The Blood

The Thirteenth Person

(Rob)

Blink. Blink. Harder blink, squint. Headache, initiating. And I thought it had hurt earlier when it hit the concrete. That was bad, but it was rapidly deteriorating. It now had the definitive sharp pain of being smacked against an unyielding surface, the throb of the ensuing injury, and the ache of eyestrain. Curse my perfect vision friends, curse my contact lens wearing friends. I'd been fitted for some once but I never could get used to them. Besides, I could see better out of my glasses anyway. Course, I could see out of the contacts better than I could with nothing. Especially now when I really wanted, really needed, to see. About all I could see were big moving blurs. Well, two moving blurs. Ten blurs at a standstill. How there were ten, I didn't have a clue. There were ten of us singers and two aggressors, and since I really couldn't exactly see my own self, it didn't add up. I should see nine blurs at a standstill. How fucked up was my vision here? Was I seeing double? I had to be. And must be of Adam, maybe Austin. I knew that moving blue blur was Linda and no one dared approach Adam, because she would shoot him and then whoever it was that was trying to help him. I was dying to rub my eyes but I didn't dare. Any wrong move I made, Adam would pay the price for me. Then Tim. Probably Mitch too. So blurry painful vision it was. Granted, what I'd be seeing if I even could make things out would break my heart. Adam in her arms, that ever-present gun to his head. Mitch in his grasp, Eli's gun to his temple. When the end of Linda's gun wasn't on Adam's head, it was mainly pointed at Tim. Tim was the one they wanted. Hunted. Tim had been actively hunted, like a deer or rabbit or something. Linda was trying to carry out vigilante justice. Our system might not be perfect—it's far from perfect—but it's there for a reason. To protect the accused from the likes of her. To determine guilt. I'd rather deal with the American justice system over any other.

I stared at Linda as best I could, watching as one Adam blur seemed to bizarrely separate from him and move on its own. Linda still yabbering, I took to squinting at the separate distinctive blur, knowing it couldn't be any of the twelve of us. A thirteenth person was here, standing completely opposite of me, also scared and unable to do anything himself due to the impossible situation. I glanced around at the others but no one else seemed to have noticed him. Linda was running her mouth like a deranged emotional wreck. Something about tissues. Hell, she didn't make any sense. I prayed she'd be deemed fit for a trial after all this was over. I hoped we'd all be alive to see it. And that I'd have a new pair of glasses to see it clearly with.

The mystery thirteenth person was now on his hands and knees, knelt and in practically a fetal position, curled up, hands to his face as though crying, in as much pain as we were, if not more. Linda's words had me on edge now, each word dripping in verbal threats. From the sounds of it, this was about to be over. Though not in the way we wanted it to be by any means. The thirteenth person righted and, for the first time I saw fairly clearly that it was a woman, not crying but in clear emotional agony. Barely breathing, I watched Linda's arm lift, locking in place with that gun aimed directly at Tim, point blank. The other woman stupidly went running right in front of her, in front of the gun—through the gun? How the living hell? I had to be seeing things. People don't run through solid objects. I blinked hard, the woman now with both hands to her head. I was losing my ever-loving mind.

I didn't have time to think or to consider what the hell I'd just seen; I was acting on pure instinct, knowing Tim would have zero chance at this range. All I knew was that I had to get him down, had to, got to make him a smaller target. A moving target is harder to hit. A smaller target is harder to hit. Make Tim both. As Linda was saying the very last word, anticipating she'd be pulling that trigger next and shooting him dead, I was moving. If she was to shoot someone (namely, me), so be it. She had tunnel vision at this point, teary emotional vision. I prayed, if nothing else, it'd buy me the second I needed, just a second, to push him down, hard and fast. I didn't care about anything else. The rest of us could defend ourselves, if given a chance. The element of surprise and the realization that someone loved Tim enough to risk their own life might knock her off guard. And her grip on Adam was progressively slackening. I could see his white T-shirt blur moving to the left a touch, trying to get away. She's not going to shoot Adam. What she wants is Tim dead. I sprung, throwing an arm up and shoving him with all my strength onto the ground. I'd rather non-lethally injure him than have her fatally shoot him.