Nora danced without a care, arms high above her head, swaying with a rhythm. A smile played on her lips. She leaned close to her mother, pointing and shouting something about the drummer, but Leanne couldn’t make it out over the clash of the crowd and music. An uneasy feeling gripped her like a vice.
Leanne scanned the crowd—hair flying, cigarettes dangling fromlips, glass bottles clinking together. A couple was pressed against each other so tightly it made her blush, limbs entwined like ivy. Their kiss was slow and messy, full of hunger and complete abandon.
That kind of affection hadn’t been an element of her marriage in years.
Leanne quickly looked away, the ache in her belly part longing, part memory. She thought of Dean. How once, she would’ve kissed him like that in the middle of a street if he’d ever allowed it.
Beside her, Nora followed her gaze. With a laugh that was more gasp, she lifted her hand in front of her mother’s eyes like a blindfold. “Mom! Don’t stare!”
Leanne laughed, tugging down her hand with a wiggle of her brows, trying to lighten the mood. “Do you think he swallowed her tongue?”
“He does look hungry.” Nora raised her eyebrows up and down jokingly.
Then they laughed together—reallylaughed. Leanne felt like a bridge between them, strung with light, had appeared and they’d met in the middle.
Then, Leanne’s laughter cracked, cut off as quickly as it had come.
From somewhere off to the right of the stadium came shouting. Not excited, not playful, but sharp. Angry.Mom?
“What’s going on?” Nora asked.
The shouts grew to bellows, more and more people joining the fray. But she could see nothing, only hear them. Leanne’s entire body tensed.
A ripple moved through the crowd. As if the fury of shouting rode the bodies of fans. A bottle launched overhead, arcing. Nora flinched, ducking and instinctively Leanne leaned her body over her daughter’s.
People began to scatter. Their bodies bumping indiscriminately into one another. The air, thick with music and smoke just seconds ago, snapped taut like a wire.
Leanne grabbed Nora’s hand, her voice cutting through the noise. “Stay close.”
They shoved, joining the scattering crowd, barely making any sort of progress in the crush.
Then came the explosion.
A crack of sound and light—too close, too loud—and the air shifted. A thick, smoky film clouded everything, a fog that stung her eyes and burned the back of her throat. Her lungs screamed with each breath.
“What is that?” Leanne gasped while Nora coughed beside her.
“Tear gas!” someone shouted, voice cracking.
“Fucking pigs!” someone else roared with a rage Leanne had never experienced.
Panic surged. Bodies pressed in on all sides, the scent of sweat and marijuana strong. People shouted, coughed, and shoved. Leanne clutched Nora’s wrist and yanked her close, trying to pull her toward the exit. Back to the Lincoln. Back to breathable air. Back to safety. But the crowd surged like a wave, crashing against them with no rhythm, no mercy.
She stumbled over something. A shape on the ground.
A person.
Leanne bent to help, but someone behind her shoved hard, and she toppled, landing on the fallen figure. Her knees hit the ground, her palms scraped, and the impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
“Mom!” Nora screamed, her voice ragged with fear.
Leanne looked up through the blur—of smoke, of noise, of movement—and saw only mayhem. Mayhem that made people forget which way was forward. Which way was out.
Every inhale was a struggle. Stinging tears blinded her.
And in that split second of fear, a terrible thought took hold.This is how I die.
This was how her mother would die.
