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I hate the fucking paparazzi.
I’m standing on the corner, waiting. The car's a minute away. They’re pelting me with personal questions that I do my best to ignore—although, I want to sucker punch one of them when he asks about my father.
“Fuck him,” I mutter under my breath.
“What did you say?” the paparazzo asks.
“I said fuck him.”
Ah, that’s going to be one hell of a sound bite.
Before I can say anything else, there’s screeching nearby, a group of fans rushing toward me. Shit. People are pushing, shoving, as the crowd closes in around me, fans trying to get past the assholes with cameras who keep drowning them out with their inconsiderate questions. Nobody’s watching what they’re doing, and I’m losing my cool. Fast. I can’t even meet my damn car on the street without this chaos. I sign some more stuff that’s shoved in my face, and I try to calm myself down, but these assholes do everything imaginable to antagonize me.
Footage is worth more when I lose my temper.
The same guy who asked about my father tries to get closer, to get a better angle, mowing a young girl over. She stumbles and I catch her, grabbing her by the arm. She can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. It pisses me off.
“Back the fuck off before you get someone hurt,” I say, shoving the guy away, just to get some goddamn space, but it seems to trigger panic in the crowd. Some try to disperse, and that young girl dodges forward, out into the street, because there’s nowhere else she can go. Shit. She doesn’t even look. Headlights swallow her up. A horn blares. I can see the horror in her eyes.
The girl fucking freezes.
No.
It’s instinctual. I don’t even think. She freezes and my feet move. I dart out into the street and grab the girl again, shoving her back to the sidewalk. She knocks into the crowd, losing her footing, but I have no chance to make sure she doesn't get trampled. I turn, and the car is right there, tires squealing, brakes screeching—
BAM.
Everything feels like it’s in slow motion. My brain doesn’t register it right away. Flashes surround me as I fly backwards and then—holy fuck—pain. It’s like a shock, every nerve ending in my body screaming as I slam into the asphalt.
Blackness. I’m blinking, but I can’t make out much. People are yelling all around me. My head is pounding. Their words are vibrating inside my skull and I want them all to shut the fuck up. Police lights and sirens, paparazzi cameras flashing, panicked screams from someone. I try to sit up but something warm runs down my face, soaking my white shirt.
I look down at it. Blood.
The sight makes me woozy. Whoa. My vision goes black and then Cliff is there. I hear him before I see him, hear his warbled voice before his face greets me. “Take it easy, Johnny. Don’t move. We’ve got help coming.”
He looks worried.
I wasn’t worried.
I wasn’t… until I looked at him.
“Is she okay?” I ask, my chest aching.
“Who?” he asks.
“The girl,” I say. “She was in the street. There was a car coming. I don’t know. Is she…?”
“Everyone's fine,” he says, glancing around before turning back to me. “They’re freaked out, but nobody else is bleeding. What were you thinking?”
“That she was gonna get hit by a car.”
“So you took her place? Jesus, Johnny, you’re taking this superhero business way too personal.”
I laugh at that. It hurts.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth.
Where is that goddamn help?
You’re lucky.
That’s what the doctor said to me.
It’s your lucky day.
But as I lay in the stark white hospital bed in the dim private room, surrounded by people I don’t care to look at, with security posted at every corner as phones ring and ring and fucking ring, I don’t feel very lucky. This day has become unimaginably worse.
Severe concussion. Laceration to the temple. Broken right wrist. Bruised ribs. Besides an array of cuts and scrapes, swelling in places that aren’t happy about this shit, that’s all that seems to be wrong with me.
So maybe I am lucky, but the voices all around me right now don’t think so.
My manager, a studio exec, the movie director, and a shitload of PR cram into the room, hashing out details of how to handle this nightmare. My lawyer is here somewhere. I remember seeing him earlier. They’re worried about lawsuits and insurance quotes and how this is going to impact the production, but I’m more worried about this sensation flowing through my veins at the moment. Fuck. It’s the middle of the night, and my head is swimming, my stomach queasy. I'm uneasy. My legs keep tingling and I feel like I’m starting to float outside of my body.
Whatever drug they’re pumping into my IV is strong.
