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The crowd was like a wave that broke over them. One moment it was held firmly back and the next a barricade had fallen and people were streaming into the walkway, congealing around them and cutting off their progress to the car.
The crush separated Winter from his bodyguards almost immediately. He only managed to avoid being separated from Claire because she had a white-knuckle grip on his upper arm. She still had to pull in close to him to keep the crazed fans from getting between them and ripping them apart. Camera flashes blinded them both. Winter wondered how many tabloids would be running false stories about how he was having a fling with his lesbian manager tomorrow and tried to turn his resulting grimace into something more media-friendly with only partial success.
People were pushing and shoving and shouting. There was too much noise to truly hear anything save the occasional high-pitched squeal of his name. It was at times like these that he had to admit that being world famous was not at all what he’d been expecting.
Where was the car? It hadn’t been far when the barricade had gone down, but the rushing crowd was so omnipresent that Winter had gotten turned around. Was he still facing the right direction? Where was the club they’d just left? He suddenly wished he’d had less to drink at the after-party. He wasn’t drunk—there were limits to how much someone as famous as him could drink in public without inciting nasty rumors—but he had still had enough to make him wish his head was clearer.
Claire pulled on his arm and pointed. She was saying something Winter couldn’t hear but her meaning was clear. Thank goodness one of them was sober and hadn’t lost track of the direction they needed to go.
His impulse was to let Claire pull him along, but the crowd was too thick for that. They had to push their way, while avoiding seeming rude. Hands grasped at Winter, sliding off his arms and shoulders, hooking in his clothes and hair. This was madness, where had his bodyguards gone?
Someone slammed bodily into Winter, throwing him sideways to Claire. If the crowd hadn’t been so thick, they both would have fallen. The impact from the stranger was bizarrely sharp and took Winter’s breath away. For one awful moment he thought he was going to fall even with Claire holding him up and be crushed by crazed fans, but then Claire hoisted him off her and back onto his feet and the moment passed. The person who’d walked into him was already gone.
The remainder of walk to the car was somehow even more difficult than it had started. It was getting hard to stay upright and walk for reasons that Winter couldn’t quite put a finger on. It was a relief to slide into the cool darkness of the waiting car. Claire piled in after him and slammed the door, muffling the sound. “Let’s get out of here,” she told the driver.
The car pulled away, moving slowly at first until it cleared the crowd and then picking up speed. Winter’s vision swam and he braced a hand against the back of the passenger seat to keep from keeling over onto Claire. There was something wet running down his side. Maybe someone in the crowd had spilled a drink on him. Maybe—
Claire gasped. Winter had no idea what had startled her, but then she was gripping his shoulder and arm, turning him. “Winter, let me see. Oh my god, you’re bleeding. Winter, where is all this blood coming from?”
Blood? For the briefest instant Winter had no idea what she was talking about, then he looked down and saw the red stain spreading across the front of his white tee-shirt. He wasn’t afraid of blood but the sight of so much of his own inexplicably no longer in his body was too much. His vision darkened and his ears rang. He swayed sideways into Claire. She caught him and pawed uselessly at his side, like she was caught between wanting to do something to stop the bleeding and not wanting to hurt him.
“Hospital,” she said to the driver. “Get us to a hospital now.”
Winter couldn’t quite follow the train of thought that lead to his next words, “No,” he managed, he was speaking into Claire’s shoulder and hair. He’d probably seem more forceful if he sat up but he was far too dizzy for that. “No hospital.”
“What?” Claire’s voice was high with panic. She finally decided on pressing down on his side in an attempt at slowing the bleeding. He gasped in pain.
He swallowed and managed to string words together enough to explain, “Don’t take me to the hospital. Just call my doctor. I don’t want the publicity. Just take me to the hotel.”
“Winter that’s insane,” Claire said. “We have no idea how bad it is. You need a hospital.”
“No,” he protested. He struggled for how to explain why he couldn’t let them take him to a hospital. “You can’t,” he managed. “It’ll be all over the news. She won’t—” Until he said the word “she” he hadn’t consciously realized this was about his mother, but of course it was about his mother. What else would it be about? “I can’t know for sure,” he said, near begging. “Please.”
There was a long pause. Claire was thinking about it now. She knew him well enough to work out what the issue was even if he wasn’t coherent enough to fully explain. Then she sighed, her whole body shuddering. “I can’t believe I’m going to go along with this,” she muttered, then raised her voice to speak to the driver. “Actually, cancel that order. Take us back to the hotel.”
“Thank you,” Winter breathed.
“You better put all your effort into not bleeding out,” she told him. “Because I will never forgive you if you die because I let you talk me into this.” Thankfully she didn’t give him time to respond, because he was getting too blurry to be able to come up with a response to that which wouldn’t make her more worried. She was already fumbling with her phone to call his doctor. “Hello? Where are you? Good. I need you to be waiting for us as soon as we arrive. Winter’s been…”