Since we were pretty close to the back wall as it was, we stayed where we were and waited for someone to come up to us.
Our extra partner sighed when a tall man with a beaming smile came up to us.
“Regina,” the man drawled.
“Nathan,” Reggie snipped back.
The tall man, Nathan, turned his gaze on us.
“How are you ladies?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to say we were well but Patman came up to our group and tapped Nathan on the shoulder. “Go to that group in the far corner. They look like they could use a pretty face.”
Nathan shot Patman a glare, but ultimately did what he asked and walked away without another backward glance.
I looked at Regina when she glared over her shoulder in the man’s direction.
“Aurora and Hastings Hughes. Any relation to Baker and Adrianna Hughes?” Patman asked, his eyes going from me to Aurora and back.
I grinned. “They’re our parents.”
That was when Patman narrowed his eyes. “Shame.”
My brows rose. “Shame?”
“Shame,” he confirmed. “Now I know that you’re related to someone that’s a bitch.”
My mouth dropped open as those words fell out of his mouth.
I looked to Aurora to see her narrowing her eyes at the man in front of us.
“He did not just say that,” Reggie whispered as Patman walked away and moved toward the microphone.
Before I could reply, or hell, even react, Patman was once again speaking to the crowd.
“Let’s work on what we should do if approached by an unwanted individual…” Patman called. “I suspect you all know what to do. Let’s work on the basics and reconvene here in a bit.”
With that, he once again stepped in our direction.
“Now, ladies. Let’s get started…”
***
I wasn’t sure how it happened. One second Reggie and I were trading out how to twist out of a hold when someone grabbed our wrists, and the next I was staring at Patman who was scowling.
“Knew your father,” Patman sneered as he roughly pulled me in his direction with his hold on my wrist. “He still married to that woman?”
That woman being my mother?
“Yes, sir,” I said softly. “Still happily married for thirty-five years now.”
Patman rolled his eyes and let me go as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“You ready for more?” he asked, his eyes glancing in the direction of the room that was beyond the small corridor that we found ourselves in.
I snorted.
“Sure. More. Let’s see what you got.” I playfully tugged on his hand and twisted his arm behind his back before he could say another word.
It was a move that my father and I had worked on a lot when I was a young teen who was also very curious and liked to experience new things. He’d taught me the move when he realized that I wasn’t going to quell my personality just because I should be scared. So, he’d taught me how to protect myself.
Or, at least, he taught me a few moves that would work and get me the best results with my size.
And I’d used it on Patman.
But just as suddenly as I let him go, he whirled.
I could see in Patman’s eyes that he didn’t like me. That was right before he body-slammed me to the ground so hard that the breath rushed out of my lungs.
The crack of my back hitting the hardwood floor was so loud that my sister turned around from Reggie with a gasp.
Just as suddenly, Patman was standing over me, his foot on my chest as he said, “Now what?”
That was about the time that I saw Sammy come flying out of my peripheral vision, hitting Patman so hard that they both went down on the ground. Sammy immediately righted himself.
Moments after he was upright, Sammy had solidly sent one single punch to Patman’s face.
A sickening crack filled the air as Sammy’s fist connected with Patman’s nose.
I rolled over as soon as I had breath again, staring in awe at Sammy’s back as he reared back and went to punch Patman again.
Before he could land the punch, though, a couple of men had Sammy around the waist and were hauling him back, one of those men being Nathan.
Patman launched himself forward, not going in Sammy’s direction, but mine.
But before he could so much as stand himself up to his feet, people moved.
I looked worriedly at the wall of SWAT team officers that were in the small alcove surrounding me protectively.
And they hadn’t even heard what my sister screeched as I’d been body-slammed.
The ‘she’s pregnant, motherfucker’ was singed in my brain, though.
“What happened?” Luke Roberts, the chief of police for Kilgore Police Department, barked.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came.
Well, things came, just not what I wanted to come.
“Pew, pew, pew.” I closed my eyes tightly shut and tried not to start freaking out. “Umm…”