The moment the girl took hold of her, Danica threw her own hand up, grabbed the girl’s forearm and pulled her downward, off balance. In the same movement, Danica rolled to free up the arm beneath her, made a fist with that hand and swung it hard at the girl’s face.

For a fraction of a second, she thought the punch would connect. Then the girl jerked her head to the side and Danica’s fist only grazed her jaw. An instant later they were fighting, hands grabbing wherever they could, elbows hitting every boundary of the confined space between the vehicles.

“Fuck,” the young man said, “let me in there.”

“I’ve got her.”

“You don’t.”

The girl was trying to hit her, but couldn’t manage it in the cramped space. It was all she could do to keep her balance, squatting like that while Danica still gripped her other arm, pulling her down as hard as she could. The girl kept having to use her free hand to brace herself against Danica’s car.

“Get out of the way,” the man said.

In the weird, adrenaline-spiked clarity of the moment, Danica found her focus snapping to every detail that might matter. The man’s tone of voice struck her now.

He was afraid.

More specifically, he was afraid for the girl.

Danica thought of their intimate display in the checkout lane. The PMS may have been bullshit, but the affection between the two had been real.

Hurt her. Badly. Make him tend to her while you escape.

Danica had just enough time to be jarred by the ugly thought, and then the girl pulled her forearm free of her grip, and drew back to lob a punch Danica couldn’t possibly dodge.

Hurt her.

Badly.

Danica threw one hand out sideways, beneath the near edge of the van, and pressed it to the vehicle’s underbody. She knifed her other hand upward and grabbed a fistful of the girl’s hair just above one ear. The unexpected move startled the girl; her cocked-back arm faltered, as if she had some sense of what was about to happen to her. If so, she didn’t react quickly enough to stop it.

Danica wrenched her hands toward each other—one braced below the van, the other clutching the girl’s head—as if she meant to bring a pair of cymbals crashing together. The girl, off-balance in her crouch, arms in no position to catch herself, plunged sideways. Her body followed her head down through a tight little arc; her temple slammed against the steel framing at the bottom of the van’s open doorway. The impact made a double sound—a dull thud and a sickening crack—and seemed to knock the life right out of the girl’s body. She sprawled atop Danica like a cut-down scarecrow.