Love Lost flinched, whole-body, as the door shut with a solid impact. The sound broke up as well, scattered, became a hundred trampling shoes and boots, bangs. Picture frames rattling became another kind of rattle, of things clattering, falling down.

The floodgates opened, and her arms still encircling Everly, she used her thumbs and fingers to try to wipe tears away. To keep Everly from seeing.

“Why are you crying? Mom?”

She shook her head.

“Mom? What did I do?”

Her voice broke as she tried to speak. The noises were too loud—the jumble.

Her eyes were wrenched open as people pushed in close. Her surroundings were claustrophobic, not even accounting for all of the people. Folded tables and pallets on either side of her, many with papers stuck to them. The words ‘event’, ‘convention’ stood out on the paper. People pushed, shoved, and Love Lost pulled closer to the wall, put her head down, burying her face in her daughter’s hair.

“Mom,” was the faint sound, almost drowned out.

Love Lost looked. She made eye contact with her daughter, now grown, twelve or so years old. Makeup around her eyes was thick, bright, smudged. Strands of red hair with one strand bleached and colored blue had fallen across her face. Everly looked terrified.

People pushed past, and Love Lost did what she could to hug her daughter closer. The space between the piles of stuff might have seemed like a refuge at one point, but it wasn’t big enough for two people. Love Lost sat on the ground, her back to the wall, pulling Everly in as tight as she could.

A man squeezed by, and Love Lost looked down at where her hand gripped her daughter’s waist. The friction of the man pushing past had skinned the back of her hand.

Love Lost shouted, inarticulate, and her own voice was inaudible. Angry shouts, telling people to get back, to give space. Someone tried to stick a leg into the gap between her and the folded tables leaning against the wall to one side. The tables rattled as the picture frames had, a steady, endless, echoing drum.

Her daughter said something, but the noises—too much noise.

I can feel the vibration of her speaking against Love Lost’s chest, Rain thought.

Love Lost screamed words at the crowd.

The pressure of the packed crowd was such that the stacked tables couldn’t handle it. Something gave, and the tables fell, sliding down against the ground, taking the legs out of a dozen people in the crowd. The result was a domino effect, people falling over and taking others with them. Others sought relief from pressure in moving over the crowd.

The ripple effect in the crowd was more like a tidal wave crashing through. One moment, where Love Lost’s eyes moved over the crowd, saw people falling, saw others pushing—