Blue by Lisa Glass

except for two old dudes sipping beers and picking at bags of chips. I heard a door slam in the wind and I pushed through another door and on to the heaving dance floor, where we stood gasping for breath.
    Garrett looked across and saw us, slammed his drink back down on the bar in an eruption of froth and pushed through the crowd to reach us. Wes followed Garrett with his eyes and then saw us too. A couple of boys I didn’t recognize, but who were obviously friends of theirs, were close behind.
    Garrett arrived first.
    He took one look, undid his shirt and used it as a tourniquet around Zeke’s leg.
    Something inside me had seized up and I couldn’t even move my own body. I was just frozen by the sight of the blood. So much blood.
    “What the hell?” Garrett said. “Would someone call a fucking ambulance?”
    “Negative. Anders’ll drive me. Don’t need an ambulance, just a second to think. Figure out how I’m gonna explain this. Fuck. Other dude had a flick knife.”
    “Yeah, brah, I see that. Don’t look like he caught an artery though.” Garrett touched Zeke gingerly on the chest, and Zeke winced. “Couple ribs broken too maybe,” Garrett said, his face going tight with anger. “You k’den? Not gonna croak?”
    “Not today.”
    “I can leave you with Iris?”
    “Don’t do anything stupid,” Zeke said, trying to disguise the pain in his voice.
    “You think? Those punks are dead. Where?”
    “Just like three feet outside the door,” I said. And then added, “ Mahalo .” I hoped that Garrett would kick Daniel’s ass. Daniel had crossed the line, gone full-on psycho and tried to kill someone. If he wasn’t put in his place now, what else could happen?
    Without another word Garrett was out the door, and Wes and the others followed him.
    For ten seconds, which felt like forever, I looked at Zeke and I could feel the pressure building up behind my eyes, but I couldn’t cry. Not now. Now when it was all my fault.
    Zeke was covered in dirt, with his shirt ripped and smeared with blood. His mouth was bleeding and he had a few nasty cuts on the back of his head where the bottle had broken. I looked down at the leg of his jeans, soaked with blood. I still couldn’t believe it. Daniel had done that? He’d never carried a knife before. He’d use his own fists or nothing.
    Zeke had a hand across his chest and was grimacing with the pain of breathing. I had my arm around him, trying to support his weight and keep him steady. He was much heavier than me though, and I couldn’t move him.
    Kelly rushed over, came out with the most colorful bunch of swear words I’d ever heard and used her weight to prop up Zeke on the other side. We limped over to a booth, where Zeke slumped down and tried to breathe.
    “Get Anders,” I said to Kelly, who turned on her heel and ran.
    “S’OK,” Zeke said. “Gotten better beatings off of the ocean.”
    I held his hand tight and stroked it with my other hand. His gorgeous eyes had laughter in them, even then, when he was in so much pain.
    Anders ran over, took one look at Zeke and made a call on his phone.
    “You didn’t call an ambulance, man?” Zeke said to him, through a rasping breath.
    “You’re damn right I did, and I’m about two seconds away from calling the fuzz.”
    “You can’t. If this gets out, I’ll lose my sponsorship. Out in the boondocks, fighting with locals? Looks great, huh?”
    “Have you taken anything?” Anders said.
    “Nothin’. Come on. Don’t ask me that.”
    A weird question, I thought. Zeke didn’t seem like the type to mess around with drugs.
    “How much have you had to drink?”
    “I don’t know. Two beers. You can’t call it in, dude. We just need to get out of here before anyone else sees me like this. If this makes the news, it’s gonna be messy. Just take me to my pa’s place.”
    “Fuck. OK, I’m gonna cancel the ambulance, but I’m taking you to A&E under a fake name, OK?”
    Zeke looked at his leg, and the