Read Online Overseas by Beatriz Williams - Free Book Online Page A

woods, green sunk into black. The busy swarm of runners around the Met had thinned out into almost nothing; I heard only a hint of movement from behind, someone pounding against theasphalt like me, breathing hard and steady with the effort of climbing the hill. A bicycle swept by, and another.
    The transept approached through the trees on my left, and a man flashed into view between the branches, running hard into the merge with the West Drive. He was big and lean, radiating belligerence. Manhattan was bursting with them: aggressive animals who took out their frustrations on the park loop, creating impromptu competitions that might last fifty yards or five miles. I hung back, not wanting to take up any fresh challenges at the moment, but then changed my mind and drove on. I was in good form. I could handle it. A blowout would do me some good: push myself just a little too hard, crash the barrier.
    He reached the merge just before me, but instead of banking left onto the drive, he made a hard right, without even looking. His heavy arm smashed into my shoulder, knocking me sideways into the pavement.
    I felt the hard thud of impact with shock. I’d been running fast, and so had he. He still was. He hadn’t even slowed down to see if I was okay.
    “Watch it, jerk!” I yelled after him, without thinking. I could feel pain begin to gather in my limbs. Definitely needing Band-Aids. Crap. And then I began to shake with rage. “I said
watch
it, jerk!” I yelled again recklessly, as the adrenaline hit my blood.
    All this happened in about three seconds. In the next, he turned around.
    “What the fuck, bitch!” he shouted. “What the fuck!”
    “You knocked me down!”
    “You got in my fucking way!”
    “Asshole,” I muttered, picking myself up.
    He rushed me.
    I braced myself an instant before the crash, closing my eyes and twisting to spare my soft underbelly. This was going to hurt. This was ambulance time. Stupid, stupid Kate.
Sorry,
Mom
.
    But the impact, when it came, glanced right off me. I staggered backward a few paces, astonished to find myself still standing up, and opened my eyes.
    Two men were rolling on the pavement in front of me. The runner, I remembered. The runner behind me. Or maybe a passing bicyclist. Some freaking hero.
    The rolling stopped. One of them straddled the other, throwing punches like a machine, swift and expert. Something dark splattered against my leg. “Oh my God!” I choked out. “Stop it! Somebody help!”
    Nobody came. A bicyclist flashed by without stopping; maybe he didn’t see us in the shadows, maybe he just thought we were a bunch of drunk teenagers. Maybe he just didn’t care.
    “Stop it!” I screamed again, louder, frantic. “Stop it! You’re killing him!”
    Suddenly the man on top jumped off, wiping his right hand on his shorts. The man on the bottom lay still.
    “Oh crap,” I whispered.
    The victor turned to me. “Are you okay?” he asked urgently, holding out his arms.
    I couldn’t discern his face in the near-darkness, but I knew his voice.
    “Oh my God,” I said. “Julian?”
    “Christ, Kate.” His hands were running down my arms, my legs, checking for injuries. “Does anything hurt?”
    “Everything hurts,” I said, and then my nose crashed against his clavicle, and his arms bound like steel around my body.
    We said nothing, only breathing against each other, shuddering, until he pushed me away suddenly, gently.
    “You’re shaking. You’re in shock.”
    “I’m all right.”
    “No, you need a blanket. Some kind of… hell.” He ran his hand through his hair.
    “Don’t worry. I’m okay. What… what are you doing here?”
    “Out for a run.” His voice was grim.
    A groan escaped from the man on the ground. “Let’s get going,” Julian said.
    “And leave him here?”
    “He’s all right,” he said scornfully. “Arsehole.” The word sounded especially crude in his cut-glass British voice.
    “What if he, like, dies?”
    “He’s not