Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [184]
Then something startling happened. Startling to me, at least.
River and Waboombas looked deeply into one another’s eyes, as if seeing something neither had dared believe could happen in their lifetimes. Overcome, they passionately fell into each other’s arms and kissed so deeply I thought they might end up in crawling into one another’s internal organs.
“Um… ” I said, not really sure I wanted to interrupt but feeling it was necessary before they began having sex on the floor. “I think we should…I need to go find…what about…?”
With strained effort, I finally pulled River away from Waboombas. It was a lot like pulling hot, soft gum out of gooey, melted caramel.
“WISPER!” I reminded them.
River stiffened up—and not in a good way—not for Waboombas at least—and awoke to concern for his sister.
“That way!” he said, pointing, and the three of us hurried off the convention center floor and into the front lobby. Through the glass windows, moving much faster in the thinner crowd outside the building, and more motivated since realizing we had escaped, the Boones were forcing Wisper into a waiting limousine. She looked scared but strong as she glanced back my way, and I was stuck with how beautiful she was, how much I loved her, how amazingly sexy she was in my old shirt, and I kicked myself for ever giving someone so fabulous any reason to doubt me.
It would never happen again.
Washburne forced her into the back of the vehicle before she could call out, and by the time we reached the convention center’s glass entry door, the limo was already moving off and away from us.
Waboombas, River, and myself burst through the openings at the front of the building and raced toward the escaping vehicle, but we were too late. Security had held a way open through the crowd of people and cars in order to get the limo moving quickly and help ease traffic in the congested drop-off area. They were on the street and heading toward the freeway before we could even get off the sidewalk.
We stopped running and caught our breath for a moment.
Panting heavily we looked at one another, desperately trying to figure out what to do next. A commotion erupted behind us, and we turned to see Sophie and Morgan sprinting our way at full-throttle with a good ten, or more, security guards right on their tails. Sophie was holding a pair of dark slacks, and Morgan carried a walkie-talkie and a gun. Both were missing large portions of their body paint, and as Morgan gave commands to the walkie-talkie, Sophie randomly threw keys, wallet, and other items from inside the pockets of the slacks into the crowd.
A pantsless security guard veered off with one of his comradesin-arms and tried to scoop up the discarded items, which some people were grabbing off the ground out of curiosity, politeness, or just plain greed.
Clearly, we needed to get going.
I scanned the area and saw one of those trucks designed to haul an advertising trailer. It had an immense promotional piece for the new Batman movie hooked to its hitch, advertising Batman 16, Rise of the Ventriloquist Dummy! Starring Matthew Perry, with Keanu Reeves as Robin!
Seeing that the driver was chatting up some girl dressed rather fetchingly as Princess Amidala, I took the opportunity, ran past him, snatching the keys he twirled absently, and leaped behind the wheel, locking the door immediately behind me. He, of course, was somewhat put out by the whole thing, as you can imagine, and began screaming and pounding on the driver’s side window. I apologized and thanked him, then turned the engine over