Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (short books for teens .TXT) 📕

yelled. A small lip jutted out of the pod just beneath the doors, and the man was standing precariously on the edge.

“What are you talking about?!” someone inside the pod yelled. I couldn’t see them from my position beneath the pod, but I could make out a man’s voice. “There are no girls in here, dude. We don’t even know you!”

“You’re lying!” the drugged man said as he squeezed his eyes shut. I took advantage of the moment and quickly scaled the two lower rods holding his pod in place.

“He is lying,” I agreed as I slowly scaled the side of the pod. From there, I could see through the clear glass into the car, and there were, in fact, only men inside. Judging by the balloons and drinks, it looked like a bachelor party. The drugged man was completely delusional, but I remembered Naomi agreeing with Howard to get him to calm down.

“What?” the man whimpered as he looked up at me. He was so surprised by my words, it looked like he’d failed to notice how much closer I’d gotten.

“I said I believe you,” I assured him as I climbed onto the top of the pod. There was more open space up here, and if I could just convince him to climb up after me, I’d be able to handcuff him and get us both down unscathed.

“You do?” he asked, slowly lowering the gun as he did. “Hahaha, I knew it! I knew I wasn’t crazy. She’s in there. She’s in there, and he’s trying to steal her from me!”

“There is no one in here, you crazy moron!” the same man from before yelled.

“Shut up!” I yelled as loudly as I could over the rain. He was going to get himself killed if he kept provoking the suspect like that. “We both know he’s lying. Why don’t you come up here, and we can talk about it, okay?”

I reached a shaky hand down toward the man. He stared at it in puzzlement before slowly taking it. I let out a sigh of relief. So far, so good. I just had to pull him up here and cuff his hands behind his back.

I pulled hard as the man began to climb back up. He was halfway up the side when the sky lit up again as a flash of lightning tore across the sky above us. The suspect panicked and flinched backward, dropping his gun as he stumbled back. He tried to regain his footing, but the smooth glass of the pod was slick with rainwater, and his feet just slid against the side.

I reached out both hands to steady him and regretted it immediately as my own legs slid unsteadily against the domed top of the pod.

“Pull yourself up!” I shouted as I struggled to keep my own balance. A tiny, ugly voice in the back of my head was screaming at me to let him fall, but I couldn’t bring my fingers to let go.

Finally, he managed to catch his shoe against the corner of one of the windows and pushed himself up to safety. I allowed myself to fall backward onto the wet roof of the pod. My arms and legs were shaking, and my heart was beating painfully. I was soaked to the bone and starting to shiver.

“You tried to throw me off,” the suspect muttered under his breath, so low that I wasn’t sure what I’d heard over the sound of the rain.

“What did you say?” I snapped as I got to my feet.

“You tried to trick me,” he growled. “You pretended to help me, then you tried to make me fall. You’re one of her friends, aren’t you? She probably called you and told you to come pretend to be nice to me.”

“You cannot be serious,” I grumbled as I glared at the man. “I just saved your life, you ingrate! I did the opposite of what you’re accusing me of!”

“You can’t trick me!” the man screamed as he scrambled unsteadily to his feet. The way he was wobbling and slipping on the wet surface would have been funny if he wasn’t actively threatening me.

“Okay, then,” I said and drew my gun as the man lunged at me. I fired one shot directly into his knee, and he collapsed instantly. Pain or no pain, he was going to have a hard time trying to attack me with a shattered kneecap.

He yelled, more out of surprise than pain, and I moved in quickly to restrain his arms behind his back. Once I was finished, I sat directly on top of him as I waited for assistance. There wasn’t a lot of room to spare on the top of this pod, and I didn’t want to risk either of us slipping off with how wet everything was.

I looked up for the first time since I’d caught up to him and realized that there was a news helicopter hovering right above us. I hadn’t noticed its lights over the glaring neon glow of the Ferris wheel, and I guessed that the thunder and rain must have drowned out the sound of the propellers.

“So everyone will see what just happened on the nightly news, huh?” I murmured to myself. “I bet Wallace is gonna love that.”

32

Miranda

“Did you even have a backup plan?” Fiona scolded me for the hundredth time that evening. “I saw you slip, you know. Everyone did, literally. The entire city watched it happen live. What would you have done if you’d fallen off?”

“Die, probably,” I smirked.

Naomi and I had retreated to the office while the suspect was taken to the hospital to be treated for the overdose and the bullet wound I’d given him. Fiona had been spending the past half hour fussing over me, plying me with candy while Wallace was busy in his office declining offers from news stations for personal interviews.

“That’s not funny,” Fiona flicked me on the arm. “I mean, I know you’re a badass Marine or whatever,