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does her competitors, elbowing and shoving without regard to make her way to Jan Slaughter.
    “Hey, Rocky,” the derby girl says in embarrassment. “I fell and they just kept going.”
    “Momma’s got you now,” Rocky tells her girl. She puts Jan’s arm over her shoulder and hefts her to her feet. The Captain commands her team, “Make a wedge!”
    The derby girls form a ‘V’ with Rocky carrying Jan’s weight. They force their way through, showing only a little more mercy than they do on the track.
    The elevators are down since the emergency mandates the use of stairs. Once in the stairwell the formation is reversed to slow the flood of bodies that may try to pass, Rocky protects her teammate all the way down, she disregards the yelling guests that clamor to be let through.
    The team exits onto a short walk that leads to the parking lot of the hotel. The crowd disperses in a huff, Man’s Ruin continues onward to their bus.
    “Is it bad?” Rocky asks Jan once she has her sitting on the steps of their tour bus. She palpates her teammate’s legs.
    “Yeah, it’s my ankle,” the girl grimaces at the motherly tending. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to…”
    “The fuck you won’t,” Rocky corrects her. “Maxine. Penny. Get Jan on the bus, we’re taking her to the hospital.” The league gives the girls great coverage and Rocky will be damned if they aren’t going to use it, she’ll also be damned if she’s going to pay for their rooms.
    Man’s Ruin joins the other guests in the lot. Folks, pulled from slumber, conglomerate in groups. They huddle together in the cold, most in bed clothes, befuddled and tired, looking for some authority to come and tell them that everything will be all right.
    The night shift desk clerk emerges. The tall balding man raises his hands to quell the questions that are issued as the mob converges on him. “Everything is fine, folks,” he tells the guests. “Please, we need to keep this area clear for the firemen.”
    Sirens fill the air in the distance but they are not getting closer. The lack of responders isn’t lost on the grumbling mass.
    “There are of course other emergencies…”
    “What emergencies?” Rocky pipes through a mouthful of hard candy.
    “More urgent emergencies,” he responds snidely. “You are all entitled to a rebate, of course, for the inconvenience…”
    “Wow!” Rocky chides sarcastically. “A rebate? You know, you’re all right!”
    The woman’s condescending tone shakes his forced calm, his bald heads beads with sweat in the cold air.
    Rocky watches the man mop his brow with his sleeve as he tries to collect his thoughts. She has him where she wants him. “One of my girls is hurt!”
    “Ma’am, you’re party will get a full refund.”
    This raises protest from the other guests, Rocky doesn’t care about them. “That’s a start.” She heads his way to discuss her terms when in her way she is stopped by a young man she recognizes, the bashful way he looks away once her eyes fall upon him and his goofy ‘I’ve got a secret’ grin. This is a young man smitten, he could be any number of her conquests that has come back with full blown puppy love.
    “Aw Christ!” Rocky curses. “KB, kill the puppy. I’ve got to take care of business.”
    The rough derby veteran skirts around Mr. Breckinridge to close the deal with the clerk.
    All the love sick young man can do is watch his lady fair force her way to the front of the group that has formed while she was distracted. She stands toe to toe with the man that easily has 75 pounds on her, she locks her amber eyes on his and the man flinches. “I’m not done with you.”
    “Hey, KB, I just wanted to check on Rocky… and you of course. Everyone, really, I want everyone to be all right. Rock had said one of her girls got hurt. Can I call her Rock?”
    “Wow,” Killer B says at a loss. He has it bad , she thinks. Whatever Rocky does to these men must be friggin’ amazing. She