Halle looked completely shocked as she stumbled backward onto the bed from the force of Zander’s shove. Brook winced with pain and then gave Zander a glare of pure hatred.
That was a look I never wanted to see on her face when she looked at me.
Brook bounced up from where she’d been thrown, rubbing her arm, and punched him in the throat. He’d started to unbuckle his belt. Zander’s smirk instantly changed to an expression of disbelieving pain. Brook then kneed him where it counts, and he curled up in a ball.
Halle scrambled up and watched as Zander uncurled and started to get up with a look of pure murder on his face. She kicked him in the side, he went back down, and she and then Brook kicked him a few more times.
A couple of seconds later, Fritz and I burst in. I scooped them up to keep them from killing him and almost got my own beatdown. As soon as they figured out it was me, they both broke down crying and clung to me, visibly shaking. It was like all the adrenaline left them, and all that was left were two scared little girls.
I was impressed by Brook’s handling of Zander. He was completely surprised when she didn’t just cower in fear. Cassidy would be proud of her. I cringed when I saw Halle and Brook start to kick him in the sack and the side. You would have guessed they thought he was a piñata full of chocolate. He was lucky when I rushed in and snatched both girls up before they could do any more damage.
Then again, seeing how the girls broke down as soon as they realized they were safe made me realize just how traumatized they were by Zander’s actions. I looked around, and it seemed like most of the reporters were having the same thoughts as me.
In the van, Fritz had set up two cameras, one pointing at all the passengers and one straight ahead. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and then suddenly, they were being tossed around like rag dolls. I said a silent prayer of thanks that they all had their seat belts on and wondered why the airbags didn’t go off. I guess we were hit at a weird angle when Fritz swerved. When I saw what happened to me, I had to close my eyes. From the way I hung in my seat belt, it was clear that I was out cold.
They then showed the video from the forward-pointing camera. The SUV suddenly appeared at the edge of the screen on the passenger side and crashed into us. Shortly after, we came to a stop, the passenger doors of the SUV opened, and the video caught the other security guard and Zander running from the scene. If Zander had run back the way he came, he wouldn’t have been visible, but he hadn’t. He’d run in front of our van and turned to see what had happened. Frank froze the video so everyone could see for themselves that it was, in fact, Zander Lewis.
The next-to-last video was of Fritz talking to the driver and him admitting that Zander had ordered him to ram our car. The last video almost made me sick. It showed the paramedics having to pull my apparently lifeless body from the van. They couldn’t open my door, so they’d taken the back off my seat in order to get a backboard under me and slide me out. I would have to seek them out and thank them for how professional they were and how much care they’d taken to make sure I wasn’t further injured.
Fritz was up next and described what had happened. He also reported that the police had found cocaine in Zander’s SUV. Then he conveyed that the security wasn’t Zander’s, but that they worked for the studio. With that last little tidbit, I was confident that Halle wouldn’t be seeing any overt backlash from the studio’s executives. They would be far too worried about being sued by everyone involved to risk inviting further repercussions by harassing her.
Ask any lawyer; they say you should sue everyone and see what money shakes out. The studio had much deeper pockets than Zander did. If Zander and the security people were convicted of anything, I would bet that civil suits would soon follow.
Lexi talked next and described what she had seen. Then I spent a few minutes adding my perspective. Next, it was Rita’s turn. She went into full mama-bear mode and let the world know what she thought of what had happened. You had to remember that her son had survived a terrorist attack this last summer, and now her daughter could have died from an attack by her costar.
When she was done, the press found its footing and was back to normal.
“Halle! Did you ever report Zander’s misconduct to anyone associated with the film?”
