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CHAPTER 46
D.D.
D.D. HAD BEEN STANDING. SHE remembered that much. She’d been upright, holding her firearm at her left side, with her bruised right arm tight against her torso.
The hallway was dark, but she could hear plenty. A scuffling sound she bet was Bonita, hobbling ahead. Followed by harder, angrier footsteps stalking in her wake.
Then her flashlight had found its target. A huge shadowy figure that looked as wide as a cement truck and as tall as a grizzly bear. A demon—Bonita had been exactly right. Something less man, more beast. D.D. had widened her stance, issued her first warning. Then the monster had turned and charged her.
She’d fired her weapon. A good officer reacts on instinct. But she had no memory of aiming before she was slammed against the hard stone floor, the air leaving her body in a giant whoosh, as the flashlight rolled free, and her firearm... Was she holding it, not holding it?
No time to think before a large serrated blade flashed down toward her chest. She twisted enough to take the first strike in her shoulder, the blade skittering across her bone. Then the knife jerked up, spraying blood, her blood, before preparing for a fresh descent. D.D. brought up her left hand to beat at him, fingers digging for his eyeballs, the soft part of his throat. He was straddling her body, pinning her in place. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
The knife flashed down.
A gun fired. Not D.D.’s but from somewhere behind her. Sheetrock exploded on the wall. The second round sprayed stone chips in her face.
Abruptly, the demon man sprang to his feet. Except he had both hands wrapped around D.D.’s shirt, dragging her up with him as if she were no more than a doll, her feet dangling inches off the floor. He held her directly in front him. A human shield.
“I will kill her first,” the beast whispered in her ear. She knew he meant Bonita. “The way I should have killed her, in the desert years ago. Her mother thought she could get away, as well. But they never do. I always win in the end.”
“This isn’t over yet,” D.D. gritted out. Pain radiated from every line of her body. Her arm, her head, her back, her bloody shoulder.
“You’re right, because when I’m done with her, I’m going to find you again. And your friend, as well.” He jerked his head to whomever stood behind her—Kimberly, Flora, someone who cared.
D.D. tried to open her mouth. She wanted to yell, “Shoot him,” even if it meant the damn bullet had to travel through her body first. Just shoot the beast and put him down like the mad dog he was.
Except then she was flying through the air. The brute had tossed her down the hall, where she slammed into her rescuer and both tumbled to the floor.
“Are you all right?” Kimberly asked breathlessly, trying to untangle from D.D.’s splayed form.
“Thank you for breaking my fall.”
“Jesus, D.D., you’re covered in blood.”
“Knife wound. Shoulder. Mostly bone.”
“What?”
“Shut up. He’s going after Bonita. She’s upstairs, I think. Move!”
“I’ve got him.”
“Not if I get there first.” D.D. heaved herself up, swayed once, then snatched her sidearm off the floor.
Oh yeah, she hurt. But she was pissed off even more. That demon son of a bitch...
Now, she really was going to kill him.
