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“Sounds awful.”
“Tell me where he is, and I’ll let you walk away.”
“Glendale Avenue,” I say. “Forest Lawn Memorial. That’s where you can find Fox — his empty box, anyway. There wasn’t much left of him to ship back home.”
She reaches behind her, obviously to rest her hand on the weapon she’s got stashed in her belt. “You’re not doing yourself any favors protecting him, Caleb.”
I brace my toes, ready to move. “Feels pretty good, though, Lilah.”
Her white teeth drag across her bottom lip. “You know, I’m curious. Just between us girls...” Her brow crinkles. “Why Carson? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you could seriously do better.”
“Boxcar.”
“What?”
“His name is Boxcar,” I say. “And you picked the wrong morning to mess with me, Gidget.”
Her bicep flexes. I quickly snatch her shoulder and force her down against the glass but she’s much faster than that brutish man from last night. Lilah twists out of my grasp and draws her pistol to point it at my face.
I dodge behind the counter, reaching beneath it to grab the baseball bat hidden out of sight as two silenced bullets strike the wall behind me, followed closely by another that shatters the glass counter and pierces the floor near my head.
I swing the bat, striking her outstretched hand before she can pull of another shot. It connects with her knuckles and she growls in pain as the pistol flings across the room.
Instead of charging after it, Lilah leaps over the busted counter, swinging her trained feet in front of her to kick me hard in the chest. I fall off-balance and she plants herself between me and my back room.
I keep a white-knuckle grip on my bat as she charges forward and lands a solid punch against my jaw. Pain radiates through my face. It’s the first time I’ve felt pain like this in years and it instantly ignites all adrenaline in my body.
This fucking bitch is going down.
Lilah pulls back her arm, preparing for a second, even harder, punch. As time slows down, I wait for the perfect moment to block her attack. I grab her wrist out of the air with one hand. I drop the bat from the other and wrap my fingers around her little neck.
Surprise flashes in her eyes. She lets me shove her backward against a shelf. A set of novelty mugs tumble and shatter to pieces on the floor beneath us. She raises her knee and bashes it against my ribs. I keep my composure until she juts forward and hits me in the nose with a firm head-butt.
My grip loosens. She slips out of it and delivers a hard backhand against my cheek. I wobble again but scoop the baseball bat off the floor as I move.
Lilah raises her hands to block my swing but misses. The bat’s tip connects against her right eye. Her body twists and she falls to the linoleum, hopefully blinded by pain and white lights dancing along her vision.
I step forward and kick her hard in the torso, knocking the wind out of her lungs. She wheezes for air as she tries to claw her way out of my reach.
I raise the bat, ready to bring it down on her when a strong hand grips the back of my neck, followed closely by a sharp stab deep in the flesh above my collarbone. I spin around to see a man standing behind me with a depressed syringe held in his surgical-gloved hand.
It hits me quickly. I lose all feeling in my shoulders, all the way down to my fingers and toes. The man wraps his arm behind me and another beneath my legs to raise me up as gravity descends on me. I try to hold on, but I can’t keep the numbness from invading. Paralysis takes over.
I close my eyes, expecting to lose consciousness, but my mind stays alert.
The man sighs at Lilah. “Quit fooling around,” he says, his voice echoing through my ears. “You said you had this covered.”
Lilah lurches off the floor. “I had it under control,” she argues, tapping the fresh bruise taking over her face around her right eye. She winces as she pushes against it and fires an angry look at me.
“Apparently not,” he says, jolting me up to get a better hold on me.
I try to roll free of him, but I can’t move a muscle. Everything feels rock-solid and cold. My brain is still warm and lucid.
I’m trapped in my own body.
“You,” I say.
Lilah flinches in surprise. “I thought you knocked her out.”
