“You’ll be coming with us.” The near one says it warm, easy.
Grace doesn’t answer. Her hands come up an inch from her sides.
“No sense in fighting it.” He steps in, unhurried. “Some of them run. Costs everybody more time than it’s worth.” A glance past her at his partner, then back. “You’re not going to make us do this the hard way, are you, Grace?”
Her voice comes out thin, but steadier than most would manage in her position. “Do what?”
“You knew this was coming the second that line went quiet.” He says it gently, and the gentleness is the threat.
“I don’t know what you mean. I have valuable information.”
I exhale slowly, because this is why I came here. The proof I was waiting to find. But there’s more to this story.
“Actually, you don’t.” He shakes his head. “You’re a loose thread. Nobody keeps a thread hanging once it stops being useful.”
“I’m not a thread.”
“No.” His tone doesn’t change at all. “You’re a liability. Different word. Same outcome.” His hand drifts toward the inside of his jacket, no urgency in it. “Nothing personal. You’d do the same, in our shoes.”
She’s in this to her neck, no doubt about it. But she’s not the leak I came here to catch. She’s the loose end they’re cutting before it can talk.
Grace’s whole body locks the way something locks when it’s run out of directions to run. I know that stillness. I’ve watched it in things I’ve cornered myself, and it’s never meant surrender. It means something’s about to happen. And it’s not going to be good.
“Wait.” Her voice cracks around it. “I can still—”
She doesn’t finish.
I’m already through the gap.
Four strides, and the near one doesn’t hear me until the fifth, which is one too late for him. His hand’s still inside his jacket when I take his wrist and turn it a direction it isn’t built to go. Something gives under my grip. He folds onto the gravel with a short strangled sound, and the gun he never got clear of his coat skids off somewhere I don’t waste time tracking. A crack to the back of his head has his eyes rolling back.
Grace flinches at the sound of him going down, and flinches at me a half-second later. Like I’ve just become the bigger problem in the lane.
The second one’s already moving.
He’s better than the first. Gets a shoulder into me before I’ve finished turning, and a short hard punch lands under my ribs that costs me a breath I don’t have time to spend getting back. I take it, plant my feet, and put my forearm across his jaw hard enough to feel the hinge of it shift. He staggers and doesn’t drop, comes back in low for my legs, and I catch him coming up with a knee that folds him clean over it. He goes down retching. I set a boot on the hand still working toward his coat and feel the small bones give under my weight. A kick to his temple puts his lights out.
Two down. My ribs are already stiffening on the left. Worth it.
I turn for her.
She’s not where she was.
Goddammit.
She’s running. Away from all of it. Away from me most of all. Cutting for the gap on her side of the lane with terror written all over her.
“Grace.” I don’t chase her yet. “I’m here to help.”
That surprises me, because it’s not why I came.
She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look back to check if it’s true.
That’s when I hear the engine.
Close. A vehicle taking the corner off Main too fast for a town this size. And under it, doors: one, two, three, maybe a fourth still climbing out.
Fuck.
