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The man behind the man—the second one is from my dreams, not the first, who is from my nightmares—aims his gun too, like I need another pointing my way. But where the world moves in slow motion, his hand moves at lightning-fast speed. The muzzle of his weapon arcs past me and stops instead against the first’s temple. But where I guess I thought maybe it would be a “drop your gun and step away from the girl” kind of threat, he pulls the trigger instead.
Like a vacuum seal, his weapon’s discharge sucks the air from the room. From my lungs. Blood and brains and all of the things I can adequately label when I’m at school, spray across the side of my couch and splatter against the wall. Droplets coat my television, but Miranda’s face no longer waits to be used as a canvas.
“Let’s go.” Time catches up and my body screams as Golden-Tooth falls one way, and the man whose name I can’t recall scoops me the other way. He grabs me under the arm with his free hand and yanks me up so my legs scream and my head swims, then he shoves my crutch against my body so it almost feels like he’s a pro baseball player taking a swing. “Malone!” He brings his gun up again and shoots off another round as the real Archer Malone spins on his heels and the man aiming his gun at him falls.
Men drop the way rain does on a sweet summer evening. Guns blaze, bullets booming from their weapons and sprinting along barrels to pierce human skin.
I twist away from my new captor’s hold. I have no clue why. I can’t help those who’ve fallen, and even if I could, I’m not sure I should. They came here to hurt me. They came to end my life. And yet, my ”I’m a people pleaser” trauma rears up to take a second swing at getting me killed.
“I need my phone!” I catch sight of the small, silver device lying on my kitchen floor. And beside it, my open laptop. But the man holding me doesn’t give me time to go back. His fingers bruise my skin, and his steps are much too fast for my unhealed leg.
But when I fall, he holds on tighter. When I stumble, his hand holds me up.
When we burst into the night outside, eyes watch us, neighbors come out to see what’s all the fuss, a car screeches to a stop on the sidewalk and the door swings open before my brain has a chance to catch up.
The man in charge of my life, and death, shoves me into the back seat. My crutch is unforgiving under my body and the screws in the side stab my belly as he continues to push me in.
I don’t know about the other cops. I don’t know if they followed us out. Or if they lived or died. I don’t know about my home. If it’s left open to looters, my phone and laptop are literally the only valuables I own. I don’t know anything.
I just know this man, who probably doesn’t stand at ten-feet-tall, follows me into the back seat, slams the door, and barks, “go” a mere second before the car is moving and the nausea I thought I’d swallowed down ten minutes ago comes bursting out to make a bad situation so much worse.
Vomit fills my hands. My shirt. It fills the gap between my seat and the one the driver sits on, and when we race around a corner and my head raps against the window with a thud, more vomit covers my jeans.
Good one, Judy. I really appreciate that final touch.
Drake
HOW SAFE IS A SAFE HOUSE?
“You fucked up Banks!” Malone charges through the door of a hotel down on West Thirty-Third with rage in his eyes and his gun in his hand. I’ve rented a two-bedroom place that has no connection to me, none to Rory, and none to any of Vallejo’s people. Temporarily, at least, until we can catch our breath and figure out where the fuck to go next. “You don’t get to kill a man in cold blood and expect to keep your badge, dumbass.”
“He was a direct threat.” Unconcerned, I turn on my heels and head toward the kitchenette built into the room and yank the small fridge open to peruse their mini bar options. Six-dollar candy bars. Nine-dollar Pepsi cans. Bags of potato chips, and tiny creamers for when I want to make a coffee. I cast a fast glance toward the bedroom I’ve placed Rory in to sleep off her shock, but I don’t approach the door. I don’t show the cops where I’ve put her, though it wouldn’t take a detective more than a second to figure it out. “We went in there to get the girl out,” I murmur. “We got the girl out.”
“You executed a man!” Fletcher growls, setting a phone and laptop on the coffee table in the middle of the room. “Point blank. And you shot another in the back.”
“First one was gonna kill the girl.” I select a Pepsi and close the fridge, turning to lean against the counter as I pop the top of the can open. “Second one was gonna kill Malone. I can’t really see what the issue is.”
“The issue,” Archer snarls, “is that you’re visiting from out of state. You don’t have jurisdiction, you haven’t formally transferred. Now you’ve dropped two men, and both hits look pretty fucking shady to anyone on the outside.”
“So you don’t take issue with me killing a man…” I bring my soda up and take a contemplative sip. “Rather, you’re mad at the method of my kill. Correct?”
“If you’re gonna kill a man in the line,” Fletcher bites out, “you make damn sure you can back it up when IA takes a look. We disarm around here. We wound. We kill, only in self-defense. We don’t execute them.”
I merely shrug and take another drink. “Sounds like you’ve got some paperwork to do then. I shot inyourdefense. Andhers.” I point toward her door, and instantly loathe myself for the mistake as both sets of cop’s eyes follow the direction. “I didn’t do it for shits and giggles, detectives. And if I stood down, we’d have a hell of a lot more paperwork to do when you,” I look into Malone’s eyes, “and our witness, were both rolled out in body bags.”
“We’re gonna have to get the mayor involved.” Fletcher brings a hand up and scrubs it over his face. “For fuck’s sake, we’re gonna need Mayor Lawrence on our side to clean this one up.”
“Politics isn’t really my thing.” I push away from the counter and head toward Rory’s room. Since I’ve already given her away to the other cops anyway. “Talk to whoever you’ve gotta talk to. I’m electing myself her detail in the meantime.” I stop by her door and carefully nudge it open an inch to peek inside. The smell of vomit hits me like a wall. Like curdled cheese and bad milk. But I hold my breath and study the room to find her sound asleep in the middle of the king-sized bed. She sleeps on her back, her legs flat on the mattress. Her jeans, messy with stomach contents and another man’s gray matter.
We’re on the tenth floor of a semi-upscale hotel. There are no fire escapes on the outside of this one, and no way in, not even through the windows. So I brush the cops away with a wave of my hand and stalk into the room to open the windows and allow a little fresh air in. The panes open only three-inches. It’s a safety feature, I figure. So jumpers can’t jump, and burglars can’t get in.
Which is precisely why I chose this hotel to hide out in for a couple of days.
I open them far enough that arctic winter chill sprints in and leaves goosebumps on my skin. But it’s better, I think, than saunaing in the stench of someone else’s death. I cross to the bed and grab a thick blanket from the end, and whipping it open so the breeze kicks the sleeping woman’s hair back, I lay it over her body, knowing I’ll need to send it away for cleaning once she wakes and goes searching for a shower.
Done, I turn away and leave her to sleep. Then, I slip through the door and close it again at my back, despite the detectives who stand entirely too close to me, their eyes, focused on the door like they think they can see through the thick wood.
“Remind me again how you know her.” Unimpressed, Archer turns on his heels and makes himself at home, taking a can from my fridge and popping the seal. “You know the witness, and you know Vallejo. Sounds kinda fishy to me.”
