I nodded, my brain starting to work over his words slowly, to make sense of them.
The logic there forced everything back into straight lines, gave me something to hold on to, even if it still felt like everything inside me moved crazily slow.
Next to me, I heard Dex swear.
“Why?” he burst out. His fingers gripped my arm harder, fear reaching me through his skin and then my own. Fear for me. “Why, boss? That’s fucking insane!”
He’ll find Dex and Kiko through you, Black said to me, as if he wasn’t talking to Dex through the headset only a few feet away. Trust me on this...you need to get away from them, Miri. Now. He’s already breaking through my shield. Can you do that? Can you go on your own? I need you to hurry...
Yes, I sent, the thought almost a whisper.
You can’t go through the front door. I need you to go through the parking lot...below the hotel. Are you hearing me? Are you ready, Miri? I need you to go to the elevators now. Take the fourth elevator. Number four, okay? Take the gun and the money and go. Go now.
Yes, I sent, my voice sounding like it came from really far away. Yes. I’m ready.
I DON’T THINK I’d ever been so completely out of my head with fear, confusion and panic in my life. This was nothing like the war. It was nothing like working with the police, or even being in a firefight...or even worrying about being hit by an IED or a sniper. There was something so completely different about this, so much more personal about this...I couldn’t even try to articulate those differences in my head.
I could feel Black still, but not as strongly as before.
I could also feel Solonik.
Solonik talked to me, nonstop...pretty much the instant he broke through Black’s wall.
He talked calmly at first, reassuringly, trying to “reason” with me maybe. He promised me that everything would be okay, that he’d found a better place for us, that there’d be no more ropes, no more bad food and living underground. He promised to buy me things, nice clothes...human servants...cars...expensive jewelry. He promised everything would be different if I would just come back and stop this “childishness.”
The fact that he talked to me affectionately, coaxingly, almost lovingly, terrified me more than I think anything has ever terrified me in my life. I got the sense of someone coaxing a small animal into a trap, like if he just offered the right bait I’d walk right up to him willingly.
When I didn’t do that, he got annoyed.
You giving your cunt to Black now, ilya? He get his thorn into you?
I stared down at the carpeted floor of the elevator car, trying desperately not to see the numbers counting down in my head.
I bet he can’t wait for this, yes? I bet as soon as you run back to him like a slut in heat, he took you...didn’t he? He probably fucked you as soon as you walked through his door...
I tried to force him out.
I tried not to look at where I was, or think about where I was going, like Black said, but I could feel Solonik getting snapshots of that too, here and there. He wove his way into my head, coaxed me to look at things, prodding and pushing my mind and eyes for any hint of where I was, what direction I was walking. It was so subtle and smooth it terrified me. I could feel he wanted me afraid too...he taunted me with those snapshots, letting me know how easily he could see into my mind. How futile it was to run from him.
You in the parking structure now, lover? You want to fuck in a car? Or you just making it easy for me to leave there with you? I appreciate that. I appreciate how thoughtful you are, ilya...I do...I am anxious to taste my chocolate again...
I moved faster, gritting my teeth as I jammed the Glock-17 Kiko had given me in the back of my dark green pants, pulling the white dress shirt over the handle as I jogged faster. I couldn’t afford to get stopped by Thai police if they saw the gun...or hotel security.
As soon as I did it, I could feel Solonik again.
You have a gun, ilya? You going to use that little gun on me, my love?
I got snapshots from his mind, too, here and there.
I saw him riding in the elevator down to the parking structure. His gun out as he scanned the shadows between cars, following me towards the driveway up to the street. I felt him looking at street corners, at houses, trying to reconcile what he saw with what he felt off me.
The connection will go both ways, Miri, Black murmured softly in my mind. Always, Miri. It always goes both ways...use that if you have to...just know if you do, he’ll feel you too...
You leave my woman alone, you little dirt-blood fuck. I’m going to cut off your hirik...make you watch her come for me while you bleed out on the floor...
I felt a thick fury coil off Black, but he remained focused on me.
Miri, don’t listen to him. I’m coming. I’ll be there soon...
Yeah, you come, pup, Solonik jeered. You come here, so we finish this thing, you and me. I don’t like you putting this shit in my ilya’s head...confusing her...
You should have let us settle this alone, Black sent back, his voice cold inside my head. You should have held to your end of the deal, Solonik. I’m not going to be as nice now. I’ve already put a call in to your boss...
So what...? What do I care about this? Solonik sent back. I saw him wave off Black’s words, dismissive. You think he won’t forgive me for this? You think you scare me, you little cocksucking rat? I am done playing with you. You want to live, you let her go. I won’t bother you, if you let her go now. You are too young for a female, anyway. Wait a few years, we make a new girl for you to play with, when you’re old enough to know what to do with one...
I fought to block both of them out.
I didn’t realize I was biting my tongue again until I tasted blood.
Sliding into an alley between buildings once I got past the long driveway of the hotel, I started to run, all-out, thankful I’d put on tennis shoes that morning, even though my feet already hurt like hell. As I rounded a corner and tore down a smaller winding lane between houses, I elicited stares from curious neighbors as they sat on stoops and in the gaps of iron-gated storefronts. As they watched me sprint past, I fought not to look at any of them, or to look at my surroundings much. I still caught things here and there––bamboo bird cages hanging outside and laundry machines and fruit stands and wind chimes, satellite dishes and drying shirts and a small dog yapping at me as I passed his house.
Within a few more twists and turns inside the maze of alleys, my toe hurt so much from slamming up against the front of my shoe that I almost couldn’t think straight.
A few minutes later, my running had ripped open my stitches.
When I looked down at my feet (which I did a lot, to avoid looking at anything else), blood seeped visibly through the yellow canvas on the top of my shoe.
I rounded a few more corners, hit a dead end with a shrine and skidded to a stop, then back-tracked, changed direction and began to run again.
That time, I popped out on a main street, at least six lanes.
I threw myself out into traffic, dodging cars as horns from tuk-tuks and taxis and other cars exploded around me. A beat-up red bus filled to the brim with Thai men and women in uniforms came to a grinding stop a few feet from where I ran, the driver laying on the horn as he yelled at me. I didn’t even give him a glance.
It only occurred to me after I was past that maybe I should have tried to get on.
No, he’s too close, Black warned. Don’t get on a bus right now, Miri...
I was most of the way across the six lane road when a different voice rose gleefully in my head, along with a heated plume I felt in the middle of my chest.
I see you, lovely...I see you...gaos, you are beautiful...
My eyes jerked back, but only briefly.
I turned to run, then blanked as Solonik threw me a snapshot from his mind.
I saw myself, through his eyes. Six lanes of cars stood between us, but he was close. He was way, way too close. He’d just reached the
opposite side of the road, where I’d crossed.
I didn’t think but darted into an alley filled with food kiosks and fruit stands and fish carts.
The crowd was thicker here. I wove between people as I ran, trying to remember where the nearest entrance to the Skytrain or the underground subway lived. Unable to put the pieces together in my head, I let it go, aiming for another larger road I could see on the other side of this snaking maze of alleys.
I passed an open, darker space under the eaves of one of the buildings and darted inside, into what turned out to be a football stadium-sized market on the ground floor, filled with raw fish and pastries and nuts, along with rows and rows of vegetables and fruit and eggs and meat and flowers. It was dark inside, tinted green from plastic window coverings and I slammed into a table covered with mangos and got yelled at again, along with what felt like a bruise on my thigh. My vision whited-out again from pain, but in seconds I managed to recover my balance and build my forward momentum back into a sprint.
I burst out in another alley, hung a right and ran again.
I felt Black briefly, but couldn’t make sense of what I felt.
He was there and gone, and I stumbled again when I ran into a group of people rounding another narrow corner, dodged a motorbike with three people on it, wove around another string of umbrella-covered food kiosks and metal tables, and landed in the middle of another crowd of shoppers. I wound through the clusters of browsers as best I could until I broke free again and immediately began sprinting faster.
My lungs hurt. My foot felt like a hunk of raw meat at the end of my leg.
I could feel Solonik closing on me.
I tried to decide if I should pull out the gun, wait behind the next building and just open fire when he got into range.
But he would feel me waiting there, I realized.
How did you surprise someone when they could live inside your mind?
Pedestrians filled the road on either side, so the chances of hitting one of them was good, even if I didn’t think Solonik would be expecting me. All of that ran through my mind as I sprinted down another alley, so when I burst out of that opening, I barely hesitated before I began to run for another crowded-looking main road.
I had to forget about trying to get the drop on him like that.
I had to remember this wasn’t an even playing field. Solonik would feel me coming. Solonik would be a better shot than me.
Solonik already knew I had the gun.
When I reached the end of that stretch of sidewalk, I hit an intersection so large I skidded to a stop, crying out from the pain in my foot when I did. Four different main roads crossed there, filled with fast-moving traffic of every kind of vehicle imaginable. The Skytrain rumbled overhead, the overpass darkening the intersection even as I fought to make a decision.
On the other side of that main road that was a park.
The underground train lived over there. I remembered that from Black’s maps.
The train, and the overpass connected it to the Skytrain.
Feeling another whisper of Solonik and realizing he could see me again––as in my actual, physical person, with his physical eyes––I didn’t let myself think.
I plunged out into that heavy traffic.
That time, a motorcycle clipped my elbow, making me cry out and spinning me half-around. Cars screeched to a halt. I heard glass shatter and a heavy thud of impacts as a truck and a smaller vehicle collided behind me. Tuk-tuks and fast-moving motorcycles and mopeds careened around me like fish avoiding a rock in a stream, but I just ran, fighting not to think as larger cars and other vehicles swerved to avoid me.
In my head, Solonik was laughing.
My brave, brave, ilya... he whispered. You are a goddess...a fucking goddess...I feel so much love for you right now...
I tried to force him out of my mind as I sprinted faster.
You only make me want to catch you that much more...
I barely noticed when I made it to the other side, but I could feel Solonik already following me. When I glanced back, I saw cars screech to a stop feet away from him. I saw him holding up a hand, felt him doing something with his mind to get them to stop, one by one, until a line of cars stood in the middle of the road, creating a safe passageway for him.
He didn’t even bother to run, but jogged across like a loping wolf, holding his gun down by this thigh in his other hand.
Despair hit me when I saw him hold up a hand to stop a motorcyclist.
Before I even saw the flame-red Ducati skid to a stop, before I saw Solonik motion the rider off the seat with a sharp flick of his hand holding the gun, I knew what he intended.
He was going to come after me on the motorcycle.
He’d catch me in minutes, if he did.
Without thinking, I turned, pulling the gun from the back of my belt.
I disengaged the safety with two sharp squeezes of the trigger then fired off a round, aiming for Solonik’s head. Solonik ducked before I’d even fully squeezed the trigger. The motorcycle’s owner hit the deck, too. I heard screams nearby as the gun discharged, saw Solonik’s eyes widen in surprise when I fired again, right before he ducked behind the motorcycle.
He slid around the back of the bike as I watched, putting the bike’s owner between me and him. I aimed for the tires that time and shot out the front one.
Then I shot out the back one too, just for good measure.
A laugh of delight from Solonik filled my head.
I’m going to fuck you so hard, ilya...so hard. I am falling so in love with you...
Drop dead, you psychotic piece of shit... I snarled back, then immediately regretted it when I felt his delight at my response, right before he sent a plume of liquid heat in my direction.
Not waiting for him to wave down another motorcyclist, I turned and sprinted into the park, aiming for the underground entrance that should lead me into the train station.
I still couldn’t decide if that would be a good idea though.
Now that I’d reached the park itself, I found myself wondering if this whole plan might be a huge mistake. The traffic slowed him down at least, even if it didn’t exactly give me much of a lead. If I got stuck trying to buy tickets in the train station––or worse, getting stopped by security because Solonik got in their heads or because I’d tried to jump the pay-gate, Solonik might have me before I even made it to a train platform.
The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to be trapped underground.
Shifting direction, I began running south once more, heading towards the main road ringing the park itself.
I’d double back and head for the Skytrain.
At least aboveground I’d have options.
I began to wonder if maybe a taxi wouldn’t be a terrible idea after all, when suddenly a white SUV with tinted windows was bearing down on me, driving a dangerous-looking speed over the lawn of the park coming from the east. I watched it weave around a metal statue in the park right before it slammed into a park bench, turning it into kindling.
The engine revved as it hopped the curb. Then, with a crunch of metal and skid of the tires, it slid to a fishtailing stop in front of me.
Relief exploded in my mind.
I already knew who it was, even before he leaned over and shoved open the passenger side door.
“Get in!” Black yelled, gripping the steering wheel with his other hand.
Gunfire lit up around me, hitting the dirt near the line of grass and setting up puffs of dust. I ducked in reflex, although I could already tell he wasn’t aiming at me. Even as I thought it, I heard a plink and a crack as bullets hit the side of the SUV and then one of the bullet-proof windows.
Then Black was leaning out the window, returning fire.
I threw myself into the floor of the shotgun seat as soon as I was close enough and slammed the door shut.
Black was already flooring the gas.
Panting, realizing only then that I had a darting, a
ching stitch in my side and my head was pounding so hard it felt like someone was hitting me with a mallet in the back of the head, I dragged myself up to a seated position until Black barked at me.
“Get down, Miriam. Between the fucking seats! As close to me as possible!”
I didn’t think, I just obeyed.
Crawling over the seat I landed in the space on the floor near the gearshift, and immediately felt a cloud-like...something...envelope me. Realizing Black was shielding me even as I watched him drop an empty clip from his gun to the floor next to me, jamming in a new one with the edge of the steering wheel, I fought to catch my breath.
My foot hurt so bad by then I practically moaned. It felt like someone had stuck a knife under my right toenail and left it there. The heel of my cut foot hurt so bad I couldn’t find a position that made the pain less.
I gripped the side of Black’s seat when it felt like Black hopped another curb. I heard horns blare as he must have thrown the SUV into traffic, and then my stomach lurched as he executed a tight U-turn, bringing another blare of angry horns right before he hit the gas again hard, accelerating as he wove down the street.
Only after we’d been driving for about ten minutes did I look up at him.
Seeing the grim look on his face under the mirrored sunglasses, I watched his hands grip the steering wheel turning us at the next intersection. He had the gun back in a side holster now, but I saw him wince when he cranked the wheel again.
“You got hit.” It wasn’t a question. “How bad?”
“It’s okay,” he said, dismissive.
“It’s a fucking gunshot wound,” I said. “You don’t get to be cavalier about that.”
“I’m fine, Miri.”
“Where? Where did he get you?”
“In the shoulder.” Glancing down at me with a taut smile, he added, “He’s a better shot than I gave him credit for, given that he was coming at us at a dead run. I think he would have killed me if he hadn’t been trying to avoid hitting you.”
Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) Page 20