Known Threat

by Kara A. McLeod

  We rolled over and over together as a twisted mess of arms and legs forever before I was finally flung free. It took a second before the world righted itself and I was able to see straight. My vision was foggy from banging my head against the ground as I fell, and I shook it to clear it as I attempted to get a bead on Walker.

  He appeared just as stunned as I was, and he took a moment to just lie on the ground. Then he pushed himself up onto one elbow and took stock of the situation. His eyes fell on Rory first, and he started to go after her as she fled. He got only as far as one knee before I tackled him again, only this time I landed squarely on top of him and stayed there.

  My heart was working overtime, and my movements were quick and jerky with the panic I felt. Just like the last time I’d had Walker on the ground on his back, I scrambled to turn myself so I was kneeling by his head in order to grab his arm in an arm bar, effectively ending the tussle before it even began. Unlike the last time, it didn’t work.

  Walker recovered from his surprise more quickly than I’d anticipated, and before I had a chance to move, he snagged the back of my T-shirt just under my neck in his big, meaty fist and pinned me to his chest. With his other hand, he hauled off and decked me across the mouth. The pain was immediate, and I saw stars.

  My own words to Hurricane about not letting Walker get his hands on her echoed in my mind. The irony of my own situation wasn’t lost on me. I drove my knee hard into Walker’s stomach, and he let out a soft “oof” and yanked on my shirt. I went with the momentum and rolled off him and onto the ground.

  I turned my head in the general direction of where I thought I’d last seen Rory, but she was nowhere near. My relief was short lived, however. I barely had a second for it to register that she was out of the way before Walker was on top of me, plopping himself down to straddle my stomach and knocking the air from my lungs.

  The weight of him pinning me down sparked a sharp feeling of alarm, and I started to struggle. I bucked my hips the way we were taught in training, but he didn’t budge. He didn’t even appear to register my attempts to free myself. His eyes were crazed and furious, and my alarm morphed into terror. I wouldn’t be able to reason with him. Not this time.

  Walker’s eyes went wide as it finally dawned on him who he was straddling. Unfortunately for me, his surprise was fleeting. He pulled his lips back from his teeth in a snarl, and he lunged and reached out to wrap his gigantic hands around my throat. I struggled and wiggled and fought to keep him from establishing a good grip as my mind attempted to recall how long I’d have before unconsciousness should he actually get one. I couldn’t remember the exact time I’d been cited, but I knew it wouldn’t be long. My flailing only delayed the inevitable, and after a bit he wrapped his fingers around my throat and squeezed.

  I clawed at his hands with my own but couldn’t break his grip. I could see his mouth moving, see that he was screaming something, but the words weren’t reaching my brain. I couldn’t hear much of anything over the thud of my own heart or the sound of my mind screeching at me to get him the hell off. I opened my mouth wide, but no air was coming in or out.

  My vision started to go fuzzy, and the edges of my awareness were dark. Frantically, I punched at the inside of Walker’s elbow in an attempt to get him to break his grip. But my limited range of motion didn’t allow me the space I needed to build up any kind of real force behind the blow. I was basically just smacking his arm, and he reacted to that the same way he’d reacted to my lame attempts to buck him off me, which is to say not at all.

  Desperate now, I tried to reach up toward his face, but the angle at which he was sitting and the position of his arms made it so I couldn’t quite reach. Not enough to do any kind of real damage, anyway. I’d been hoping to be able to jam my thumb into his eye socket but had to settle for jabbing ineffectually at his chin with the heel of my hand. I considered trying to fishhook him, but he kept moving his head, and I couldn’t get a good hold, but all of my struggling seemed to make it impossible for him to keep his grip quite tight enough to make me pass out, so that was something.

  Nope. My mistake. I’d thought that too soon. No sooner had the notion flitted through my thoughts then Walker’s grip on my throat tightened even more—which I wouldn’t have thought possible—and I began slipping out of consciousness. My legs flailed as I tried to knee him in the back or kick him in the back of the head, but either I simply didn’t have the energy to put into the motion or he was too far gone into his rage for it to have any kind of effect on him. Probably a little of both.

  In a last attempt to distract him from his clear intent to choke the life out of me, I worked my hand between our bodies. When I felt his inner thigh, I curled my fingers and grabbed as big a chunk of skin as tightly as I could. Then I twisted. Hard.

  Walker let out a bellow of pain and loosened his death grip on my throat. He nearly released it altogether when I followed that up with a sharp jab to the nuts. I sucked in a huge lungful of air and sat up as much as I was able. I wrapped my hands around his head and got a good grasp on his hair. Then I jerked him toward me at the same time I surged forward. My forehead met his nose with a sickening crunch that I felt more than heard, and he roared again. I head-butted him a couple more times, deriving a sick sort of pleasure from the wet cracking sound that resulted.

  My limbs felt like they weighed a ton, and I was having a hard time getting them to do what I wanted. They seemed to belong to someone else, and that someone was reluctant to follow any of my commands. The adrenaline that’d fueled me to this point had waned. I panted heavily, and my grip on Walker’s hair slackened.

  Walker wrapped one hand back around my throat and slammed me back into the ground, but he seemed more intent on holding me in place than throttling me. I started trying to pull my T-shirt up so I could get my gun, but his knee was keeping my shirt trapped and pressing the gun hard into my hip. He adjusted so his forearm was against my throat and leaned a little to one side.

  The new position still made it tough to breathe, though not quite as tough as before, but it also allowed me to reach his face, and I resumed trying to jab my thumb into his eye socket. Walker growled and ducked so his temple was resting against my chin and his eyes were effectively out of my reach. I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled. I could feel Walker flailing his free arm around out to his side. He was likely looking for the knife he’d dropped earlier, and the blood in my veins turned to ice.

  Holy fuck.

  A new surge of adrenaline flooded me, and my panic increased. Determined to end this, preferably before I felt the sharp pain of cold steel as it slipped between my ribs, I yanked on his hair again as hard as I could. He had no choice but to lift his head. It was only a couple of inches, but that was all I needed.

  I wedged my other hand in between us and braced the edge of my fist against his jaw. Then I used both of my hands to twist as hard and as fast as I could. I felt a series of pops right on top of one another that reminded me of what happened when I wrung bubble wrap between my hands. And then Walker collapsed heavily down on me.

  Still caught in my terror, I didn’t trust his sudden stillness. He could’ve been playing possum. I wrenched his head back and forth as violently as I could, twisting a few more times for good measure. The action failed to produce any response from him, and I let out a huge sigh of relief, collapsing like a marionette whose strings had just been cut and lying in a heap on the ground. I gasped, unable to hear the sounds of my own breathing over the ringing in my ears.

  I’m sure I could have had a million more appropriate thoughts, but all my poor, oxygen-deprived brain could come up with was, Thank God.

  That summed things up well enough.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I lay still beneath Walker’s unmoving body, staring up at the sky as I struggled to breathe. He was ridiculously heavy, and I was having a tough time making my chest rise. Each scant breath of precious air I managed to draw burned worse than the last. I coughed, wincin
g against the pain in my throat.

  I sighed again and gave in to the temptation to close my eyes. My body ached in places I didn’t know I had, and the mere idea of moving ever again was too much for me. I didn’t have it in me to fight anymore: not to be out from under Walker, not to breathe, not to do anything. The adrenaline I’d been running on had finally vanished, leaving me weak and trembling.

  I turned my head to the side, away from where Walker’s forehead rested against my neck, and relished the prickling sensation the individual blades of grass made against my cheek. I sighed once more and allowed myself to drift. Down, down, down. Like a feather gently gliding to the ground. Away from the world. Away from everything.

  “Oh, no, no, no. Ryan, come on, baby. Stay with me.” Allison’s voice floated to me as if from a great distance, and I wanted to smile. I may have, for all I knew. I couldn’t exactly tell. I was so far removed from my body. I felt gentle hands caressing my face, brushing the hair back off my forehead.

  More noise buzzed around me, but I noted it only dimly. Voices, many of them sounding alarmed, tickled the edges of my awareness. I wanted to tell them to relax, but that would’ve taken too much effort.

  Crack!

  I heard the sound of the slap more than I felt it, and my eyes shot open before I even had a chance to fully register what’d just happened. My cheek burned, and I lifted my free hand to it. It was hot to the touch.

  “What the hell?”

  Allison was staring down at me with wild eyes. “Ryan? Oh, thank God.”

  “Did you just hit me?” I couldn’t believe it.

  The fear in her gaze ebbed, and she rolled her eyes at me. “That’s what you get for falling asleep on the job. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

  I frowned at her, momentarily confused as to what job she was talking about or why I might’ve been lying on the ground. My thoughts were sluggish and slow and disjointed. I licked my dry, cracked lips and winced at the sharp stab of pain the prodding of my tongue produced. My frown deepened as I tasted blood. I could hear other voices around me again, but the exact words weren’t penetrating my awareness.

  A collective grunt caught my attention, and I inhaled long and deep as the oppressive weight crushing me was finally lifted. Being able to breathe freely felt so good I nearly cried. I lay gasping on the ground for a bit, enjoying the sensation of not being squashed as I ignored everything and everyone around me.

  After several long minutes, I rolled over onto my stomach and clambered to my hands and knees. My limbs were rubbery and heavy, and they didn’t feel connected to me. I hung my head, startled to see bright red drops of blood appear on the backs of my hands. Funny. Where did that come from? I don’t feel injured. At least not the kind of injury that would result in bleeding. Weird.

  “Ryan?” Allison’s voice was soft near my ear. She was rubbing gentle circles on my back.

  I closed my eyes again and relished her touch, wondering at the faint sensation of déjà vu it invoked. I spat a few times, trying to get the taste of blood out of my mouth, and made a face upon realizing that hadn’t done anything to help. I grappled with my sluggish thoughts in an effort to make sense of where I was and what I’d been doing. I’d been struggling with that a lot lately. I didn’t think that was a good thing.

  Let’s see. I’m on my knees in the grass. I’m tasting blood. I’m shaking, and I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. Aha!

  “Hmmm? Did I win?” I mumbled.

  “Did you win what, sweetheart?”

  I thought she sounded alarmed, and I tilted my head to the side so I could regard her with one eye. Had that not been the right question? I couldn’t be sure. “The race.”

  Allison’s expression now was pure panic, and she twisted to look at someone over my shoulder. I turned my head and tried to follow her gaze but ended up so dizzy I tumbled down again. The fall seemed to take forever, which was odd considering I wasn’t all that far off the ground.

  I sprawled on my side for a moment, waiting for the vertigo to pass. I sniffled and ran the back of one hand across my nose, wrinkling it in disgust when I saw the crimson smear marring my normally pale skin. I rolled onto my back and allowed my head to loll to the other side. For several heartbeats, I stared blankly at the blond-haired woman curled up in a tight ball not twenty yards from me being fussed over by a whole bunch of people.

  My brain stalled. Nothing about this situation made any sense. I fought through the gray-matter sludge to put the pieces together so I could assign some meaning or purpose to the scene, but nothing was coming.

  Until the woman lifted her head, until her eyes caught mine. Then, as the anguish and despair I saw there threatened to drown me, my mind caught, and time resumed its normal rate of passage. I suddenly knew exactly where I was and what’d happened. Having reality slam me that abruptly was painful.

  “Rory!” My voice was hoarse, and I hissed at the pain my shout evoked. Trying to ignore it, I rolled back up to my hands and knees and scrambled across the meadow to my big sister.

  Rory stared at me for a long moment with wide, frightened eyes before bursting into hysterical tears. I pulled her tight and cradled her head to my chest. Closing my eyes, I rocked her gently, murmuring to her that I was sorry, that she would be okay, that I had her now, and I’d never let anything happen to her ever again. She only cried harder and squeezed me so tight, she almost cracked my ribs.

  We sat tangled up with one another for so long my feet fell asleep and my thighs and back began screaming at me to move. I ignored them. The pins and needles were unpleasant, but I gladly paid the small price for the knowledge and reassurance that Rory was safe.

  Someone draped a cotton blanket over my shoulders and wrapped it around both Rory and me with great care. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that Allison was responsible. The whisper-soft kiss pressed to the top of my head confirmed it, and I smiled.

  “I’m going to get you some water,” she murmured in my ear. “I’ll be right back.”

  I nodded as I tried to shift my stance, to get my legs out from under me so they could splay out on the ground beside me, but I only jostled Rory from her position tucked against me. When she pulled back to let me adjust, I caught sight of the blood on her face and in her hair, and I gasped.

  “Oh, my God, Rory. Are you hurt?” I lifted the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her shoulders to the vicinity of her face. I wanted to touch her, to see where she was bleeding from, but I was afraid of hurting her even more. “Did you hit your head?”

  Rory’s sea-foam-green eyes were as wide as monster truck tires as she stared at me, her expression one of horror. Her tears began anew as she covered her mouth with her hand and moaned, sounding despondent. She pulled the blanket off her shoulders and gently blotted my face.

  “Not me. You,” she whispered, her voice sounding more hoarse than I’d expected.

  I wiped the pad of my thumb across the stain on her temple, relieved to discover it came off without revealing a wound underneath. I let out a shaky breath and tried to smile. Now that she’d pointed it out, I realized she hadn’t had any blood on her when I’d first taken her into my arms. I felt terrible for getting her dirty.

  “Ryan, you need a doctor,” Rory said softly.

  “Nah. I’m good.” I still felt punch-drunk but figured that some time and a plate of hot wings would cure me.

  “No. You’re not. You’re covered in blood.”

  “I am?” I looked down at myself. The front of my shirt was stained a dark, sickening scarlet color. “Oh. Well, that sucks.”

  I untangled myself from Rory’s koala-bear-like grasp to remove the soiled garment and winced as I pulled it up over my head and felt the slide of the sticky, wet cloth against my skin. I probably would’ve just done better to cut it off but couldn’t do anything about that now.

  I glanced down at the front of my vest. Some of the blood had soaked through and stained my vest carrier as well. My mind flashed back to the
race and how I’d been reluctant to remove my shirt for fear of having all my scars on display. Strange how my perspective could change so drastically and so quickly. I undid the Velcro straps in order to get it off me. Seemed showing my scars was preferable to keeping them covered by a dirty vest. That was good to know.

  Once I was free of all blood-stained clothing, I started probing my forehead, my cheeks, my nose, wherever I could have been wounded seriously enough to produce that much blood. Aside from the slight sting of the scrape I’d earned the other day, the pain of a split lower lip, and the ache of some assorted cuts on the inside of my cheek and my bitten tongue, I couldn’t find any wounds anywhere.

  “I don’t think any of it’s mine,” I told Rory.

  A figure loomed over us, standing far too close for comfort. “Agent O’Connor.”

  I craned my head around over my shoulder and tilted my face up so I could look at the man who’d just addressed me. He wore the crisp white shirt of the NYPD brass, his eyes as cold as the glints reflecting off the double gold bars decorating his collar. I didn’t recognize him, so he hadn’t been at the briefing earlier, which made sense, seeing as how we were now in a different borough.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Captain Urbina. I’d like to take your statement now.” He held out a hand to help me up. “If you’ll come with me, please.”

  I ignored the hand. “My statement?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Your statement. We have a dead body. I need to hear from you how he got that way.”

  I gaped at him for a long moment, waiting for the punch line. The haughty expression on his face as he stared at me clued me in on the fact that there wasn’t one. Was he freaking kidding me? I was sitting here covered in blood holding a traumatized woman in my arms, and he wanted to take my statement? He was out of his damn mind. I’d just opened my mouth to tell him so when somebody else came to my rescue.