by Mark Ayre
And Smoker fired.
He had been hiding in the classroom opposite the one on which Abbie had eyes. His bullets shattered windows on both sides of the corridor, sending a downpour of glass shards onto the central aisle's carpet.
Abbie ducked as the bullets came, then spun into the corridor.
Her heavy boots crunching through the littered glass shards, Abbie aimed through the empty window frames and fired two shots.
She'd seen her target at once. Her bullets shattered the exterior windows across the classroom but failed to hit Smoker, who had already slid through one such window and was dropping to the concrete on the other side.
Turning, Abbie burst back outside. Dived to the ground as Smoker span, firing wildly as he made his getaway.
Sitting up, Abbie aimed. Fired. One, two, three times. Again.
But Smoker had bolted away from Abbie and now disappeared around the side of another building. Out of reach.
Gone.
Abbie could give chase, but time was slipping away. Armed response might be a couple of minutes out. Abbie no longer needed the wind's help to hear the sirens.
From the front of the battered grey building, Abbie rushed to Kilman, dropped to his side. Careful not to stain her jeans in the ever-growing pool of blood that surrounded the cop.
"You go," Kilman said. His voice was a rasp. His shirt was so bloodsoaked it was impossible to tell where the bullets had entered. "If I'm alive, when they arrive, I'll tell them this wasn't you." He broke to release a volley of harsh, painful coughs. "Don't think I will be, though."
"No," said Abbie. "Me neither."
Kilman let out a dry, pained chuckle, then broke into another coughing fit. By this point, Abbie couldn't only hear the sirens but also the roaring engines and squealing tyres as the heavy-duty armed response vehicles drew ever nearer.
Kilman was weak. He seemed to be drifting.
"Know why they..." his words faded, his head tilted.
"Kilman?"
With a jolt, he looked back at her.
"Know why they want me dead," he said. "I know."
For a man in his condition, talking was not smart. If Abbie wanted to remain out of jail, Kilman's survival was vital. But she had to know what he wanted to say.
"Why?" she asked.
"No," he said. His eyes closed. He muttered, "Ndidi."
"What about Ndidi?" she asked. "Kilman?"
Another squeal of tyres. By now, the sirens were loud enough to give Abbie a headache. They seemed to tear through the still air, ripping it to shreds with that endless noise. They seemed to be all around her. For all Abbie knew, they might be. Perhaps she was surrounded.
She started to rise. Kilman opened his eyes, grabbed Abbie's wrist.
"I told Ndidi no."
He met her eye. Managed to hold her gaze for a few seconds, nodded, then dropped his head to the concrete.
The detective's eyes closed. Abbie couldn't hear breathing. Checking his pulse, she found it active but erratic. Working too hard to pump what remained of his blood to his vital organs. Soon there wouldn't be enough juice remaining to keep those systems going. The machine that was this human body would give out.
Kilman didn't have much longer.
But there was nothing Abbie could do.
Brakes screeched, tyres squealed, and Abbie knew the armed response units were pulling up outside the school grounds, by the roundabout and the gate where earlier Abbie had teased Gary about a death drone.
Rising from Kilman, she rushed to the lanky teenager, dropped beside him.
"How you doing?" she asked.
His eyes were open, his breathing ragged but under control. Touching his neck, Abbie found his pulse a little weaker than she might have liked but steady. He was losing blood, but the lodged bullets and folded jackets were doing a decent job stemming the flow.
"Hurts," he whispered.
"That's good," said Abbie. She lay gentle fingers on his wrist and, with her other hand, eased the gun free from his grasp. Not that he had much of a grip on the weapon. Too weak. He didn't react when she took the handgun from him, nor when she slid it and the other into her waistband.
"Police will be here any second," she said. "You'll be taken to hospital. I can't make you do anything, but when the cops take your statement, I hope you'll be honest."
At the front of the school, armed response officers were slamming doors, withdrawing guns, arming themselves for a shoot out with a dangerous and homicidal criminal: Abbie. She almost felt flattered they deemed her worthy of such a response.
"I'll tell the truth," said Gary. Like his pulse, the teen's voice was weak but steady. That was a good sign.
"Good luck," she said.
She didn't wait for his answer. She knew the cops were forcing the gate and entering the school grounds as she spoke. Like Abbie, they might be a little cautious passing the many windows of the deserted school buildings. Unlike Abbie, they were wearing body armour and helmets. They had strength in numbers.
They would not proceed with anywhere near as much caution as had she.
Leaving behind her jacket, knowing they would know she had been here with or without that evidence, Abbie jogged to the L-block and rushed along the field side until she was at the building’s mid-point.
She could hear feet. She thought she could hear voices but was maybe imagining it.
Facing the trees, Abbie spied a gap between the tight line of trunks. She suspected, through there, she would find a path.
Earlier, she had rightly considered how someone running across this field would be a sitting duck to any shooters. She had guessed it would take thirty seconds to reach the tree line from the L-Block.
Did she have thirty seconds before the armed response teams appeared?
Time to find out.
Pushing away from the wall, she sprinted towards the trees as though her life depended on it.
Abbie's life probably didn't.
But Isabella's life might.
Twenty-One
Abbie ran. More than a few times in the past, she'd had to sprint for her life or for the life of someone else. When not on a mission, she spent plenty of time practising both short-distance sprints and long-distance endurance running. She was in incredible shape.
Much of Abbie's training outside of missions—shooting, hand-to-hand combat, strength, endurance, fitness—was provided by world-renowned experts and funded by her employers. Only the best for their valuable employee.
All that was about to change.
In twelve seconds, she had halved the distance between the L-Block and the trees. The wind was racing past. She could hear her heart and her breathing in her ears. The world seemed to fade into her determination to cross the field in record time.
If she didn't escape, it might not matter that Ben was due to withdraw the many training perks of Abbie's job. Should the police catch her, she would be restricted to tatty prison gym equipment, possibly a running track. No longer would she need the paycheque on which she had for so long relied.
Also, when the dreams came, and she saw the faces of those who needed her help, and when she could do nothing to save those lives, and when, following her failure, the nightmares came, Abbie would go mad.
She could not face prison.
After 23 seconds, she hit the tree line, burst between two trunks and took a hard right. As she twisted, her feet, which had become used to the solid grass beneath them, slid in pebbles and dirt, and she felt her left foot then her right disappear from beneath her.
Hard, she smacked the ground.
Her reactions were fast. Even as Abbie fell, she raised her hands, palms down, using them to prevent the pebbles decorating her face with craters, scrapes and blood.
Out in the open, sprinting across the grass, Abbie had been caught in a sound chamber. Landing on the pebbled path, lying still, the world seemed at first to be utterly silent. Glancing up, she could see the leaves flutter in the breeze, and there was a bir
d, taking flight. But no sound reached her ears. As though aliens had descended from space and used something that looked and worked a bit like a hoover to suck all the sound from the world.
Or maybe her eardrums had popped and perforated. Given the notable lack of pain, she doubted it was the latter. Aliens also seemed unlikely but hey, who could rule out such occurrences these days?
Abbie's hands started to throb. Her knees were hurting as well, but her hands had taken greater punishment during her fall.
Those aliens, high above the Earth, having had their fun, hit the reverse switch on their sound hoover. It returned in a rush—the wind through the trees, the birds in the sky, Abbie's own laboured breathing.
And there was shouting from up near the school—though Abbie couldn't yet hear anyone sprinting across the field—and the sound of cars and conversation from somewhere else nearby.
Abbie was still on her front. A shake of the head started to return sense to her mind. It seemed the sprint followed by the fall had worked together to daze Abbie, to remove that urgent sense of self-preservation. She couldn't afford to lie here unmoving with armed police so close at hand.
Rolling onto her back, Abbie assessed her palms. They were cut and dirty. Blood stained her fingers and ran down her wrists.
Moving back to her front, Abbie rose to her knees, though it hurt to do so on this surface. After wiping her hands on her jeans to remove both blood and dirt, she rose to her feet. One of her guns had fallen into the bushes at her side. Without her jacket, Abbie had no place to adequately hide either weapon, but neither could she leave them here, so close to the school. It wouldn't take the police long to find them, and both weapons were covered in her prints. Abbie didn't want to leave the cops with any more evidence than they already had.
Scooping the second gun from the bush, she placed both in her waistband and covered them with her top. They were awkward but invisible unless you were staring at her midriff. In Abbie's experience, most people ignored her as she walked by. Those who stared focused mainly on her behind or her chest. The guns were too low for people in the latter group, on the wrong side for those who fell into the former.
Abbie chanced a look through the trees, back towards the school. There were the armed police. Some leaning by Gary and Kilman, both of whom had played both enemy and ally to Abbie today. She couldn't tell if either was alive or dead.
More men or women, black-clad in heavy armour, carrying sleek but deadly-effective weaponry, were moving around the back of the L-Block. Someone looked across the field.
Soon they would come.
Abbie left the gap in the trees. The path ahead was narrow, cloaked by leaves and branches, but not long. Abbie was a fifteen-second walk from daylight and concrete.
There was still no time to waste. Abbie made her way to where nature clashed with the ugly creation of humanity. Across the road was a corner shop and, beyond that, a run of houses. To Abbie's right was a playground and, further in that direction, a junction where one could turn onto the road Gary, Abbie, and later Kilman and the armed response teams had all used to reach the school.
The armed response units had swarmed the school's main entrance. This back path was either missed or ignored.
Whatever the case, Abbie's pursuers had made a mistake.
Abbie stepped from between the trees onto the pavement beside the playground.
The weak March sun did little to warm Abbie but did highlight the shining cop car, crawling at a sloth's pace in Abbie's direction.
They were on the opposite side of the road. Through the windscreen, Abbie spied peeled eyes, scanning the pavement, searching for someone.
Her?
Maybe. Possibly. Almost certainly.
One of the cops looked her way. Had they seen her?
Abbie didn't wait to find out. Turning left, she strolled casually from the playground towards the T-Junction ahead.
Not far behind, the crawling police car slowed even further. It pulled onto the curb and then right onto the pavement and then stopped. Someone shouted—Can't you cops drive? or something similar. Then car doors opened, the officers stepped out.
Abbie reached the T-Junction and paused. She had ideas about where she wanted to go next, but going there immediately wasn't an option. At least not on foot. First, she needed to escape police attention. Find somewhere to hide. Any minute now, the armed units would realise Abbie had left the school grounds. Teams from every nearby station would mobilise. The manhunt would begin.
Well, womanhunt.
And if Kilman died...
The police stuck together, protected each other. If you hurt one, you hurt them all. This was a community already rocked by a police officer's murder. Presented with a second dead detective, and this time with the killer supposedly known, how far would they go to catch Abbie? What corners might they cut, what laws might they bend, if not break, to achieve their justice?
If they caught Abbie in a dark alley, would they bring her in or kill her in self-defence... whether she dropped her gun and raised her hands or not?
Maybe Smoker and Orion never planned to kill Abbie. Perhaps this appealed to their twisted natures more than did simple, speedy murder.
Abbie felt outwitted, and there were few feelings worse than that.
She had to get away. Regroup. Plan again.
The uniformed officers who had abandoned their car on the pavement crossed the road towards the playground. Abbie had to decide what she was going to do, and now.
More cars had been rolling past as she made her way to the T-Junction. As she prepared to take a left turn, she saw another slow-moving vehicle. At the junction, it stopped. Abbie glanced towards the front windscreen, but the weak sun's reflection prevented her from seeing who might be inside.
The uniformed officers sped up a little. They hadn't called Abbie yet, which indicated they weren't sure she was the woman they wanted. If she tried to run, they'd give chase. If she took the left turn and carried on walking, they'd soon catch her anyway.
The slow-moving car turned at the junction and stopped in front of Abbie.
Perhaps sensing what was about to happen, the officers sped up again. One of them spoke. Abbie didn't just pretend not to hear them. She forced herself not to. Like a method actor.
With no idea who was in the car at the curb, she leaned forward, opened the door, and jumped into the front seat. Inside might be a murderer with a machete. He might chop her to pieces, but at least she wouldn't suffer the indignity of a couple of uniformed officers cuffing her and dragging her back to their car. Again.
As Abbie dropped into the front passenger seat, one of the cops started to yell, trying to grab her attention. The slamming door cut the word (Wait) in half.
At once, the car was moving, picking up speed but not in a suspicious manner. It was as though Abbie had walked to the junction knowing someone was due to pick her up. The someone had stopped the car, had collected Abbie, and was now picking up speed to match the traffic.
Maybe the police were already turning and rushing back to their car. Perhaps they were on their radios, reporting who they might have seen to their superiors. They would definitely have noted down the car’s numberplate.
As soon as the armed response teams learned Abbie was no longer at the school, they'd release the dogs, both literally and metaphorically.
Taking a deep breath as the car turned right at the first opportunity, Abbie turned to the driver.
"I think I'm going to need some good legal advice."
At the wheel, taking another turn, searching for a road with a higher speed limit, Ana smiled.
"You know what?" she said. "I can recommend just the person."
Twenty-Two
Abbie picked the lock, and she and Ana entered through the back door.
“Not to be a Debbie Downer, but this feels like a crap idea.”
Because they'd already had this conversation in the car, Abbie ignored Ana. They had entered a neat, sleek kitchen ce
ntred around an island. It was a modest size, neither cramped nor cavernous. Perfect for a small family.
Abbie went straight for the sink. Her clothes were stained with blood and dirt, nothing Abbie could do about that right now. Her hands and wrists were cut and marked. At the sink, Abbie used soap and hot water to clean her wounds and remove from her skin all traces of her fall. This done, she used the nearest tea towel to dry her hands and arms, and turned to Ana.
"I need coffee," said Abbie. "You want?"
Need was not a strong enough word in his context. Abbie was coming down off her adrenaline high and felt as though she might collapse. Her heart was still racing, her mind bouncing.
Mostly, she was angry. Angry she had again failed to deal with Smoker, angry she had been too distracted by Ben to more carefully scrutinise Gary, angry Orion had ably arranged for her to be framed for killing a police detective.
No doubt they'd have her up on charges for killing Hammond, too.
There was a ceramic jar filled with instant coffee on one of the surfaces. Ana hadn't answered, so Abbie looked to the young woman as she filled the kettle.
"As your lawyer, I should advise you not to get your prints on everything."
Abbie glanced at the kettle's handle. Shrugged. She understood why Ana was nervous, them being here, but it made sense. The police would expect Abbie to flee town. They would expect her to hide if she stayed, but this was one of the last places they would look.
Abbie filled the kettle with enough water for two and set it to boil. After a couple of tries, she found a cupboard filled to bursting with mugs. Avoiding the one that said "World's Best Mum," she collected two and held them up for Ana to see.
"Last chance."
Ana closed her eyes. Sighed. "Fine."
Smiling, Abbie placed the mugs on the side and closed the cupboard. As the kettle boiled, she turned to face her lawyer turned presumed accessory to murder.
"You’ve changed in the last month," said Abbie. “Can’t imagine the same Ariana who was prepared to destroy a teenage boy for revenge against his father would worry about touching a kettle."