The Blood In the Beginning (14 page)

The environment came at me, throwing up obstacles like only a demolition site can. I took a hard left and leapt up a brick wall, teetering for a moment on top. From there it was a fifteen-foot hurdle to a stairway. Too far … couldn't make it. So I jumped, hit the ground and tore across the broken glass and cement, up the stairs to the second storey of a gutted building. I could make better speed up here, stay hidden, then drop down on the station. I raced to the other side of the skeletal building. The light from the street behind came slanting through empty window frames. If I had my bearings right, the police station was straight ahead, a block away, two storeys down. As I took off, I caught a scent and made to veer the other way. Too late. Someone leapt from above and arms wrapped around my knees. The ground came up; I slapped it hard.

Dust rushed into my lungs and I coughed while trying to scramble away.

‘You're a slippery fish, Ava Sykes.' His voice was rough, sure of himself. His breath came in and out in gasps, his grip holding tight to my legs.

I freaked as he went for my waistband. Psycho-stalker-perv tugged at my pants, grunting. His lusty thoughts shot straight to my head. I jerked one leg free and shot it like a pile driver into his face. While he cursed, I scrambled to my feet and tore across the warehouse to a broken window. The glass was shattered, sharp angles jutting out like front teeth. I barely looked before I jumped, bending my knees on impact. I rolled to my feet and sprinted away. Unfortunately, it took me a while to realise I'd gotten turned around. The police station was behind me now, receding further with each stride. I vaulted over a series of slabs, all impaled with spikes of rebar. I could hear my assailant right behind me.

The next set of stairs was an old fire escape missing more than a few rungs. I gained the third storey where the wall was blasted to bits. The climb to the roof was out of reach so I dove over rubble into another gutted-out level. Halfway to the other side, I heard the click of a gun.

‘Stop right there, Sykes.' The laughter that followed came in gasps. Glass crunched as he kept walking toward me.

I feinted left, then rolled over a shoulder-high divider and immediately tried to slow my breathing.

‘I have a present for you.'

My nostrils flared, taking in the scents. Fear mixed with concrete, mildew and oil. I had to take this guy down, but I had to remove the gun from the equation first. I waited until his footsteps were parallel with me and leapt. I flew over the top of the wall and smacked straight into him, clashing heads and entangling limbs. He broke free and swung hard, trying to cold-cock me with his weapon. I blocked with a head-high kick. The gun spun into the air, its alloy surface giving off bright pulses of reflected streetlight.

I had plenty of momentum from the kick. I let it spin me toward the flying weapon. My eyes caught its last flash before it clattered to the ground. Three steps and a superman dive and it was mine. My fingers closed around the trigger just as the stalker grabbed my ankle. Face down, gun clutched to my chest, I kicked like a branded horse. Not enough. He jerked my body toward him. More thoughts of his lust and cravings bombarded my mind as he flipped me onto my back. I could see his other victims screaming underneath him, looking up into that creepy, painted face. Without hesitation, I tilted the barrel up and fired.

The sound hammered my already shattered ears, the kickback slamming my shoulder blades into the ground. As the gunshot echoed through the empty building he fell, face first, on my chest.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. There was nothing but roaring in my head. I pushed him off and crab-crawled backward, getting away as fast as I could. He looked dead.
No!
The air was thick and tainted metallic.
Blood. A lot of it.
I started coughing like I was going to spew. Unable to let go of the gun, I checked behind me, in case he wasn't alone. When I looked back, I screamed. The freak show was struggling to his feet!

‘Ava!' His voice gurgled. ‘You forgot this.' He held up a different coloured ribbon. Apparently he had quite a stash.

I couldn't tear my eyes away. Couldn't move. He was coming after me. Had I only clipped his shoulder? Bulletproof vest? Then why all the blood? My chest was wet with it. He lunged. I pulled the trigger. Automatic response. He went down, more blood seeping, thick and black across the ground. When he didn't move, I doubled over and threw up.

I wiped my mouth and, hands shaking, went to check for a pulse. I had tears in my eyes. Emotions welling. He had no pulse. Blood everywhere. I wanted to take him down, yeah. Apprehend his ass, not murder him. I started CPR. In the distance, sirens fired up.
This can't be happening.
I kept pumping his chest until the blue lights were whirling under us, cops' voices shouting on the street below. Still no pulse. The guy was dead. I rocked back on my heels.
Dead because I killed him.

I sat next to him, me and my would-be killer together in some gutted hell dimension where my dreams were being sucked into a black hole. In my mind, I watched this man's life draining away, along with my cover, my goals of doing good, and any hope I ever had of saving the world. Saving myself. Tears flowed freely, running down my face, soaking my tee-shirt, mixing with his blood. I wanted to drown in them. I wanted to die. I staggered to the window and yelled for the cops to call an ambulance. I guess the sobbing kept me from hearing any noise behind me. When I turned back to my victim, he was gone.
Not at all possible.

I was over there in a flash, pulling out my phone and using it as a flashlight. A bucket's worth of blood pooled on the dusty concrete floor. Wet boot-prints led to the opposite row of broken windows. I raced after them, leaning over the edge, scoping the alley below. For an instant, I caught a glimpse of him, jogging away.
Jogging! What. The. Freak
? I leapt over the edge and followed, tucking the gun into my waistband and tapping my phone. ‘Call Rourke!' I panted.

‘Ava.' He picked up. ‘What the hell happened on the bus?'

‘Your copycat shot the driver.'

‘Yeah, they're pulling him out of the wreckage.' The phone made static sounds. ‘Where are you?'

‘Charles E, heading north, tracking him.'

‘Are you hurt?'

‘Banged up a bit, but I'll live.'

‘Eyes on him?'

‘Not any more.'

‘I've tapped your GPS. Sending two cars after him.'

‘He can't be far. He's on foot, wounded.'

‘Stay there. I'll pick you up.' With the sound of the cops behind me, I switched my phone to beacon and stopped running. Rourke picked me up five minutes later. By then, I was near catatonic.

‘Ava!' He turned off the car and tore around to help me into the passenger side, checking me over, shining his damn bright light into my eyes.

‘Did they catch him?' It was all I cared about.

‘Nothing yet.' He handed me his water bottle and checked my head wound.

I batted his hand away. ‘We need to stop this guy.'

Rourke got into the driver's seat. ‘We're doing a house-to-house.' He shook his head. ‘That's not your blood?'

‘No. I shot him.'

Rourke looked grim. ‘You were carrying on campus?'

‘Used his gun.' I pulled out the 9 mm.

‘Hang on.' Rourke grabbed the gun with an inside-out evidence bag, inverted it and sealed it shut. ‘This the same gun that killed the bus driver?'

Our eyes met. ‘Yeah. I guess my prints are all over it.'

‘Maybe his too, and DNA.'

‘He also left me this.' I pulled the ribbon from my pocket.

Rourke snapped on a plastic glove and took the ribbon, studying it closely before dropping it into another evidence bag. ‘You shot him and missed?'

‘No. I thought he was dead. No pulse.' I leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes and told Rourke what had gone down. In the back of my mind, hope flared. We had DNA from his blood, and maybe prints. I didn't get a much better look at that painted face though. It was dark, and I was distracted with all the shooting and attacking and dying. ‘Why didn't my tail grab him?'

‘Trapped in traffic. By the time they reached the bus, you were gone. They didn't know the perp was involved.' Rourke shook his head. ‘Flanagan's over there chewing everyone a new one.'

‘Flanagan. Is he …?'

‘You don't want to know.'

‘Bad cop?'

‘Only if he doesn't like you.' Rourke laughed. It didn't sound funny. ‘Can you work with a sketch artist now?'

‘Definitely worth a shot.' I wiped sweat from my forehead and we drove off. This was so not how I wanted my evening to go.

Rourke drove me to Tom's, his gun out as he led the way to the elevator. When we reached the apartment door, he called out, ‘LAPD! Open up.' He searched the apartment, leading with his gun as he checked each room. Tom and a blonde girl watched wide-eyed from the couch. Rourke came back from Tom's bedroom.

‘The place is clear. Stay put, Ava. I'll come back to take your statement.' He looked at Tom. ‘Lock the door after me.'

I was left standing in the middle of the apartment, under the sharp scrutiny of the two blonds. Tom went to throw the bolt and said something softly, but I wasn't focussed on him. My eyes went to the girl … and that wasn't a cute, or possibly demeaning, label for an otherwise adult female. She was petite, blonde and big-eyed, and seriously didn't look more than sixteen. I turned to Tom, his expression becoming more freaked-out by the second.
Oh, yeah. I'm covered in blood and Rourke just did a Gestapo sweep of his apartment.
Explanation time. ‘There was an accident. Nothing big.'

The girl leaned back, hands covering her mouth. She wore sparkly nail polish. It matched the lace around the hem of her cutoff jeans. Defeated the purpose of ‘cutoffs' I thought, but whatever.

‘Are you hurt?' the girl and Tom asked at the same time.

I threw out my hand in a ‘stop' gesture and they both shut up. Tom was in the know, but not his girlfriend. The less she found out, the better. ‘Not a scratch.'

‘But the blood,' she said.

‘This?' I held my shirt away from my abs. ‘It's not mine. I was helping out in the lab.' It was a worry how easily I could lie.

Tom frowned; she remained wide-eyed.

‘A sample case for the hematology exams exploded.'

His brow pinched. ‘Exploded?'

‘Yeah. Bang. They think it was a prank. That's why the cops are here. We have some serious diseases culturing on campus. They want to come down hard on whoever did this.' I could tell Tom wasn't buying, but maybe the girl would. ‘Good news is, no pathogens.'

‘Thank god!' the girl said, swallowing my story.

‘And Rourke is taking your statement?' Tom had crossed his arms.

‘Just ruling out a connection to the other night, is all.' I went to the kitchen and poured a giant glass of water, added a pinch of salt and downed it while Tom introduced me to Zoe. I saluted her with my glass, put it in the sink, bloody fingerprints and all, and then headed for the bathroom. It wasn't until I saw myself in the mirror that I realised they'd handled it pretty well. The right side of my head was caked with dried blood. Maybe I should have said a box of lab rats exploded on me. Too late now. As I peeled out of my soaked top, there was a knock on the door.
Tom.

‘Ava? You okay.'

‘Perfectly.'

‘Can I do anything?'

‘Depends. Did you leave me any salmon?'

‘Maybe,' he chuckled and walked away.

I finished stripping and waited for the water to heat.

The shower felt good. It washed away the fear that had been clinging to me ever since I had a gun pointed at my head, all the way up to when I pulled the trigger. I came out drying my hair with an olive-green towel. I knew it was olive-green, not tomato-red, because Tom was still in the habit of letting me in on those details. A quick check told me Zoe had gone home. Tom was putting salmon on a plate along with baked potato and salad. Good man.

‘So whose blood was it?' he asked.

‘My stalker's.'

‘Is he hospitalised or …'

‘He got away.'

‘Same guy?'

‘Yeah. Think so.'

‘They have his DNA now?'

‘It was all over the floor. Prints too, if I didn't smear them.' I sat on the couch and Tom joined me, a cold beer in his hand.

‘I know you lied for Zoe's sake.'

‘Did it work?'

‘She's …'

‘Young?'

‘I was going to say, she's an art major. Not science. Your “exploding test tubes” sounded believable to her.'

‘Art major, eh? In high school?' I took a big bite of the salmon, closed my eyes and moaned. Simple things seemed so damn good right now.

‘She graduated last year, and she's really talented, really …'

‘Good?' I said around another mouthful.

He reached for my arm. ‘Ava, stop. Tell me how this happened.'

I gave him the story between mouthfuls and waited for his response.

‘We going to see the bus on the nine o'clock news?'

‘Pretty sure.'

His hands were on my shoulders. ‘Look at me. I don't want you taking public transportation from now on. I'll drive you to work, for your shifts. Pick you up. It's always after class hours, right? Don't say no.'

I thought about it for two seconds. ‘Great. Thanks. My next shift is Friday night.'

We talked a bit more about how a gunshot wound patient could present with no pulse, and then moments later jog away. Tom actually referenced a few herbs that voodoo practitioners used to create zombies; not the brain-eating kind, but the no-pulse-for-days kind.

‘I don't think that was it,' I said as a knock sounded at the door. ‘He was too agile.'

Rourke came in with the sketch artist and took my statement. Tom stayed quiet, doing the dishes, though he came out when the artist was done, to have a look. My ex was listening to every word, picking up on the finer details I'd not mentioned.